In 2006, I’m going to try to do the 52 books in 52 weeks thing. (I think I read that much already, I’ve just never really counted). But I’d like to expand and read things that are different than what I normally would pick - especially non-fiction and more modern (the past ten or twenty years), non-genre fiction.
I need suggestions, especially for non-fiction. What have you been reading recently that you’d recommend?
I’m reading Uncle Tungsten by Oliver Sacks. It’s about his adventures as a lad… with chemistry. He came from a family of scientists… grew up during the war… had a lab in his backyard where he blew things up and nearly killed himself with poisonous gasses (his parents’ response to this was to install a fume hood :eek: ). Great stuff 
Fun nonfiction: Blue Latitudes, by Tony Horowitz. He retraces some of the journeys of Captain Cook, and it’s both about Captain Cook and about his own adventures. Interesting, informative, and a lot of fun.
A little heavier going, but really, really interesting: The Song of the Dodo by David Quammen. It’s about island biogeography – how species evolve and go extinct. Again, both about the subject and his own adventures as he travels all over the place (Indonesia, Madagascar, and, of course, Galapagos) talking to researchers, etc. He’s an outstanding writer – I’m in the process of reading everything he’s written. It’s long and dense and would take you more than a week, which might throw off your pace a bit.
Best novel I read in '05: The Way to Paradise by Mario Vargas Llosa. It’s about Gauguin and his grandmother, a socialist rabble-rouser, told in alternating chapters. Fascinating.
(Hm, do you get the feeling I don’t like books about people who just stay home?)
Everything I Know I Learned from TV: Philosophy for the Unrepentant Couch Potato - a real philosopher explains modern philosopy using Buffy, The Sopranos, Seinfeld, The Simpsons…and it actually all makes sense.
Some non-fiction:
I’m currently listening to 1776 by David McCullough which is an interesting history of the US in 1776 (imagine that!!!). But it gets into alot more of the “how’s and why’s” of what happened to lead up to all those big events that we learn about in school. It also puts alot more “personality” to the persons by looking into letters written by Washington, British commanders, loyalists, etc.
Also, The World is Flat is a good look (from a liberal’s perspective) on globalization and competition in the new millenium.
Also, I just looked at your location to make sure that you were from the US so my last suggestion of reading “1776” because we learned about it in school made sense. (You probably wouldn’t want to read it if you were British 
).
But since I take it you live in Seattle you might want to check out Sons of the Profits which is an informative (but not overly acaedemic) history of Seattle. Lots of good tid-bits of information like all the original downtown streets were paved from the profits of a one-day “tax” on prostitution when alot of loggers/miners were in town; the trickery of getting the U of Washington funded (Basically a representative of the territory was coming to tell Seattle that the U wouldn’t be placed in Seattle. But when he arrived the Seattle founding fathers set up a huge welcome party and parade up to the grounds planned for the U and had a big presentation thanking him and had him give a speech to the people of Seattle about the U, so the rep basically said OK to putting the U in Seattle.); all sorts of fun stuff.
I highly recommend both Stiff and Spook by Mary Roach. Very enlightening books that manage to present somewhat morbid subjects (Stiff is subtitled “The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers”) in a very entertaining and accessible way.
West with the Night is an interesting biography of Beryl Markham, the first pilot to cross the Atlantic from east to west. She had an interesting childhood growing up in Africa.
I’ve heard that “Under the Banner of Heaven” is a very interesting read about the origins of Mormonism.
I recently read “The End of Faith” which is somewhat of a series of critical essays about religion (particularly Christianity and Islam) and its’ role in history, it is quite anti-religion (especially those based on ancient texts), and I enjoyed it immensely, although at times I wasn’t quite in agreement with some of the arguments.
I love non-fiction, it’s all I can stand to read anymore! Beware: once you start reading non-fiction, you might not be able to turn back.
The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. A pretty popular book, so you might’ve heard of it. It’s about fads/trends and how they catch on. Sounds boring, maybe. But it’s really well-written and well-thought out and it really makes a lot of damn sense. Gladwell also recently released a new book called Blink that looks pretty good too.
Hurricane Watch by Bob Sheets (former director of the NHC), about the history of hurricane forecasting and hurricane dynamics. Or Storm of the Century by Willie Drye, about the Labor Day hurricane (1935) in the Florida Keys. It gets into the politics of the situation a little bit too, which reminds me of some of the finger-pointing that’s going on with Katrina.
The Hot Zone by Richard Preston, about the Marburg virus (think Ebola) - VERY creepy and a very quick read. You can finish this in under a week and then get started on the twickster’s Dodo book (which I just added to my wish list :)). This was recommended in a SDMB book thread.
An African in Greenland by Tete-Michel Kpomassie (whew, had to cut and paste that one), about an African guy who is determined to explore the world, spends 7 years getting to Greenland and this is about his experience. It’s a little dry at times, but a good read. This was also recommended by a doper.
If you haven’t read In Cold Blood (Capote) or Helter Skelter yet, get on it. Those are two of my favorite books ever. I’m a true crime junkie too.
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks - stories about interesting cases of mental disorders - gets a little technical sometimes, but some of these stories are just unbelievable!
Other stuff in my list that I haven’t read yet (so they might not count):
**Salt: A World History **by Mark Kurlansky
Air Apparent : How Meteorologists Learned to Map, Predict, and Dramatize Weather by Mark Monmonier (I like weather, okay)
A People’s History of the US by Howard Zinn
Last Train to Paradise by Les Standiford (about the construction of the Florida East Coast Railway in the Keys, also has some details about the Labor Day 1935 'cane - that was the end of the railway)
Rats : Observations on the History and Habitat of the City’s Most Unwanted Inhabitants by Robert Sullivan
Blue Latitudes is in this list too after it was highly recommended by a doper in another thread - probably twickster. I found it on sale. 
I second Cuckoorex’s recommendation for Stiff, unless you have a weak stomach, I mean. In which case, you probably shouldn’t read The Hot Zone either.
Phew, all this coding has done me in!
I’m reading this now, and enjoying it. Gladwell is rather too much in love with his own theory, and his analytical approach is somewhat less than rigorous, so his conclusions are to my mind just a bit overbroad, but it’s still interesting and eye-opening. Just keep your critical faculties about you.
I will strongly recommend Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi. It’s a memoir of her time as a teacher of English literature in Iran; she was there for the Islamic revolution and describes in detail what life was like beforehand and how the culture changed. And because the university where she was employed objected to her approach, she formed a private reading group with several women, who met in her home to talk about Austen, Fitzgerald, and of course Nabokov, among others. Occasionally a little dry, and not particularly well structured, but fascinating nevertheless, as much for Nafisi’s passion about the authors she’s teaching; her book is as much lit crit as memoir, and it makes you want to read (or re-read) the novels in question.
Jumping in (to be a butthead, mostly, sorry): I picked this book up and could. not. finish it. It was like chewing on a dry cracker–I could nibble off small bits, some of the stories here and there, and I appreciate what she was trying to do and say, but overall it was just… ugh. So boring.
I’ve read The Poisonwood Bible recently, and No Great Mischief by Alistair MacLeod, and Talk to the Hand by Lynne Truss, and all of them I recommend to you.
It is, but I found it pretty disturbing. I still recommend it.
Other recommendations in the non-fiction arena: Mutants: on Genetic Variety and the Human Body, which is great even for a novice, very approachable. I’m reading Red Star Rogue: the Untold Story of a Soviet Submarine’s Nuclear Strike Attempt on the US. Not sure I buy the premise, but it has a great overview of US-Soviet relations, as well as interesting information about the submarine program.
In the fiction area, I recommend Jodi Picoult. One very unusual book I liked was Songs of the Humpback Whale: A Novel in Five Voices.
The Complete History of Zombie Cinema.