I need help in finding some new books. My tastes are somewhat ecclectic. My favorite subject areas are history, and human behavior, but I’ll read anything that’s interesting.
Not too long ago in a recommendation thread, someone suggested *The Lawn: A Histiory of Man’s Obsession. * I love books like these, which show the histories behind everday items that you often don’t think about.
I’ve just finished Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping. I really enjoyed it. It’s a fascinating study of the behavior of shoppers, their traffic patterns, and the secrets behind making customers take notice of signs or items.
For a gutsy human story I’m going to recommend Touching the Void by Joe Simpson. How to break your leg in the Peruvian Andes, get left for dead and live to write about it (after three days crawling down a glacier.) And right at the end of the book, just when you are thinking that nothing could possibly be worse, he manages to slam a barb in your conscience in a vivid contrast between himself and one of the locals.
Another one – a Classic – South by Earnest Shackleton. The ill-fated voyage of the Discovery in Antarctica. Tough guys those. Fantastic story of leadership and courage, and not one died. It reads in a self-effacing almost apologetic style. But extreme…
You might guess that I like ice. Anyway, these are two of the best.
I’ll second the Longitude recommendation. Also written by Dava Sobel (author of Galileo’s Daughter), it’s the story of John Harrison’s effort to build a clock that could keep precise time at sea. Why? Because he had decided that such a clock was the answer to accurately measuring longitude.
I’m partial to collections of Stephen Jay Gould’s essays.
Some of the better non-fiction books I’ve read in the past couple years are The Man Who Loved Only Numbers, by Paul Hoffman; The Nothing That Is: A Natural History of Zero, by Robert Kaplan; and The Book of Nothing, by John D. Barrow.
Can I recommend a book I have’t read yet? I just read an article about “The Encylopedia of Stupidity”, by Matthijs Van Boxel. Apparently bookstores are uncertain whether to file it under sociology, philosophy or reference, which seems a good sign right there. By the sound of it, it’s right up your alley.
And I third “Guns, Germs and Steel” everyone on the planet should read it.
This is funny…I think I take most of my recommendations from you! Anyway, I just finished I Want That! How we all became shoppers by Thomas Hine. Next up: Where the Germs Are: A scientific safari by Nicholas Bakalar. Looks good. I also enjoyed the dust book that AudreyK recommended.
Any book by Oliver Sacks… The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat : And Other Clinical Tales An Anthropologist on Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood Awakenings
I’ll go for * Into Thin Air* by Krakauer as well, although I don’t think it has quite the tension of Touching the void
On quite a different note, last night I finished reading The Devil’s Cup by Stewart Lee Allen. It’s a history of coffee and poses a toungue in cheek hypothesis crediting the bean with promoting sociological advancement.
If you like the history behind every day items, I strongly suggest Salt by Michael Kurlansky. The history of salt. It’s very good. People rolled their eyes when I told them what I was reading, but it was not boring, or unusual. I checked with Amazon to find the author’s name, and the recommended similar books about tobacco and coal. Also, Kurlansky wrote a book on the history of cod that won awards.