A reorganization of my bookshelves exposed gaping holes, were once books stood that no longer do stand there.
That cannot remain…so Dopers, please recommend me books. I have a guideline for you: I greatly enjoyed Darwin’s Dangerous Idea by Daniel C. Dennett, Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas R. Hofstadter, and Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond – perhaps the best three books I ever read. Using these as hints, what similar books would you recommend?
TheSnack
Hm, this isn’t quite along those lines, but it’s up there:
Reflections on a Ravaged Century by Robert Conquest.
One good book I always pimp out – Claude Manceron’s “Twilight of the Old Order”, about pre-Revolutionary France.
Beaumarchais schemes and runs guns to the American revolutionaries while writing his famous play “The Barber of Seville”; Marie Antoinette hurtles towards her doom; the Chevalier d’Eon, France’s notorious cross-dressing superspy, crosses paths with Beaumarchais; the Marquis de Sade escapes to Italy and writes lots of dirty pornography, and his cousin Mirabeau recklessly runs off to Holland with a married woman.
Funny, raunchy, and sometimes heartbreaking. I sobbed all the way through the last few chapters on Mirabeau and Sophie. It’s nonfiction but it almost reads like a novel. Awesome.
.:Nichol:.
I will always pimp ‘The Seven Pillars of Wisdom’ by T.E.Shaw (T.E.Lawrence)
This is Lawrence of Arabia’s story in his own words. Very evocative and very readable.
Cheers, Bippy
“The Evolution of Cooperation” by Robert Axelrod
Killer book in the tradition of the 3 you listed in your OP. Hofstadter did an article on it awhile back in Scientific American.
I have many, many favorites along these lines. I wasn’t sure whether you wanted things more hard science-oriented or more culturally-oriented, so here are a couple of each.
Donald A. Norman, “The Psychology of Everyday Things”
Brian Greene, “The Elegant Universe”
Lawrence Krauss, “Atom” and “Quintessence”
Marvin Harris, “Our Kind”
Perhaps if you give us some idea of what you think of our suggestions, I can come up with more.
Two favorites of mine, with nothing in common with your list beyond being nonfiction:
Parliament of Whores by P.J. O’Rourke: A satirist tries to explain the mechanics of how the US government works, why it doesn’t do what you wish it did, and why this is sometimes a good thing
On Writing by Stephen King: Survival tips for anyone battling a blank page/screen, in clear, no-nonsense terms