# Great \*non-fiction\* books **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 1, 2000, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-non-fiction-books/31684 "2000-09-01T20:03:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2000, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-non-fiction-books/31684/21 "2000-09-02T04:13:18Z")
My all-time favorite has got to be **The Making of the Atomic Bomb** by Richard Rhodes. Fantastic at every level. The runner up is **Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty** by Morris Kline. Made me want to go back and start all over as a math-guy wannabe. Third is a biography of _Heisenberg_ called **Uncertainty** by David Cassidy. The bio of _Alan Turing_ entitled **Engima** by Andrew Hodges is also amazing. Lest you think I am in ‘science rut’, I would also rank **A Bright Shining Lie** by Neil Sheehan about John Paul Vann and Vietnam right up there too. Along with **Back to the Front** by Stephen O’Shea wherein the author recounts his thoughts as he walks along the old WWI front line, from Belgium to the Swiss border. Quite moving. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2000, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-non-fiction-books/31684/22 "2000-09-02T05:20:31Z")
Anything by Garry Wills. The following books stand out, but he’s an amazingly consistent writer: _A Necessary Evil_ _Lincoln at Gettysburg_ _John Wayne’s America_ _Nixon Agonistes_ _Reagan’s America_ _Under God_ _Confessions of a Conservative_ And there’s a lot of his stuff that I haven’t got around to reading yet. I think he’s the best writer on American politics and culture alive (heck, maybe the best, period), and although he’s hardly unknown (he’s one of _The New York Review of Books_’s main writers), he’s still underrated. Bill Bryson’s books are great too, as is Joe Queenan, although what I read them for is style more than content. Martin Gardner has published a slew of great books. Has anybody else read his novel _The Flight of Peter Fromm_? Of course, all of Cecil Adams’s books. All of Jan Harold Brunvand’s books. Danny Peary’s books on cult movies. I agree with the other people who mentioned _Lies My Teacher Taught Me_ by James W. Loewen, _The Structure of Scientific Revolutions_ by Thomas Kuhn, and _The Mismeasure of Man_ by Stephen Jay Gould. It’s been decades since I’ve read it, but I recall _The Music of the Spheres_ by Guy Murchie as being the best piece of science writing that I’ve ever read. A couple of books that appeal to me mostly because I already know the field: _The Linguistics Wars_ by Randy Allen Harris and _Western Linguistics: An Historical Introduction_ by Pieter A. M. Seuren. The first is a history of the battle between two schools of generative grammar in the '60’s and '70’s. It’s not perhaps an absolute gem of writing, but it’s the best explanation of what was going on in linguistics during that period. The second is a general history of linguistics, and it is a wonderfully well-written book. For those of you who think that Noam Chomsky is a great guy, read Harris’s discussion and, more importantly, Seuren’s discussion of what an academic dirty fighter Chomsky was. His lousy argumentation and political infighting have screwed up the field of linguistics for the past couple decades. And there’s some older writers’ stuff who I like. C. S. Lewis is great. Just to name one of his obscure books, has anybody else read _Studies in Words_? Does anybody else like G. K. Chesterton’s essays? Even when he gets his facts wrong, he makes interesting observations. I think that about two-thirds of Isaac Asimov’s essays are great too. ---
**Author:** ![Shylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@Shylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shylock)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2000, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-non-fiction-books/31684/23 "2000-09-02T05:59:12Z")
Some others not mentioned that are good/great: **Undaunted Courage** by Stephen Ambrose: The story of Meriwether Lewis (mostly concerning the Lewis and Clark trip) **After Long Silence** by Helen Fremont: fascinating story of her search for her parents’ true past, and their incredible story of survival through the Holocaust. Anything by John McPhee: I haven’t read all of them, but everything I’ve read has been great - great storyteller. **Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son’s First Year** **Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life** **Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith** All by Anne Lamott: She’s GREAT - incredibly open, honest, insightful and laugh-out-loud funny in these books about her life. I send Operating Instructions to anyone I know who’s going to have a child. ---
**Author:** ![TVeblen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/4bbf92/32.png) [@TVeblen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVeblen)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2000, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-non-fiction-books/31684/24 "2000-09-03T04:32:10Z")
Pirsig’s _Zen and the art of motocylcle maintenance_ Anything by Barbara Tuchman Sagan’s _Broca’s brain_ Bill Bryson is good, but Jonathan Raban is consistently underrated. M.F.K. Fisher; _the_ standard for food writers Plus many of those already listed…and many thanks for the tips for future good reading! Veb ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2000, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-non-fiction-books/31684/25 "2000-09-03T04:53:37Z")
“The Soul of a New Machine” by Tracy Kidder. Won the Pulitzer prize. A great insight into how engineering works. It’s a bit dated now, but still a great read. “The Gulag Archipelago” by Alexandre Solzhenitzyn. This was a must-read during the cold war, now it’s just a great book about a thankfully dead society. ---
**Author:** ![brachyrhynchos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brachyrhynchos/32/376_2.png) [@brachyrhynchos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brachyrhynchos)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2000, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-non-fiction-books/31684/26 "2000-09-03T06:27:36Z")
This is a great list. Of the ones I’ve read, I haven’t seen a stinker yet. I’ll also wholeheartedly second **dhanson’s** recommendation for _The Gulag Archipelago_. My addition: _The Coming Plague_ by Laurie Garrett, about emerging diseases. A goldmine for the footnotes alone. ---
**Author:** ![stolichnaya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bcef8e/32.png) [@stolichnaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stolichnaya)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2000, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-non-fiction-books/31684/27 "2000-09-03T23:25:20Z")
I must express my heartfelt appreciation for the enthusiasm and intellectual generosity that is so typical of this message board. Thanks to all, and I look forward to the next few months of reading! ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2000, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-non-fiction-books/31684/28 "2000-09-04T06:25:05Z")
Bill Bryson’s latest is _In a Sunburned Country_. Ditto on _A Walk in the Woods_, although it got too preachy at points. Believe me, I’m an environmentalist, and I agree with what he was saying, but he got kind of repetetive after a while, and I just wanted to read about the journey. Also ditto on _And the Band Played On_. Pretty decent movie too, but the book better, of course. Heartbreaking. I really like biographies - if you haven’t read Eve’s latest, _Anna Held and the Birth of Ziegfeld’s Broadway_, you really ought to check it out! This isn’t a subject I’m particularly interested in, but I enjoyed this book lots. Also, it was written by a Doper - how cool is that? I know zilch about science, but I adore any “astronomy for laypeople” books. My fave is probably _Pale Blue Dot_ by Carl Sagan. Also _The Whole Shebang_ by Timothy Ferris, although I suppose it is outdated by now. I must admit, I’m not sure how true most of it is, but I have to recommend Mark Twain’s _The Innocents Abroad, or, the New Pilgrim’s Progress_. Mark Twain happened to be on the world’s first pleasure cruise, as a reporter, and this is his (hysterical) account of it. Best part: the ascent of Gibraltar. And, of course, anything by Cecil. Anyone into discussing books should check out [Oh, the Humanities!](http://fff.fathom.org/cgi-bin/forumdisplay.cgi?action=topics&forum=Oh,+the+Humanities!&number=13&DaysPrune=20&LastLogin=) at Fathom. It’s very cool. ---
**Author:** ![TomH](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/90db22/32.png) [@TomH](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TomH)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2000, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-non-fiction-books/31684/29 "2000-09-04T14:02:57Z")
I agree that his books are very readable, but _Mother Tongue_ and _Made in America_ are only about 90% accurate and contain one or two howlers which could have been avoided by checking out one or two standard reference sources. A much more accurate, but equally readable and entertaining book on the development on the English language is [Language Change: Progress or Decay?](http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0521422833/o/qid=968075746/sr=2-2/026-8553048-0938026) by Jean Aitchison (CUP, 1991). ---
**Author:** ![Why\_A\_Duck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/13edae/32.png) [@Why\_A\_Duck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Why_A_Duck)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2000, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-non-fiction-books/31684/30 "2000-09-04T14:04:30Z")
Some more grist for the mill… [ul]_ **Food in History/Sex in History by Reay Tannahill** _ - A great double feature giving a decent overview of how the world’s past was shaped by these two primal needs. _ **Any Non-Fiction work by Harlan Ellison** _ - Try Harlan Ellison’s Watching, The Glass Teat, The Harlan Ellison Hornbook, or any other book of essays. The man can be a curmudgeon, but never fails to entertain. _ **The Basketball Diaries/Forced Entries by Jim Carroll** _ - Amazing the man’s still alive. _ **The Mind’s I by Hofstadter & Dennett** _ - Definitely a mind bender. _ **Parliament of Whores by P.J. O’Rourke** _ - I don’t agree with the man politically, but he makes a point. _ **The Code Book by Simon Singh** _ - You to can finally understand what PGP and RSA are all about. [/ul] ---
**Author:** ![lolagranola](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ea5d25/32.png) [@lolagranola](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lolagranola)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2000, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-non-fiction-books/31684/31 "2000-09-04T15:34:54Z")
Great topic! I read mostly non-fiction, so now I have a new reading list. > [@](#): > > The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sachs – fascinating medical histories. I’ve always wanted to read this, so I’m glad it’s recommended. I’ve almost bought it several times. Right now I’m reading **A Brief History of Time** and really enjoying it. I enjoyed **The Physics of Star Trek** and **The Biology of Star Trek**. Although it’s mainly about the science behind it, you may have to be a Trekkie to really like them. \*\*The Barmaid’s Brain: And Other Strange Tales from Science \*\* by Jay Ingram was good. I went through a several year addiction to biographies, and really enjoyed Agatha Christie’s autobiography, aptly titled **Agatha Christie:An Autobiography**. If you enjoy celeb autobiographies, I really enjoyed both of Shelley Winter’s books as well. The woman that roomed with Marilyn Monroe and got a fur coat from a young Sean Connery had some interesting stories to tell. I like reading about Tsar Nicholas II, and the book that put the rest to shame was **The Last Tsar : The Life and Death of Nicholas II** by Edvard Radzinsky. I also have a huge book called **Chronicles of the 20th Century** which is a collection of newspaper articles from 1900-1994. I have the British edition, but I believe there was an American edition as well. It gave me a brand new perspective on World War II. ---
**Author:** ![Atreyu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@Atreyu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atreyu)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2000, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-non-fiction-books/31684/32 "2000-09-04T16:34:54Z")
Others have already mentioned books that I would have listed here, namely ones by Clifford Stoll, Stephen Ambrose, Carl Sagan, and Cecil Adams. So I’ll mention a few that I didn’t notice in the earlier posts: Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the Tenth Dimension (Michio Kaku) The Discoverers (Daniel Boorstin) Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (Jared Diamond) One L (Scott Turow) Travels (Michael Crichton) —although this book does get rather weird in the second half; the first half is outstanding, and the chapter about his climb on Mt. Kilimanjaro is one that I have re-read more times than the rest of the book Into Thin Air (John Krakauer) Into the Wild (John Krakauer) Loose Balls: The Short Wild Life of the American Basketball Association (Terry Pluto) —one of the best and funniest non-fiction sports books that I’ve read; a must-read for any basketball fan Sophie’s World (Jostein Gaardner) —not purely a non-fiction book, but it isn’t purely a fiction book either; it’s a history of philosophy disguised as a very cleverly written novel ---
**Author:** ![Gilligan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Gilligan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gilligan)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2000, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-non-fiction-books/31684/33 "2000-09-04T17:02:33Z")
I’ll also say Martin Gardner, especially _The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener_, and the _aha!_ books. All of Raymond Smullyan’s philosophical works: _The Tao is Silent_, _5000 B.C._, _This Book Needs No Title_, are wonderful. I enjoyed two books that were collections of articles by Berton Roueche, _The Medical Detectives_, on how doctors track down diseases. They are a little older so the medical info is out of date, but they are interesting. Since a few people have mentioned books on language, I’ll add _Less than Words Can Say_, by Richard Mitchell. I don’t know how accurate his ideas are, but it’s interesting and non-technical. Loved _Food in History_, pcubed, and will have to check out the other sometime. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2000, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-non-fiction-books/31684/34 "2000-09-04T17:08:09Z")
Let me vote for another P.J. O’Rourke Book: _Holidays in Hell_. A rare combination of being sidesplittingly funny and chilling at the same time. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2000, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-non-fiction-books/31684/35 "2000-09-04T17:52:36Z")
I’ve greatly enjoyed many of those already listed. Here are some additions: **Jim Bouton** , _Ball Four_: all the stuff that was never supposed to leave the clubhouse. **Robert Lindsey** , _A Gathering of Saints_: the true story of the “Morman murder” bombings in Salt Lake City. **The Monks of New Skete** , _How to Be Your Dog’s Best Friend_: a wonderful guide to caring for a dog. **Christopher Reeve** , _Still Me_: the heart-wrenching story of his life before and after his accident. I had admired him before I read this book; after I read it, he became one of my heros. ---
**Author:** ![Alpine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alpine/32/17813_2.png) [@Alpine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alpine)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2000, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-non-fiction-books/31684/36 "2000-09-04T19:29:33Z")
another PJ O’Rourke: _Eat the Rich_ Got me thinking hard about capitalism. Currently reading David Quammen’s _Song of the Dodo_ Great writer, used to do great columns for _Outside_ before the mag started to seriously suck. This one’s about evolution and extinction. Anything by Tim Cahill, another I first read in _Outside_. Liked _Why People Believe Weird Things : Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time_ by skeptic Michael Shermer. Some John McPhee - _Giving Good Weight_, for one. ---
**Author:** ![Duke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e8c25b/32.png) [@Duke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2000, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-non-fiction-books/31684/37 "2000-09-04T22:42:36Z")
Yet another PJ O’Rourke book: _The Batchelor Home Companion_. Made me think: “I really need to clean up my act, because I recognise so many things in it.” A non-fiction book by a great fiction writer: James Ellroy’s _My Dark Place_. Writes with brutal honesty about the murder of his mother and its effect on him and his writing. I don’t think anyone will be interested in my usual non-fiction fare, the annual _Wisden Cricket Almanack_… ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2000, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-non-fiction-books/31684/38 "2000-09-05T00:13:13Z")
If I may… One more that I forgot to mention above. **The Painted Bird** by _Jerzy Kosinski_. Contains images that will burn in my mind forever. The autobiography of a young child alone in Eastern Europe during WWII. Not for the squeamish. But unforgettable. Caveat: There may be one element of fiction about this book - Kosinski may have plagiarized the whole thing. But that would take us into Great Debates. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2000, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-non-fiction-books/31684/39 "2000-09-05T14:19:22Z")
Thanks, Kyla, dear—saved me the embarrassment of having to plug my own books! There’s a wonderful new Oscar Wilde bio coming out in November; I also highly recommend Stanley Loomis’ 1960s French Revolution trilogy: Paris in the Terror, The Fatal Friendship, and Madame DuBarry. Best histories of that period I’ve ever read! ---
**Author:** ![stuyguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@stuyguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stuyguy)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2000, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-non-fiction-books/31684/40 "2000-09-05T16:28:34Z")
Another non-fiction book you might want to keep an eye out for (sorry, no title yet) tells the obscure story of the Great Pashtigo Fire – the most deadly fire in US (maybe world, too) history. A historian friend tells me that the book may well be the next “Perfect Storm.” The GPF killed 1000+ persons, but is so utterly forgotten because – talk about weird coincidences – it occurred ON THE EXACT SAME DAY as the Great Chicago Fire, which stole all the headlines! For more about the fire, see: [http://www.iswonline.com/archives/eclectic/peshtigo.html](http://www.iswonline.com/archives/eclectic/peshtigo.html) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-non-fiction-books/31684.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-non-fiction-books/31684.md?page=3)