Any good random nonfiction book recommendations?

I’m looking for an entertaining nonfiction read by an author with a dry sense of humor; an odd topic is a plus. A book I loved was ‘Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife’ by Mary Roach. I have never found another nonfiction book that made me laugh like that one.

Stiff by the same author had some funny bits too.

There was a good bit of dry (har!) humor in The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Tim Egan. It won a big prize (National Book Award?) and was very readable.

There was some wit to leaven the morbidity in The Great Mortality by John Kelly, also very readable. It’s about the Black Death.

Richard Feynmann’s Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynmann is a hoot.

I’m reading *Black Mass: The unholy alliance between the Boston FBI and the Irish Mafia *and it’s a rollicking read.

I’m reading On royalty by Jeremy Paxman. He’s got some good humor in there. It’s kind of an analysis of how royalty works, I guess–some history, some discussion of human nature, religion, etc. Interesting and often rather depressing. I used to think monarchy in the UK was a pretty iniquitous system on the whole, and, well, I still do, though I don’t think he meant it that way–he looks at benefits as well as problems.

I saw the thread title and came in to recommend Stiff.

I enjoy Bill Bryson’s ‘travel’ books. “A walk in the woods” , “in a sunburned country” and “notes from a small island” were all easy reads with dry humor throughout.

There’s a book called Yes Man by Danny Wallce, about a man who came to realize that a lot of disappointment and banality was present in his life because he refused lots of opportunities to change things. With that in mind, he made himself a promise to say yes to everything that was offered to him for a year. He had some restrictions about committing crimes and such. It was a fascinating read, and filled with British humor.

She’s got another one coming out soon: Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex. Can’t go wrong with that!

Then there’s Tony Hawks (not the skateboarder) who has a penchant for dreaming up odd challenges and wagers for himself.

Round Ireland with a Fridge

Hunter S. Thompson’s Hell’s Angels is a great read and filled with HST’s peculiar brand of humor.

The Know-It-All and The Year of Living Bibically by AJ Jacobs are both fantastic and fantastically funny. The first is about his quest to read the entire Encyclopedia Brittanica cover-to-cover in one year and the second is his quest to adhere to the rules of the Bible as rigidly as possible for a year.

Both are awesome, but I think The Know-It-All is better.

Yes, yes it is. Feynmann was one of a kind.

I’ve enjoyed all three volumes of the Cartoon History of the Universe.

A personal favorite is Jessica Mitford’s 1963 expose of the funeral industry, The American Way of Death. An updated edition, The American Way of Death Revisited, was published in 2000, but I still prefer the original. If I were ever going to teach a high school class on “the way the world really works,” I would absolutely include this book because of the way it illustrates how industries pressure lawmakers to represent their interests rather than those of their constituents.

I also enjoyed the previously mentioned Hell’s Angels, by Hunter S. Thompson.

For sheer laugh-out-loud funniness, you can’t do much better than David Sedaris’ Naked, Me Talk Pretty One Day, or Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, but I don’t know if they meet your requirements as they are collections of essays and are only mostly non-fiction. (Sedaris himself admits he exaggerates at times.)

Try Heretics, by G. K. Chesterton. Despite the title it is not a religious work. It’s a series of essays about various politicians and celebrities in England from the early twentieth century. It’s not necessary to be familiar with the subjects, since Chesterton’s wit makes it clear what they were like. I found it fascinating to learn that public personalities back then behaved much the same as they do now. The link above goes to the online text, so you don’t even need to leave your computer screen.

Pissing in the snow

It’s a cultural anthropologists take on Appalachian folk tales, with analysis. The tales themselves are raunchy and humorous and the analysis is facinating.

There’s another good one on primate observation, but I can’t remember the name- excellent read. I will look it up, and return.

ETA: I’m back.

A Primate’s Memoir

He has a wry sense of humor and it is at times a poingnant story of his life observaing baboons and interacting with native culture and Jane Goodall.

Also *The Natural History of the Rich *by Richard Conniff, and The Closing of the Western Mind by Charles Freeman.

Sperm Are from Men, Eggs Are from Women: The Real Reason Men And Women Are Different by Joe Quirk. Educational and hilarious.

P. J. O’Rourke can be pretty good. I think his best book is Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government.

I thorughly enjoyed Assasination Vacation, by Sarah Vowell. She has a wry wit, liberal bent, and made a chronology of trips to all-things Garfield and McKinley very enjoyable.

I’m leaving town tomorrow, and will be driving for three hours, and intend to seek out another Vowell book on CD for the drive. I’m hoping to find Partly Cloudy Patriot at the bookstore.