What are your favorite non-fiction books?
22h 4m ago by feddit.nl/u/lime in asklemmy
*Thank you for your responses, everyone. I will definitely be checking out some of these.
In order of recall,
Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents
Why Nations Fail
A Short History of Nearly Everything
God Is Not Great
Gödel, Escher, Bach
The Smartest Kids in the World
Parasite Rex by Carl Zimmer - it explains in detail the biology and evolutionary history of parasites, and some of the incredible science that goes into studying and understanding them.
The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan - plain English explanation of what the scientific method is and why it’s our best way of understanding the world. It also explains how to think more critically about the world and how to identify pseudoscience.
Parasite Rex changed how I think about a lot of systems. Really mind expanding
Humble Pi by Matt Parker. It's about common mistakes people make in math and the real world consequences of these mistakes
Hunter S. Thompson - Hell's Angels
Jake Adelstein - Tokyo Vice & Tokyo Noir
The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow.
I don't usually read non-fiction but for a reading bingo card challenge at my local bookstore and I was blown away by Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green, it was fantastic.
The Poisoner's Handbook by Deborah Bloom! It's so good!
Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 by Hunter S. Thompson and A Mother's Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy by Sue Klebold. Hell, I'll also throw in Have a Nice Day: A Tale of Blood and Sweatsocks by Mick Foley. I should reread that.
Many, but Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber is the one I’ve read most recently.
in no particular order:
The Demon Under the Microscope: From Battlefield Hospitals to Nazi Labs, One Doctor's Heroic Search for the World's First Miracle Drug
The Wave: In the Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks and Giants of the Ocean
Among the Thugs: The Experience, and the Seduction, of Crowd Violence
Anything by Mary Roach or Bill Bryson
*I love a good subtitle. Read Stephen Jay Gould, too. The Burgess Shale one in particular.
The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.
Not as tough as read as the title sounds. Just the introduction will blow your mind.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origin_of_Consciousness_in_the_Breakdown_of_the_Bicameral_Mind
Guns, Germs, and Steel:
Don't do the abridged version or watch the movie.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns%2C_Germs%2C_and_Steel
There's some legitimate criticism of Guns, Germs, and Steel. Some of the author's key assertions are incorrect but by and large a very well informed and exhaustively researched.
Most of the vitriol around it though seems to have missed the point. Diamond uses the book to argue against the idea of euro-exceptionalism but a loud part of society sees it as arguing the exact opposite.
Basically, what I'm saying is, don't read it as gospel but an exceptional book that examines the way the world became the way it did from a fairly balanced perspective.
I know it really pissed off social anthropologist back in the day.
But I found the part about animal and plant domestication the most interesting. Domestication of animals created slaves you could eat.
Never at Rest by Richard Westfall is a comprehensive biography of Isaac Newton. Near the end when he works at the mint it gets pretty boring but otherwise great.
The Making of the Atom Bomb by Richard Rhodes is a fairly definitive treatment of how the US atomic bomb came about. It covers an incredible amount of background info of both the science and history that lead to it.
The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner by Daniel Ellsburg is a terrifying look into the wild west of nuclear weapons in the couple decades after their advent. Ellsburg is famously the person who leaked the Pentagon Papers and he had a front row seat to the insanity that was the early* Cold War. It's a miracle we survived.
A split third person narrative; One describes the architects that built the 1894 world fair in Chicago, and another that follows the escapades of one of history’s most notorious serial killers, HH Holmes, that prayed on the women that went to the fair.
One of my favorite books I’ve ever read.
- Margaret J. Wheatley - Turning To One Another: Simple Conversations To Restore Hope To The Future
- David C. Korten - The Great Turning: From Empire To Earth Community
- Alfie Kohn - No Contest: The Case Against Competition
- Shareable - Sharing Cities: Activating The Urban Commons
- Michael Moss - Salt Sugar Fat: How The Food Giants Hooked Us
- Johann Hari - Lost Connections: Uncovering The Real Causes of Depression--And The Unexpected Solutions
- Michael N. Nagler - The Search For A Nonviolent Future
Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets by David Simon.
A journalist spends a year (1988) embedded in the Baltimore PD homicide division. Forensically analyses every aspect of the murder investigation from crime scene all the way through to trial.
The book, and the work behind it, became the primary inspiration for Simon's subsequent television work Homicide: Life on the Street and The Wire.
Mutants: On the Form, Varieties and Errors of the Human Body by Armand Marie Leroi.
Leroi uses classical "mutant" forms of the Human Body to examine the processes and mechanisms of how the body builds and maintains itself. Expertly explains quite complex biological concepts in an understandable and engaging way and breaks down the myths and stories around real life" monsters".
Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985) by Neil Postman, The Shallows (2010) by Nicholas Carr.
I think about both a lot, both are terrifyingly prescient and the issues they describe only got worse.
Amusing Ourselves is basically how the television age shapes politics (and all the ideas extend perfectly/terrifyingly into the modern internet era) while the Shallows is about how the internet is literally rewiring our minds.
Both are quite short, easy reads that will stick with you.
And on a lighter palate cleanser sort of note, anything Mary Roach writes is worth reading.
Art and Physics by Leonard F Schlain.
It was his thesis on the advancement of artistic expression and that of hard science and scientific discovery and their seemingly parallel discoveries, as an expression of how intelligence grows across two separate disciplines.
Some of the write-ups and reviews paint it as fairly plebian, but the entire read is really good.
It's online.
https://www.artandphysics.com/
skunk works by ben rich, about his work as chief of the lockheed skunk works during the time they built the sr-71 blackbird and the f-117 nighthawk.
the soul of a new machine by tracy kidder, about the development of the data general eclipse minicomputer.
I don't read much non-fiction, but Masters of Doom by David Kushner is fantastic, if you are interested in the video game that revolutionized gaming.
I definitely second this!
Another classic in the game history space - Game Over - is one of my favorites too. MoD is probably better written, but then GO's subject matter draws me in a little more.
Don't know that I have a particular favorite, but one that comes to mind to recommend is Don Norman's Design of Everyday Things.
Clausewitz, On War, bc I'm interested in military history. I have a bunch of books in storage, and it's the only one I really miss. The Howard/Paret translation is the best. Handel's "Masters of War" has a great explication (besides the one that Howard/Paret provide.)
The game engine that Paradox uses in their games is named after him. For reasons
A book about how to make medicine and food out of wild plants by some former military medic.
Zero - The Biography of A dangerous Idea. Charles Seife
The Proud Tower, and The First Salute, Barbara Tuchman
The Proud Tower is about the rapid changes going on in the years leading up to WW1. The sad fact is that many people thought that a war might be a good way to slow things down and get back on track.
The First Salute. At some point, some nation had to recognise the American colonies as an actual country. The american Revolution from a different angle
Why We Sleep by Dr. Matthew Walker.
Fascinating book all about what sleep is and the reasons every living thing on earth does/needs it in some way or another.
Gut by Guilia Enders.
Intriguing journey from mouth to anus, showcasing the functions performed to sustain life by some of the body's most underrated organs. Also discusses some of the most common ailments and their effects (but also causes, and in some cases their treatments/cures).
Immune by Philipp Dettmer.
A wonderful introduction to how the body's immune system performs its job...or doesn't, in some unfortunate circumstances.
All three books are written for the lay person who wants/needs an accessible introduction to these complex systems affecting health and well-being.
Narconomics: How to run a drug cartel - basically why the war on drugs will always fail the way we're doing it and the economics of them.
Into the Heart of Borneo and In Trouble Again by Redmond O'Hanlon.
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/123474/into-the-heart-of-borneo-by-redmond-ohanlon/
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/123475/in-trouble-again-by-redmond-ohanlon/
To be clear, O'Hanlon was a natural history book REVIEWER, before all this. His editor decided, in a fit of whimsy, to pack him up and send him to Borneo for two months.
"As a former academic and a natural history book reviewer I was astonished to discover, on being threatened with a two-month exile to the primary jungles of Borneo, just how fast a man can read.
Powerful as your scholarly instincts may be, there is no matching the strength of that irrational desire to find a means of keeping your head upon your shoulders; of retaining your frontal appendage in its accustomed place; of barring 1,700 different species of parasitic worm from your bloodstream and Wagler's pit viper from just about anywhere; of removing small, black, wild-boar ticks from your crutch with minimum discomfort (you do it with Sellotape); of declining to wear a globulating necklace of leeches all day long; of sidestepping amoebic and basillary dysentery, yellow and blackwater and dengue fevers, malaria, cholera, typhoid, rabies, hepatitis, tuberculosis and the crocodile (thumbs in its eyes, if you have time, they say)."
The book is an absolute delight and when he survived, returned, and submitted it, his reward was to be sent to the Amazon for FOUR months.
He did a third book in the Congo which is not a light and friendly read. I'm glad I read it, but it's absolutely horrifying on multiple levels.
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/123476/no-mercy-by-redmond-ohanlon/
His 4th book, Trawler, isn't as morose as No Mercy, but it's not light and friendly either. Basically "Deadliest Catch: The Book".
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/123477/trawler-by-redmond-ohanlon/
Debt: the First 5000 Years by David Graeber. He debunks the standard narrative of “barter, then hard currency, then systems of credit” that is commonly taught when discussing the history of economics, and goes into the conflation of financial debt and spiritual debt, leading to society placing moral weight on someone being in financial debt.
Devil in the White City
The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs
A New History of a Lost World
by Steve Brusatte
I’ll say that the Power Broker by Robert Caro is one the longest and the absolute best books I’ve ever read. Absolutely incredible text, research, structure and topic. How power actually worked for one of the most significant single shapers of the current state of NYC and to some extent the rest of America
Anything by Mary Roach or Carlo Rovelli
American Sirens: The Incredible Story of the Black Men Who Became America's First Paramedics by Kevin Hazzard
Coach Wooden and Me by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Hope for Cynics by Jamil Zaki
It's Your Funeral by Kathy Benjamin
Plight of the Living Dead by Matt Simon
I Contain Multitudes by Ed Yong
A Woman of No Importance - Sonia Purnell
The Radium Girls by Kate Moore
How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease by Michael Greger M.D.