If you liked this one, try Nathaniel’s Nutmeg.
Speaking of Mary Roach, her book Stiff, about dead bodies, is one that I couldn’t put down. I’m also reading Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife, which is also pretty good, but not as entertaining as Stiff.
I’m getting some pretty good ideas from this thread too. To the Kindle!
A history recommendation: A History of the World in Six Glasses. Examines history through six phases: agriculture (beer), civilization (wine), science/feudalism (spirits), colonialism (tea), mercantilism (coffee), and capitalism (Coca Cola). The epilogue suggests what the signature drink will be for the world’s next phase. A very interesting book.
I also quite enjoy Steven Pinker’s writings. His book The Blank Slate is one of the books that has most changed my mind on some pretty fundamental issues: in it he very persuasively argues that our DNA has a tremendous impact on our mindsets, both as a species and as individuals.
Heroes and Cowards: The Social Face of War by Dora Costa & Matthew Kahn
The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl, by Timothy Egan. Picked it up in an airport bookshop and couldn’t shut it until I’d finished, one eight-hour flight later. Absolutely riveting.
Charlatan: America’s Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man who Pursued Him, and the Age of Filmflam by Pope Brock. This book focuses on the snake oil medicine that was incredibly sought after in the nineteen-teens, especially the work of one “Doctor” John R. Brinkley who made a fortune inserting goat testicles into folks. This book inspired me to insert the words “goat testicles” into as many conversations as possible.
William Manchester’s A World Lit Only by Fire is an entertaining, though hardly scholarly, review of the Renaissance and Reformation.
The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes. This Pulitzer prize winning book reads like a fascinating novel. Besides bringing academic rigor, it includes numerous amusing asides. Gripping.
The King of California by Mark Arax and Rick Wartzman. It is, in a word, brilliant. Not many people know that the largest lake (Tulare Lake) west of the Mississippi used to lie in the southern San Joaquin Valley. This book tells the story of what happened to it and paralleling the rise of one family to become the largest cotton producers in the world. Politics, environmental devastation, economics, technology, labor, etc. It really is great.
Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing. It was written in the 1950s and Lansing had access to many of the journals kept by the members of the expedition. It is one of those stories that simply has to be true. If it were fiction it will be summarily dismissed is improbable, if not impossible. Has to be read to believed.
War of Nerves: Chemical Warfare from World War I to al Qaeda is a fascinating read, if you’re into that kind of thing.
Aaaand…for an odder (!) one, Idaho Falls: the untold story of America’s first nuclear accident about the SL-1 reactor accident, which killed three people. Odd in that I haven’t actually read this one, yet, but I have read the online preview bits, which were just gripping. Especially the section on the autopsies of the operators. :eek:
His three volume biography of Churchill is entertaining as well. Really gossipy and bitchy, especially concerning how Churchill’s mother slept her way through British high society and thereby advanced Churchill’s career. Pity Manchester never finished Volume 3, but the first two volumes left me staggered by Churchill’s genius, drive, and gifts.
The old BBC series The Secret Life of Machines with Tim Hunkin.
http://www.exploratorium.edu/ronh/SLOM/
+1 on Gladwell, especially Outliers. He reads his own audiobooks and does an excellent job adding emphasis in the right places to convey extra meaning. The chapter in **Outliers **on airline crashes was unbelievable. His reading of it literally made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
Not quite in the pure historical genre you like but these two are worth a read:
Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick. The author interviews a handful of North Korean defectors and reconstructs daily life there. An indirect look at the cult of Kim, some history, psychology, economics, and a lot of heart-rending reality.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. Follows the life of a woman and her descendants; some cancer cells taken from her tumor have been instrumental in modern medicine. History, sociology, oncology, medicine, and more.
I’m reading Stacy Schiff’s biography of Cleopatra and digging it a lot. Not much is known about her, but she gives us what is known, expands on it by describing what is known about the aristocracy and her family (and they were a weird bunch, too, marked by incest and regicide).
What I liked best is that I’m getting to see Cleopatra as a woman of her time, someone you’d expect to be successful at statecraft and diplomacy.
And if you want to help a fellow Doper out, there’s my book about famous writers as well.
I’ve read this one and happily second it.
I’ll add The Snakebite Survivors’ Club. Travel writer with a pathological fear of snakebite travels to Australia, the United States, India and (IIRC) Kenya to hear the stories of people who work with, live with, and have been bitten by venomous snakes. It’s rather awesome.
Mental Floss’ History of the World. Just what the title says it is but very readable and entertaining.
An easy and interesting read.
I highly recommend Colleen McCullough’s series on ancient Rome. It covers most of the first century BC, with great attention to Marius, Sulla, Caesar(s), Antony, and Cleopatra.
She invents dialog and takes a bit of poetic license, so it’s not really non-fiction, but the historical details are accurate, and by the time you finish reading it, all those famous names you could never quite sort out will be old friends.