I don't read nearly as many non-fiction books as I'd like because many otherwise-interesting books seem to be written in a journalistic style, often with little notes such as what the author was eating for lunch when they interviewed someone; have no meaningful in-text explanation or citations; and often have obvious bias...
So I wonder if anyone could turn me onto non-fiction books which you read were really impressed with the quality. These would be books which you could, in other words, suggest to someone without adding any kind of caveat. Or, scholarly-quality books geared towards the general reader.
Some from me:
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societiesEconomics in One LessonThe Nazi war on cancerCivilizations : culture, ambition, and the transformation of natureHow the mind works by
Steven PinkerMessage edited by its author, Mar 13, 2007, 7:42pm.
I know exactly what you mean. I think it stems from attempts by non-fiction writers to write "novelistically". They don't realize that a work of non-fiction can be a compelling read
and well-researched and documented.
One excellent book that I've read recently is
John Julius Norwich's
A History of Venice, in which he tells the story of 1,000 years of Venetian history in 600+ detailed, yet fascinating, pages.
I'm reading
The Worst Hard Time by
Timothy Egan - about the "great American Dust Bowl." Very informal style, story-like quality, soooo interesting. You really get to know the people and feel what it might have been like to be surrounded by dust 24/7. Pretty amazing book.
I'm a big fan of Schama's, but I do think he can get a bit "novelistic" at times ... a couple of other recommendations:
The Dark Continent by
Mark Mazower, which is a history of Europe during the 20th century.
Journey to the ants by
Bert Holldobler and
Edward O. Wilson ... yes, this is really about ants, but fascinating.
This message has been deleted by its author.
The Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinction by David Quammen
Hes a science journalist by self-description, but no bones about it that book was a fantastic book and an exquisite piece of natural history blended together with the history of science and Evolutionary biology. I can't sing this book's praises enough.
Message edited by its author, Mar 16, 2007, 8:59am.
1491 : new revelations of the Americas before Columbus by Charles Mann
Right on the money NativeRoses.
For anyone interested in this title, here is a link to the Atlantic Monthly article Charles Mann wrote before he wrote a book around the premise. Its pretty much what the book is about but in much less detail.
http://www.cogweb.ucla.edu/Chumash/Popul...I think that this phenomena stems from non-experts in field (i.e. journalists) trying to write what is essentially a book length article on some emerging field or trend in a highly specialized field and they don't have any expertise beyond that of an interested and educated layman. They can't competently explain what is going on, so they resort to extensive quotations and reportage, usually from "a new breed of______ "(fill in any speciality in science, history, etc.). Are authors like dogs or cats, genetically consigned to a certain point of view?
OK. End of rant now I have to list some books.
Of course
Jared Diamond Guns Germs and Steel which I am currently reading deserves to head the list. Another interesting work is
Janna Levin's A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines.
Now I've become the sorcerer's apprentice. My last reference seems to brought up 250 possibilities. I'll try to sort this out and then sign off for now.
PS Yes,
Simon Winchester's A Crack in the Edge of the World is a great read.
Message edited by its author, Mar 31, 2007, 8:47am.
I found
On Combat by
Dave Grossman to be an excellent read. It's about the psychology of killing in combat and how it may be affecting us everyday in the US.
>16:surly- Norwich's Byzantine trilogy
Quite agree - good informative and readable early history.
Long shadows, truth, lies & historyby Erna Paris. This book is not only about history, but what becomes history. An intriguing read.
Message edited by its author, May 14, 2007, 1:41pm.
I read
a lot of non-fiction. In fact, I seem to have the reverse of your problem: I don't read nearly as much literature as I would like to.
I've split my list in two. I don't know what areas or eras interest you, so my recommendations are, as a result, a pared-down version of the kitchen sink. In terms of history -- as opposed to, say, biography -- , my recommendations would include:
1776 by
David McCullough, as an overview of that year, or
Washington's Crossing by
David Hackett Fischer.
America's Women, by
Gail Collins is a good book read, even if the history it covers is a little, well, broad. For a much,
much narrower segment of American history, try
The Devil in the Shape of a Woman by
Carol Karlsen. Or, for similar "coverage" to Collins's book, but in a different place and era, I'd recommend
Marriage and the Family in the Middle Ages, by
Frances Gies and
Joseph Gies.
Triangle, by
David von Drehle, is a good account of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire.
Fair warning reminder of common sense: This is
not good material for lunch-break or bedtime reading. Remember, this book is about a fire that killed nearly 150, and which occurred well after the development of photography.
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Part 2: biography. Gotta suggest:
Jane Dunn's
Elizabeth and Mary is a good comparative biography of Elizabeth I and her cousin Mary Queen of Scots.
John Guy has written a good biography of the latter subject:
Queen of Scots.
Antonia Fraser has written some excellent biographies. Two I've read are
Marie Antoinette and
The Wives of Henry VIII.
Joan of Arc: Her Story by
Regine Pernoud and Mari-Veronique Clin (who has no touchstone) is a good biography. An appendix sorts out some of the people whose names show up frequently in the text; other appendices describe things such as the many film/operatic/etc. works based on her life and some of the myths that have sprung up about her.
I'd also recommend
Failure Is Impossible. Technically, it's written by
Lynn Sherr, but she's more of an editor/annotater/additional-text-adder. That said, she does a good job of explaining the background to Susan B. Anthony's words.
Galileo's Daughter is put together in a fairly similar way, this time by
Dava Sobel. It's told (if I remember -- I read it a while ago) mostly through letters Galileo received from his elder daughter. (His letters to her haven't survived.)
Alison Weir is another author who, like
Antonia Fraser, combines good history with good writing. I'd suggest
Henry VIII: The King and His Court.
Re-posted for touchstones, which weren't showing up in edit.#16: A very good trilogy I agree. Why are they frowned on now?
#16: A very good trilogy I agree. Why are they frowned on now?
Hello. I'm new to Library Thing and hope it's alright just to plunge in like this. #1 & #2: I have the same problem with non-fiction, especially articles written for magazines. Having worked at magazines, I know it's an attempt to add a human touch to what can be a dry subject, but when it's badly done I just want to scream, "Come on, get on with it!"
I love anything written by Oliver Sacks. He is a wonderful writer and observer. His most famous work, I think, is The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat. And his
Awakenings was made into a movie. I'd also recommend anything by
Connie Bruck. At the moment I'm reading
A History of God by
Karen Armstrong and like it very much. Another wonderful writer is
Charles Rosen, the pianist. While most of his books are geared for students and scholars of classical music, his
Piano Notes is a great read for anyone with a general interest in the piano.
Re #26/27 on Norwich: it just seems to me that reviews I've read of late seem to somehow imply Lord Norwich isn't a 'real' historian as he writes vivid and interesting books accessible to the interested amateur rather than bone-dry tomes with footnotes on every third word meant only for fellow specialists. Methinks some are just jealous!
I just finished
The Blind Watchmaker by
Richard Dawkins and I'd recommend it highly, an excellent interpretation, and explanation of, Darwin's ideas - explains just why it's the only sensible explanation for life - here or anywhere.
I totally agree with the suggestion of
The Basque History of the World. Amazingly readable and so interesting, even if you are not interested in the Basques in the first place. I would also vote for
Guns, Germs and Steel;
Dinosaur in a Haystack, if you're interested in natural history (it is also quite funny);
A Peace to End All Peace is a solid history of the the impact of WW1 on the Middle East, mostly from a European and diplomatic perspective. I'm not sure where
Devil in the White City falls on the fiction/non-fiction scale, since some of it seems to be creative reconstruction, but it is a great book too.
Moonshine: A Life in Pursuit of White Liquor is a slender, funny and fascinating book following the adventures of a modern day (c. 1985) revenue agent as he tries to stamp out moonshine stills in rural North Carolina. Great book -- Wilkinson has a deft hand.
Wilkinson also did a turn as a cop in small town Cape Cod. His memoir of his less than stellar tenure on a not very busy village police force is called
Midnights: A Year With The Wellfleet Police. It's a true crime with very little actual crime. It's charming as hell.
Mr. Wilson's Cabinet Of Wonder is a book about a very odd museum run out of a storefront in L.A. It's also an interesting rumination on museums in general and our species' quest for wonder.
One last title:
Noodling For Flatheads. A guy who never quite understood the South he was transplanted to as a teen goes back and investigate several southern folkways. He's respectful, even when the topic is the joys of eating squirrel brains (seriously). Funny book, with an awesome chapter on marbles that oddly moved me.
Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age is an excellent history of how Western culture was so was so suddenly and pervasively changed by the mechanization and rationalization used to fight the First World War.
Message edited by its author, Jul 1, 2007, 8:46pm.
I'm currently reading one of
S.I. Hayakawa's old texts. They're great food for thought, and I imagine the updated editions to be even more so (my copy is a 1940s copy that my grandma used in college).
elliedoom, my book club will be reading Isaacson's book on Einstein later this year. Let me know what you think of it!
The Fatal Shore by Robert Hughes.
SO interesting that you'll forget you're reading a history book. (Founding of Australia) This is the book that got me interested in reading history books.
Just finished reading Isaacson's Einstein, which I thought provided a good combination of his scientific quest and personal life. I especially enjoyed learning about the sociopolitical entanglements he his colleagues faced as they changed the world around them.
>38
I had the opposite experience with Fatal Shore. Bought it when it first came out, because it was getting rave reviews. Have made several attempts to read it, but I keep getting bogged down less than halfway through.
I too got bogged down with
The Fatal Shore. I recall I got to just beyond the night of mayhem with the female prisoners who had just been transported. Which was not very far. I have friends in Australia and have always wanted to go there, but I'm going to have to find out about it some other way than reading this book.
The Fatal Shore IS tough. Stick it out, it's pretty horrific, but well worth it in the end; and it seems to be the only good history of 'penal' Australia that exists. This book is a great example of the 'professional' non-fiction book as opposed to the 'journalistic' one.
Many people find the 'expert' books very tough, because the intent is often very different. In
Hughes' case, he is presenting a very controversial (for Austrailians at least) subject in a very thorough manner, with a specific purpose in mind: the first comprehensive history of the settling of Australia. For this reason he has to approach the material in a very different way than a journalist might do. He has to have thorough documentation (the book has a huge bibliography) and present ALL the evidence he can find, whether it supports his case or not. This can sometimes be grueling to get through.
Personally, I read these types of books with a particular mind set: as if there is an important historical 'mystery' to be solved and if ONLY I can fit all the 'clues' into my head I can solve the thing before the author gets around to it. Or even come to my own conclusion using his data, if he presents it clearly enough. Needless to say, these books are not something you should try to read over a lazy weekend.
If history is your thing... Read anything by
Barbara Tuchman or
John Toland. Both are excellent writers, with flawless academic reps, writing about important subjects. And they've both written tons.
Science:
Stephen Jay Gould,
James Gleick,
Heinz Pagels.
The End of Science by
John Horgan is a great general review of where all the sciences were, as of about 1990 or so.
Message edited by its author, Aug 18, 2007, 11:07am.
>42 wyrdchao
I do understand what you are saying about
The Fatal Shore. But the thing is, I have only so much time available for reading, and my TBR list is a mile long. I would be willing to put forth that kind of effort for the Civil War, or the Klondike gold rush. But (apologies to Australian members) I am just not all ~that~ interested in the history of Australia.
Barbara Tuchman is indeed excellent. And I have plowed through entire Civil War trilogies by
Bruce Catton and in less time than it took me to force myself through a few chapters of The Fatal Shore.
> 43
No big deal; don't have much time for ambitious stuff like that often, myself.
A good Civil War book is
Grant by
Jean Edward Smith, who has also done some other good stuff. And is great.
>45
Best thing about
Grant was actually a new look at his presidency; too bad he's not around now. It appears that he was the victim of a biased historical record. Any takers on that subject?
Some wonderful suggestions have been given! My TBR list is longer by quite a few titles now. :)
A few brilliant non-fiction books I read recently are:
Devil in the White City by Larson
A Moveable Feast by Hemingway
Team of Rivals by Goodwin
Caesar, Life of a Colossus by Goldsworthy
A couple of others that I enjoyed were:
Stiff by Roach
Justinian's Flea by Rosen
I'm now reading one about Londons cholera outbreak in the mid-1800s. I think the title is
Ghost Map. Yes, it is, by
Steven Johnson. So far, it's more accessible than Justinian's Flea, but it is of course about two very different events (JF is about the bubonic plague of the late 500s that was instrumental in the "fall" of the Roman Empire, and GM is about cholera outbreak brought about by the abysmal sanitary conditions in London of the 1800s).
*ETA an author & to clarify something*
Message edited by its author, Oct 15, 2007, 8:41pm.
Storeetllr, i have "The Compleate Flea" in my library -- a fine little labor of love, it has an illus of the mini-crossbow used by the princess christina or was it queen? of sweden (who woke up descartes too early every morning so he caught cold and died) to hunt fleas; but one question re "Justinian's Flea" which I have not read: Did the Romans, like the later xtians kill off to many snakes and cats, thus giving the green light to the rats?
Nnii, i cannot think of any bks i would not caveat. Diamond's, which you mention, is a good overall approach but had my stepfather, a brilliant doctor fuming about details in his specialty and had me upset because he made ignorant remarks about the Japanese language and did not know a Japanese scholar who had a book arguing much the same thing he did. But I like the idea of recommending good nonfiction and think it might be good to have a line of explanation re each, for i want to know if i want to cleck on, say, The River of Doubt, or The Wind Is Howling, to mention two I see above with intriguing names. Eg.:
James Lovelock: Gaia The medium length book that originated the idea of considering the earth as a living entity from a scientific viewpoint.
Keith Thomas:
Man and the Natural World A long book full of delightful first-hand material (quotes left as is rather than ruined as is common in Usania) revealing the complex way Christians felt about nature.
Noel Perrine
Giving Up the Gun A jewel of an essay about the nation that was once the top gun of the world, all the more remarkable because it was written by a man who knew no Japanese to speak of!
Fernao Mendes
Pinto The Peregrinations of ~ A book most consider far from solid, but speaking as one who has done exhaustive research on the era and place (16c Far East and South-east Asia), where Pinto exaggerates, it is on the side of the truth.
Chadwick Hansen Witchcraft at Salem. One might caveat the ergot theory, but no one has brought to life the good people of Salem and the good (much maligned) Cotton Mathers like Hansen. This one will wet your eyes.
Cynthia Russett Sexual Science. Russett gives the most objective analysis I have read about how preconceptions about women biased science and vice-versa. She wastes no time on polemics or demonization.
Daniel Todes Darwin Without Malthus While this is a UP monograph, it is a gem of a book. We are given a tantalizing view of the incredible world of Russian science.
I mean it when i recommend these books -- i got three of the above translated into japanese and my review was on the blurb of one published by another japanese press from the one i worked for -- i have scores more to recommend, but this is enough.
Thanks, keigu.
>53,
keigu, I find the easiest way to check on books like two I mentioned that you thought sounded interesting is to first read any LT reviews and then go to Amazon.com and read the reader reviews. I have learned that it is very important, I would say more important, to read the 1 or 2 star reviews than the 5's. I can see what people didn't like and find out if that would bother me. I'm afraid I'm a little cynical too, about the rave, rave 5 star reviews--are they they author in disguise, or perhaps the author's mother??
About those two books:
River of Doubt is about Theodore Roosevelt taking on an entirely new challenge after losing his second bid for the presidency. (I may be wrong, it may be his 3rd.) He decided to explore an unexplored river in Brazil with near disasterous results. It shows the strength of character he had to push himself on to the end. Sadly, his son Kermit was not like him. Since you like caveats, this may not bother you, but the author explains a lot of what the jungle is like using the theory of evolution. I believe in intelligent design and don't think trees decide to spread out in a jungle to preserve their kind.
The Wind is Howling I borrowed from a friend's library shelf. It is an autobiography of the first part of a novelist's life, mainly the 12 years she dealt with TB, including, I believe, 4 years in a total body cast, losing one man she loved because she felt she had to set him free and losing another to TB. She starts out the book as a nihilist and ends as a Christian. The translation I read was very good and had lots of footnotes so that you could understand the cultural undertones of Japan in the 1940s. I don't know if there are more than one translation out there. (Should that be "I don't know if there
is more than one translation out there"?) I would especially recommend this book for anyone who was going to go live in Japan for a period of time. Even though it is older, I think it would help one understand cross-cultural differences which are more than language and skin deep and cause more misunderstandings that our words do often. (I know this because I have lived in South America for 24 years and find that I am still learning that I offend some people by things I do--or don't do.)
I have two favorites that have not been mentioned yet.
The Modern Mind by Peter Watson sub-titled
An Intellectual History of the 20th Century. This book has an incredible amount of information. The author covers all subjects from mathematics to art and everything in between. Watson has another volume
Ideas that is also very good.
From Dawn to Decadence by Jacques Barzun, who just turned 100, is a cultural history of the West from 1500 to present. I must confess I have not finished either volume. After three weeks of reading Watson's book I was at page 175 and wanted to start again and take notes.
I am a big fan of Barbara Tuchman. She wrote history that is very readable. My favorite volume is
The Guns of August about the beginning of WWI.
Guns, Germs and Steel is excellent. It is a book that changed the way I think about the development of humankind. The Simon Winchester volume I enjoyed the most was
Krakatoa. I learned most of what I know about plate tectonics from that book.
Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History by Stephen Jay Gould tells a fascinating story about reconstructing the truth from the fossil record. It also has pictures of some of the most amazing organisms I have ever seen.
I seem to get stuck in non-fiction, especially history. I have been making a greater effort to read literature. Last year I read
War and Peace and good literature is worth the effort. Fascinating lists from everyone.
Hey wildbill, there's no doubt that Jacques Barzun is a true hundred-year wonder. I can think of no other scholar of such broad and deep intelligence with the skill to interweave both history and the arts into the dazzling panoply that is his
From Dawn to Decadence, a book I enjoyed mightily, but have scarcely ever recommended to anyone except family members. Somewhat in the same vein as Barzun's book is Clive James' spectacular
Cultural Amnesia: Necessary Memories From History and the Arts, a book consisting of 100-plus biographical essays which James uses as related guideposts to define and explain the mental life of modern times. This is another I've rarely ever recommended, but it's still one of the most singular works I've read in the last few years.
I've been reading mostly fiction so far in 2008, but the most audaciously entertaining piece of non-fiction I've found is
Pope Brock's Charlatan: America's Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and The Age of Flimflam. The title says it all of course, but this is simply unputdownable American history, as gripping and compelling as any novel I've read this year, and recommended to the max.
WB and LB, 1) i owe something to
Barzun whose bk I was lucky enough to find in the trash after a neighbor with Altzeihmer's was institutionalized. Of course, I learned a few things from him, but most importantly, I had a book full of mentions to this or that century that was pushing right up against my printer's upper limit of 740 pgs and, thanks to Barzun's example, realized I could get away with using "20c" instead of "twentieth century" or "20th century." 2) And WB,
Wonderful Life has a fine message -- it is indeed wonderful to think about radical alternatives lost below the bloom of a great but shallower diversity of life (i think of the book whenever i lament what the overwhelming success of the guitar has done to other musical instruments that have died out and not diversified as a result), however, you might be well to look up a book by an Englishman who also worked on the Burgess Shale and feels Gould exaggerated (i live in exile from my library and have a poor memory for names or i would give it to you). And 3) anyone w/ interest in animal psychology, behavior and intelligence is advised to look at Temple Grandin's
Animals in Translation. It offers far more than her earlier work and, all in all, is the best I have read since Lorenz and I have read alot in this area.
I just went back through this old and dormant post since I recalled there were some excellent suggestions in here - I had actually starred this thread to remind myself where it was so that I could look through it for future recommendations.
Having browsed through it, I realize I've read a good number of them, which I was pleased with, and still have a few more that interested me on the TBR shelves.
But I am curious to see what has stood out in the last year or so, and also what could be added to the touchstone list of excellent and solid non-fiction books already mentioned.
I'm glad you revived this thread too since I don't think I belonged to LT back when it was active -- good suggestions here! It's not recent but anyone who is interested in or likes Passing Strange should check out
Five of Hearts by
Patricia O'Toole -- it's about Henry Adams and his friends, including the protagonist of Passing Strange ... and the fact of his secret marriage though obviously not in so much detail.
More recent good reads:
The Lost City of Z is great, even though it's written by a (gasp) journalist. I could add a rant here about the reason so many well known nonfiction books are written by journalists and lay people is because they are often more willing and able to write so that the layperson can read and understand them. (Barbara Tuchman, William Manchester, David MacCullough, et. al). But I'll leave it at that.
Also I wanted to note in response to an item mentioned much earlier that
A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines by Janna Levin is actually fiction even though it features people who actually existed and the writer really is a scientist. Who can write.
Lost City of Z looks intriguing.
1491 brought up the notion of El Dorado and the explorers. I remember thinking how plausible it would be for the Native American to set this up as a practical joke on the Europeans. 'Oh yeah, you're looking for gold? You ain't seen nothing yet! We built a whole city out of the stuff! See that tree over there - head in that direction and straight on for a couple weeks! It's just beyond those trees... just a little further... you keep going, I'll be right behind! (Heh, heh, heh, suckers!)'
#62, Keywestnan,
I thought
Lost City of Z was excellent as well and guessed that it would probably be one of my top 10 non-fiction reads of 2009 when I wrote my review. (Wouldn't it be wonderful if I was proven wrong ;)
==========
For any and all...
...I have a question. How do autobiographies fit into non-fiction? I've never really given it much thought before. Are they 'hard' non-fiction? Can they be sortov non-fiction? In this latter case I'm thinking of the autobiog of the holocaust fellow who 'embellished' his recollections.
Message edited by its author, May 7, 2009, 6:52pm.
>64
Pam, I personally don't have too many autobiographies, but I've always felt that they deserve a spot in the non-fiction section, but all lumped together. I wouldn't put an autobiography by (this is all make believe) Ronald Reagan in the U.S. History section, rather I would put it in a separate section with all of the other autobiographies - regardless of who the persons are.
But of course, that's my modus operandi, and we are all different. But the fact that so many autobiographers embellish, or switch around some things, or intentionally paint a completely different picture leads me to a separate 'autobiography' section.
Edit: As per your Holocaust survivor, I wouldn't put him in WWII history, rather in the autobiography section.
Message edited by its author, May 9, 2009, 1:16pm.
I suppose a similar question could be raised about non-fiction topics that are more theoretical, speculative, or even where cases are perhaps over stated. I'm thinking of
1421, which is labeled as 'History' on the book, but the topic of the extent of medieval Chinese exploration appears to still be controversial/ not quite fully accepted. (See
http://www.1421exposed.com/, or the PBS special
http://www.pbs.org/previews/1421/.) Personally, I felt that the evidence presented solely within the book did not fully support all of his theses, but my mind is still open considering I am not fully aware of all the available research, and think that its a fascinating idea that will hopefully spur more objective archaeological research.
On a related note, how do we categorized debunked theories, or junk non-fiction (history/science/etc.)? Through the History of Ideas?
On a non-related note, I've added
Lost City of Z to my BookMooch Wishlist!
Message edited by its author, May 9, 2009, 2:26pm.
deslni01...
I actually like that idea, particularly as they contain so much subjective material. So perhaps like there is 'soft' and 'hard' science, there can be 'soft' and 'hard' history. Autobio's and perhaps even some bio's falling in the soft category.
bfertig...
Interesting point about
1421. I think Tom Standage's
An Edible History of Humanity falls into the category as well. Interesting though it is, he makes some statements in the book which raised my eyebrows.
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