Alia Hanna Habib discusses ‘Take It From Me’ on our Best January Books episode.

This special episode of Fully Booked is dedicated to January’s most anticipated titles.

In our lead editors’ segment, Laurie Muchnick, John McMurtrie, Mahnaz Dar, and Laura Simeon share their top picks in books for the month. Then, I’m joined in conversation by Alia Hanna Habib, author of Take It From Me: An Agent’s Guide to Building a Nonfiction Writing Career From Scratch (Pantheon, Jan. 20). Habib is a leading literary agent who specializes in nonfiction. She is a vice president at The Gernert Company, where she represents MacArthur Fellows, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists, National Book Award finalists, and numerous New York Times bestselling authors. She lives in Brooklyn.

Take It From Me is a spirited, rigorous, and relatable guide to publishing nonfiction in today’s marketplace. Kirkus calls it “an invaluable resource for aspiring and professional writers alike.”Here’s a bit more from our review:

“In a fascinating braid of personal guidance and practitioner interviews, leading literary agent Habib decrypts the opaque world of nonfiction book publishing. Her counsel, presented with the clear-eyed pragmatism of an industry veteran, stands out in a congested market of books on writing.…From how to place articles early in one’s career and choosing between an MFA, journalism school, or an academic route to finding an agent, landing a book deal, or wayfinding through the emotional crests and troughs of the publication process, Habib realizes her ambition of being her reader’s “friend in publishing.”…Perhaps the most generous parts of the book are the pitches and book proposal excerpts that Habib curates from her clients and friends.…For [the] novices, Habib presents the best sort of insider ball: a clear, actionable pathway to publication encased in a necessary layer of empathy and realism. Yet the more established writer, even the published author, will also find value in these pages.”

Habib explains how she envisions Take It From Me as a “soup-to-nuts” guide to publishing nonfiction and discusses the different ways readers might use the book. She shares her nontraditional path to “getting paid to think about books,” and we discuss the importance of generosity, integrity, creativity, and transparency in networking and career-building. We talk about how agents spend their days, the questions writers should ask potential agents, and much more.

BEST BOOKS OF JANUARY 2026:

This Is Where the Serpent Lives by Daniyal Mueenuddin (Knopf)

The Typewriter and the Guillotine: An American Journalist, a German Serial Killer, and Paris on the Eve of WWII by Mark Braude (Grand Central Publishing)

Basket Ball: The All-American Game by Kadir Nelson (Little, Brown)

Better the Devil by Erik J. Brown (Storytide/HarperCollins)

THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS:

That Kind of Girl by Jacey Bici

Use Your Palabras, Jovita! by Keishia Lee Louis, illus. by Diego Alejandro Escobar Triana

Midnight at Sea by Hoyt Rogers with Artemisia Vento and Frank Báez

Bone of Contention by Jan S. Gephardt

Digital Odyssey by SE Quinn

Fully Booked is produced by Cabel Adkins Audio and Megan Labrise.