I find myself reading more and more nonfiction lately. This is a little puzzling to me, as just five years ago, my recreational reading was made up strictly of fiction.
I’m looking for some recommendations. I’m particularly interested in history and sociology, but I’m game for anything. I’m not looking to become an expert on any one subject, but am perfectly happy to read about the Black Death one week and Zoroastrians the next.
Some nonfiction I’ve read recently and enjoyed:
The Great Mortality, John Kelly
Spook, Mary Roach
Salt: A World History, Mark Kurlansky
The World Without Us, Alan Weisman
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Oliver Sacks
The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan
The Professor and the Madman, Simon Winchester
Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea, Charles Seife
The Boy’s Crusade, Paul Fussell
Rocket Boys by Homer Hickam. A memoir about a group of young men building rockets in a small coal mining town. The book has every thing: coming of age, science, romance, labor disputes, small town politics. One of the best books I have read.
The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan. National Book Award nonfiction winner for 2006. It’s about the Dust Bowl, its causes and the aftermath, and it’s a great read. I’m tempted to buy another copy – my daughter loaned mine to a teacher and the teacher lost it!!
I would also check out Stiff, also by Mary Roach, and, if you have the stomach for it, Aftermath, Inc., which is about the crime-scene cleanup company with the same name.
I swear I’m not as morbid as these choices imply. I just like reading about medicine, science, and psychology.
Check out his Botany of Desire, about the coevolution of four plants (apples, tulips, potatoes, marijuana) with the humans who have cultivated them to fulfill different needs (sweetness, beauty, control, intoxication).
I second that recommendation. Another book by Timothy Egan that I liked was Breaking Blue, about the murder of a cop during the 1930s and a modern sheriff’s obsession with solving the case.
AudreyK, I’ve read Stiff too and really liked it. More than Spook, actually. I tend to like the morbid stuff as well. You might like A Cabinet of Medical Curiosities, by Jan Bondeson.
Thanks for all the recommendations, everyone! Keep 'em coming!
Lynne Olsen’s “Troublesome Young Men”, about the anti-appeasement Tories before World War II who defied Chamberlain and tried to get Britain ready for war.
And, for some business books.
Kurt Eichenwald’s “The Informant”, about a whistle-blower who lets the FBI know about price fixing by Arthur Daniels Midland, and the FBI, who have to make their case against ADM and at the same time deal with the unstable whistle-blower.
Eichenwald’s “Conspiracy of Fools” and Bethany MacLean’s and Peter Elkend’s “The Smartest Guys in the Room”. Two very different looks at the financial scandal that brought down Enron.
James Stewart’s “Disneywar”, his look at Disney during the Eisner years and “Den of Thieves”, his look at Michael Milken and Ivan Boesky.
Brian Burrough and John Helyer’s “Barbarians at the Gate”, Ross Johnson’s attempt to conduct a leveraged buyout of RJR Nabisco.
See if you can scare up a copy of Robert Lindsey’s A Gathering of Saints. Sort of a true crime police procedural. One of my favorite books for going on 20 years.
Let’s see what else we’ve got handy on the bookshelf here that I can recommend:
The Great Influenza by John M. Barry (the 1918 flu pandemic) Newjack by Ted Conover (one year as a prison guard at Sing Sing) Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder (an American doctor trying to cure disease in Haiti and other places) Confederates in the Attic by Tony Horwitz (the modern South and its continuing obsession with the Civil War) Random Family by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc (“Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age In The Bronx”) The Circus Fire by Stewart O’Nan (story of the deadly big top fire of 1944) Breaking Clean by Judy Blunt (memoir of growing up in rural Montana and leaving)
Anything by Studs Terkel - esp. Working and Will the Circle be Unbroken
Miracle in the Andes - Written by one of the survivors who climbed out of the mountains after the “cannibal” plane crash
Outrage - Vincent Bugliosi’s excellent legal analysis of the OJ Trial
Live from New York - The history of SNL
Masters of Doom - Biography of John Carmak and John Romero of id software
Loved all of these…
The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson is about two men in Chicago during the 1893 World’s Columbia Fair. One is Daniel H. Burnham who was one of the principle designers of the fair and the other is Dr. H.H. Holmes who was a serial killer who probably killed about 27 people (though some exaggerated numbers say 200+).
It’s very interesting to read about the Gilded Age and people who live what we think of as modern lives. Telephones, skyscrapers, and the urban serial killer. The Devil in the White City is a good read.
These are actually collections of essays. Everything these guys have written is OK, but in my humble opinion, these aren’t just their best, they fulfill the notion that “Truth is stranger than fiction”. In the best way. Video Night in Katmandu, by Pico Ayer. A Wolverine Is Eating My Leg, by Tim Cahill.
These are essentially travelogues. Speaking of which, The Peoples’ Guide to Mexico, by Carl Franz & Associated Lunatics, is downright educational.
Uncommon Carriers, by John McPhee. He can make anything interesting. This is a collection of long articles about transportation, trains, trucks, boats. I think you would enjoy this even if you think you have no interest in the subject matter.
Young Men and Fire, by Norman Maclean. This book about the Mann Gulch forest fire of 1949 made me wish that Maclean had written more books. His only other is A river Runs Through It.
Beautiful Swimmers, by William Warner. The subtitle is “Crabs, Waterman and the Chesapeake Bay.” Warner writes beautifully about an amazing body of water and the people who make their living from it. This one won a Pulitzer.
Oh, I forgot to mention all of Chuck Klosterman’s books:[ul][li]Fargo Rock City[/li][li]Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs[/li][li]Killing Yourself to Live[/li]Chuck Klosterman IV[/ul]
I just like reading about medicine, science, and psychology.