Non-Fiction Recommendations, Please

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.

Another I recently finished was The History of Underclothes. A short, but interesting read.

I don’t much recommend Not In Front of the Children: “Indecency,” Censorship, and the Innocence of Youth. Unfortunately, it made an interesting topic very dry.

I’ve just started In the Devil’s Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692. So far, so good.

So, do you guys have any books you’d suggest?

The Double Helix by James Watson. It puts a human face on the march of science.

These cover history and human behavior:

Longitude
Galileo’s Daughter
The Surgeon of Crowethorn

Galileo’s Daughter I’ve already read (and enjoyed.)

I did an Amazon.com search for “The Surgeon of Crowethorn” and it turned up no results. Is it out-of-print?

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.

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond is one of the best non-fiction books I have read in years. I think it should be required reading for everyone.

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.

On Human Nature by E. O. Wilson.

I’d second Guns, Germs and Steel.

Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble Players by John Fatsis.

Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster by Jon Krakauer

In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex
by Nat Philbrick

The cruelest miles : the heroic story of dogs and men in a race against an epidemic by Gay Salisbury

The devil in the white city : murder, magic, and madness at the fair that changed America by Erik Larson

The Ice Master: The Doomed 1913 Voyage of the Karlu by Jennifer Niven

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.

Complications, by Atul Gawande
Fat Land, by Greg Critser
The Secret Life of Dust, by Hannah Holmes

Tribes on the Hill: The United States Congress - - Rituals and Realities, by J. McIver Weatherford Really Funny

Sex Crimes, by Alice Vachss All Too Real

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.

The March of Folly by Barbara Tuchman. Actually, anything by Barbara Tuchman- The Guns of August, The Zimmerman Telegram, etc.

And Stiff by Mary Roach!

I’ve read this one. I don’t recommend reading it if you have a weak stomach, but it’s fascinating.

*Guns, Germs and Steel * was also good. I’ll read anything by Diamond.

Keep 'em coming!

A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman is one of my favourite books.

On a similar note, the recent Adam’s Navel: A Natural and Cultural History of the Human Form by Michael Sims is also fascinating.

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.