How about The Worst Journey in the World by Apsley Cherry-Garrard? It’s about the failed Scott expedition to the South Pole in 1910-1913. I enjoyed listening to it while lying on my cabin floor, thoroughly nauseated, during a Drake Passage crossing in a Class 3 hurricane.
Thanks all, great suggestions, I’ve made my selection. I’m going to read Hampton Sides’ Blood and Thunder to start and if I like it, keep reading him until I get sick of him.
Same here. I’ve read Into Thin Air 6x.
Great choice.
Yep
Anything by Bill bryson-
One Summer: America, 1927
*Notes from a Small island. *
*I’m a Stranger here myself. *
In a Sunburnt Country
and of course- A Walk in the Woods.
If you want a little chuckle- The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: Travels Through My Childhood.
Really well done. The Blue Nile is a little bit better, IMHO.
So much British arrogance and stupidity, I had could barely get through it.
The Thomas Costain series starting with The Conquering Family- nicely you can get cheap used copies from Amazon of those.
Okay and finally - this one is not a easy read-
The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914
For others, since the OP has already chosen, I might suggest The Orchid Thief (they made a film of it which I haven’t seen), and also anything by John Mcphee, such as Basin and Range, or Coming Into The Country. He writes about geography, geology, and culture – about places.
I really enjoyed his A Voyage Long and Strange about America and European explorers before the Mayflower.
The Plague and I by Betty MacDonald is about her 9 month stay in a TB sanitorium in about 1938. It’s much lighter than you think it would be.
I would recommend anything by Mary Roach. She writes very entertaining books about things most people would really rather not think about.
Here are some of the best non-fictions I’ve read recently. I think most of them fit your magazine-turned-novel model:
The Emerald Mile by Kevin Fedarko An amazing book which not only gives a great history of the Grand Canyon, but also about this crazy river run to set a world record.
House of Rain by Craig Childs Another good book about the southwest - specifically the “Anasazi” (ancient puebloans). The author visits a number of key sites which explain the tale of the migrations. Part history and part real-life adventure.
The Great Influenza by John Barry Along with recounting the massive (worldwide) outbreak of the 1918 (so called) “Spanish flu”, this book gives an amazing history of medicine from the civil war forward. The medical history was both mind-boggling and fascinating at the same time. And the experience of that flu pandemic really hits home all the lessons NOT applied when COVID hit.
Blue Latitudes by Tony Horwitz Similar to the Childs book about the Anasazi, Horwitz retraces parts of Capt. Cooks voyages and assesses the impact of all Cook’s discoveries. From history Cook is regarded as such a hero for discovering all these previously unknown places/civilizations, but it never really hit me what “putting them on the map” really did to those places.
The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, Deborah Blum
The title pretty well describes it. Fascinating, true history, technical yet accessible, and each chapter is self contained so you can fit it into your travel plans. Every doper should read this, IMHO.
The Poisoner’s Handbook - Wikipedia
An excellent book. I read it before COVID. I used to never get the annual flu shot, thinking that it’s good for my immune system to try to fight off the flus on its own, but since reading this book I changed my mind and started getting the flu shot every year.
And then covid hit…
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, by Siddhartha Mukherjee.
Another excellent book.
A terrific source for reading recommendations is The Electric Typewriter. Mostly I subscribe for the annual list of best articles, arranged by category and subject. The link however is to their list of narrative non-fiction books.
Both terrific accounts that I’ve read at least twice.
Sounds like you’ve probably read it, but The Wager is a great read, about a British shipwreck off the southern coast of Chile.
Yeah, just read that recently, but thanks.
I have two.
Song of the Dodo - the best science book ever, makes you laugh out loud while you learn a ton…at least for me.
Same writer …Breathless
Minute by minute of the covid pandemic.
in both I learned a lot.
In Dodo I learned and laughed delightly a lot.
The other gripping one is Into Thin Air.
Shed a tear. 
A recent one for me was The Demon in the Freezer.
The Demon in the Freezer is a 2002 nonfiction book on the biological weapon agents smallpox and anthrax and how the American government develops defensive measures against them. It was written by journalist Richard Preston, also author of the best-selling book The Hot Zone (1994), about ebolavirus outbreaks in Africa and Reston, Virginia and the U.S. government’s response to them. Preston decided to write the book following the 2001 anthrax attacks, discussing the two diseases together because both could be potential biological weapons.[1]
The book is primarily an account of the Smallpox Eradication Program (1967–1980), the ongoing belief of the U.S. government that smallpox is still a potential bioterrorism agent, and the controversy over whether or not the remaining samples of smallpox virus in Atlanta and Moscow (the “demon” in the freezer) should be finally destroyed. Many reviewers praised Preston’s writing style, but some found the attempts to interweave the anthrax investigation with the smallpox material “klutzy”[2] and “disjointed”.[3]
It was interesting for me considering how RFK, Jr. is antivax and we now have measles coming back in the US. This admin isn’t ready for another pandemic–whether natural or man-made.
Excellent survival book.
Treason in The Blood - About Kim Philby and his father.
I’ve read everything about Philby. There is a new book out about LeCarre and his father that you just reminded me about, though.