Thanks for all the interesting responses. Another book of this sort which I liked and that hasn’t been mentioned yet is Rats by Robert Sullivan. Mainly on the history and habitat of rats in New York (but we know they changed the world).
“Before the Flood-The Biblical Flood as a Real Event and How It Changed the Course of Civilization” by Ian Wilson
“Merde-Excursions in Scientific, Cultural, and Socio-Historical Coprology” by Ralph A. Lewin
“History of Shit” by Dominique LaPorte
“FLU-The Story of the Great Infulenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It” by Gina Kolata
“A Mind of Its Own-A Cultural History of the Penis” by David M. Friedman
“The Female Member-Being a Compendium of Facts, Figures, Foibles and
Anecdotes About the Loving Organ” by Kit Schwartz
“Car Crash Culture” Ed. by Mikita Brottman
“nigger-The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word” by Randall Kennedy
“Pushing the Limits” by Henry Petroski (The jacket graphics are mindblowing).
“The Short Life and Happy Times of the Shmoo” by Al Capp
“The Executioner Always Chops Twice-Ghastly Blunders on the Scaffold” by Geoffrey Abbott
“722 Miles-The Building of The Subways and How They Transformed New York” by Clifton Hood
“Non-Zero-The Logic of Human Destiny” by Robert Wright
“The Nothing That Is-A Natural History of Zero” by Robert Kaplan
“Zero-The Biography of a Dangerous Idea” by Charles Seife
Here’s one of the ones I forgot, also ex mea libris:
“I Buried John F. Kennedy” by James L Felder (commanded the honor guard at Arlington National Cemetery)
Ignatz, do you really recommend all of these books? :dubious:
Uh… perhaps your mind was already blown? Mine remains decidedly unblown.
Years ago I got a (now yellowed and dogged-eared) copy of The Social History of the Machine Gun wonderful example of the genre.