Here are some places you can go for lists of recent nonfiction:

New York Times Bestselling NF (Hardcover)

New York Times Bestselling NF (Paperback)

Kirkus Reviews’ Best NF of 2011 List

Salon.com’s Best NF of 2011 List

Wall Street Journal’s Best NF of 2011

Once you have a book chosen, you might try searching for your author on CSPAN’s BookTV site, which has a lot of interviews with nonfiction authors.