Recommend your favorite non fiction books to me

[rupertpenny]

I generally don't read a lot of books by white men, but I do have a few favorites when it comes to narrative non-fiction:
Patrick Radden Keefe: The Snakehead is overshadowed by Empire of Pain and Say Nothing, but it is also excellent
Peter Hessler: My favorite is Oracle Bones
Douglas Preston: Monsters of Florence is my fav

David Grann and John Krakauer are also very reliable.

If you like Russia/Soviet stuff, you should read Masha Gessen and Anne Applebaum. Red Notice by Bill Browder is good, too. Without You, There is No Us by Suki Kim is a good North Korean book.

These have memoir elements, but The Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward is phenomenal, and I loved both of Nicole Chung's books.

[katfco]

I’ve just started and am really enjoying “Black AF History” by Michael Herriot. It’s both enlightening and humorous.

[dish2501]

Churchills Ministry Ungentlemanly Warfare, not the recent movie!

The Day the World Came to Town

Dead Wake by Erik Larson

Agree that Hidden Valley Road is great and sad

[mommyatty]

I’m reading Uniquely Human right now and loving it. It’s by a guy who works and has worked with autistic people for decades. He has such a positive and fresh take on how to work with and think about neurodivergent folks.

Into Thin Air I read half a lifetime ago and I’m still mad at the people in the book, so that probably makes it worth reading.

Radium Girls, about young women who painted watch faces and other luxury goods so they would glow in the dark, using radium and tiny paint brushes just a few hairs thick, which they licked to get to a fine enough point to get the detail right. Their stories are heartbreaking.

Anything by Bill Bryson, though Notes From a Small Island is still my favorite. Relatedly, I loved A Year in Provence.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver was good.

Crazy Aunt Purl’s Drunk, Divorced, and Covered in Car Hair: The True-Life Misadventures of a 30-Something Who Learned to Knit After He Split. I bought this book for the title and absolutely loved it. I still grab it if I’m going to a doctor’s appointment or something where I know I’m going to sit a long time with nothing to do. It’s just fun and heartbreaking and real.

[bbdoll]

The Radium Girls by Kate Moore.  It was about the plight of the women working with radium on watch faces, before they knew the horrific consequences of exposure.

mommyatty I didn't read the comments before I posted.  It's funny that you mentioned the same book, right before my post.

[timorousbeastie]

The best non-fiction book I’ve read in recent years is The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green. I listened to the audiobook, which is read by the author, and was really well done. It’s a collections of short essays about a variety of aspects of “the human-centered planet,” everything from cave paintings to Diet Dr Pepper to antibiotics, all rated like a Yelp review.

[Nonny]

May 15, 2024 14:32:07 GMT -5 luckystar2 said:

The Only Plane in the Sky - I recommend listening to the audio of this

I'm listening to this audiobook right now, and I'm about half-way through. I've been kind of taking my time with it and only listening when I go out for walks because it's so heavy that I feel better listening to it when I'm outside and moving around.

[jinkies]

May 15, 2024 14:15:36 GMT -5 mcsangel2 said:

May 15, 2024 13:28:50 GMT -5 litskispeciality said:

I think this really depends on what you're interested in. I really enjoyed "Columbine" by Dave Cullen.

I'm also a true crime sucker and don't mind some of Ann Rule's stuff like "Too Late to Say Goodbye". Very heavy, but quick.

So what I'm mostly looking for is things that happened to or affected a large group of people. Things that were kind of scandalous, or messy. Money or Political scandals. Clashes of societal norms (which is why books about North Korea or Russia are interesting to me). Or social class clashes (like Educated or Evicted, which I've also read).

Not memoirs generally, although Sound of Gravel which was recommended (which I've read) counts, because it's also about the author's wider Fundie circle she grew up in, ditto Under the Banner of Heaven because the LDS church is a major player. Not true crime so much (though I read and loved Ann Rule's book about Ted Bundy). And not exactly historical stuff (I am a big history buff though) BUT things like Killers of the Flower Moon absolutely would go on my list, that was hella scandalous.


jinkies please feel free to recommend all your faves!

Honorable mentions to: Depraved-- it's the same story as Devil in the White the City (america's first serial killer) but I preferred this one. 

Really anything by Jon Krakauer.

Emperor of all maladies (about cancer) and Say Nothing (Northern Ireland) both of which someone else already recommended


If I can recommend a book on my list that I haven't yet read:

Vaccinated by Paul Offit (about Maurice Hilleman who created many of our current childhood vaccines. I heard Paul speak several years ago at a showing of the movie Hilleman, on the same topic as the book. It's fascinating)

[InBetweenDays]

devonpow dearprudence jinkies basilosaurus mrsslocombe and others who enjoyed Into Thin Air I HIGHLY recommend Touching the Void. An incredible tale of mountaineering survival from an expedition in the Peruvian Andes.

I'm much more of a fiction reader, but H reads a good deal of non-fiction. A few that he's read that I haven't seen mentioned are The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis (same guy who wrote Moneyball) and Hot, Flat, and Crowded by Thomas Friedman.

[dove]

Unwell Women: Misdiagnosis and myth in a manmade world by Elinor Cleghorn. A must read for any woman

[AdaraMarie]

A lot of the non fiction I read is memoir type, but not all. Here are some of the ones I have rated highly on goodreads that I haven't already seen in the thread. I don't really remember all of them off the top of my head, so they are probably not the BEST EVER but here they are:
Rocket Boys by Homer Hickam
Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do and What It Says About Us by Tom Vanderbilt
Blink, and Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
One Giant Leap: Neil Armstrong's Stellar American Journey by Leon Wagner
All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood by Jennifer Senior
Don't Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales from an Allergic Life by Sandra Beasley
Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Terrible Things by Jenny Lawson (this one is like my comfort object, I listen to the audiobook several times a year)
Humble Pi: When Math Goes Wrong in the Real World by Matt Parker
You'll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey: Crazy Stories of Racism by Amber Ruffin
Beginners: The Joy and Transformative Power of Lifelong Learning by Tom Vanderbilt
The Poisoned City: Flint's Water and the American Urban Tragedy by Anna Clark
What is Color: 50 Questions and Answers on the Science of Color by Arielle Eckstut

[turbo]

Many of my favorites have been mentioned but I'll add a few more:

For John Krakauer, my favorite of all his books (I've read them all) is actually Missoula (but TW: deals with sexual assault). Not really talked about but well-researched and just really a great book.

I'll second "Red Notice" Bill Browder based on your interest in scandal - it's a crazy story.

Also - "Billion Dollar Whale" by Tom Wright and Bradley Hope is an insanely interesting book. It's the story of Jho Low, who ended up bilking Goldman and other investment funds / firms of billions of dollars. It's crazy.

My favorite book I read last year was "Shadow Divers" by Robert Kurson. It's about two men who dive shipwrecks and find a mystery shipwreck off the coast of New Jersey, and their quest to figure out what the boat actually is. (FWIW, Kurson writes great books - I also loved "Rocket Men").

I'll echo Devil in the White City and throw in The Splendid & the Vile by Erik Larson as well.

Along the lines of Evicted (one of my all-time favorite NF books), I really liked "Maid" by Stephanie Land, and "Nickel & Dimed" by Barbara Ehrenberg was good, though I thought it fell short in some spots.

Kate Moore writes great books - The Radium Girls barely edges out The Woman They Could Not Silence, but I loved both of them. Non-fiction, dealing with strong women, and written like a story. So good.

Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike was fascinating, but it skips over some of the heavier topics surrounding Nike. Still, I read it in about 1.5 days.

Just read The Soul of an Octopus and I enjoyed that.

[turbo]

May 15, 2024 17:09:51 GMT -5 InBetweenDays said:

devonpow dearprudence jinkies basilosaurus mrsslocombe and others who enjoyed Into Thin Air I HIGHLY recommend Touching the Void. An incredible tale of mountaineering survival from an expedition in the Peruvian Andes.

I'm much more of a fiction reader, but H reads a good deal of non-fiction. A few that he's read that I haven't seen mentioned are The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis (same guy who wrote Moneyball) and Hot, Flat, and Crowded by Thomas Friedman.

The Fifth Risk is very good, but IMO Premonition is the best Michael Lewis book (I know this will be a controversial statement!). If your H hasn't read that, he should give it a try (and honestly, anyone should - it's about how the US Government manages pandemic response and it was fascinating). 

[turbo]

May 15, 2024 11:53:59 GMT -5 jinkies said:

Oh! I actually prefer nonfiction and read a lot of it. Some of my favorites:

1. Into Thin Air (about a disastrous climbing season on mt everest) and Into the Wild (about young guy who goes off grid in Alaska)
2. Born to Run (about ultramarathoning)
3. Unbroken (about an olympic runner who was POW in Japan during ww2) and Seabiscuit (horse racing)-- both by Laura Hillenbrand
4. Behind the Beautiful Forevers (life in slums of Mumbai)
5. Just Mercy (innocence project)
6. Chasing the Thrill by Daniel Barbarisi (the story dragged a little sometimes, but interesting to learn about bizarre, years-long treasure hunt)
7. Killers of the Flower Moon (murders on native american reservation)
8. The Spirit catches you and you fall down (hmong child being treated by american doctors and the culture clash that resulted)
9. The professor and the madman (the making of the first Oxford English dictionary)
10. The stranger in the woods (guy lives off grid in Maine, survives by stealing stuff from nearby camps for 30 years)
11. Born a Crime (Trevor Noah memoir)
12. Being Mortal (how society deals with aging and death)

I will stop there. I get excited when people want nonfiction recs LOL.

I would take ALL your nonfiction recs, as I've read and agree with a lot on this list.

I read like 90% nonfiction so I always feel like the reading threads aren't very helpful for me. Please give me all your faves because I've been in a funk and haven't found anything I loved lately. 

[Pibs]

I just skimmed because I'm fighting a migraine, but I saw Into Thin Air by John Krakauer mentioned more than once (and totally agree with the recommendations - it's a great book). I went down a rabbit hole with that experience when I read it, and found out that several of the survivors wrote books.

But, I think the most interesting one is Climb by Anatoli Boukreev. He was one of the guides on the expedition and has very different views about how things happened, could have been prevented, etc. I always tell people to read both because it's super interesting.

[InBetweenDays]

May 15, 2024 18:46:07 GMT -5 turbo said:

May 15, 2024 17:09:51 GMT -5 InBetweenDays said:

devonpow dearprudence jinkies basilosaurus mrsslocombe and others who enjoyed Into Thin Air I HIGHLY recommend Touching the Void. An incredible tale of mountaineering survival from an expedition in the Peruvian Andes.

I'm much more of a fiction reader, but H reads a good deal of non-fiction. A few that he's read that I haven't seen mentioned are The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis (same guy who wrote Moneyball) and Hot, Flat, and Crowded by Thomas Friedman.

The Fifth Risk is very good, but IMO Premonition is the best Michael Lewis book (I know this will be a controversial statement!). If your H hasn't read that, he should give it a try (and honestly, anyone should - it's about how the US Government manages pandemic response and it was fascinating). 

Sounds like a good Father's Day gift. Thanks for the recommendation!

[jinkies]

May 15, 2024 19:20:33 GMT -5 Pibs said:

I just skimmed because I'm fighting a migraine, but I saw Into Thin Air by John Krakauer mentioned more than once (and totally agree with the recommendations - it's a great book). I went down a rabbit hole with that experience when I read it, and found out that several of the survivors wrote books.

But, I think the most interesting one is Climb by Anatoli Boukreev. He was one of the guides on the expedition and has very different views about how things happened, could have been prevented, etc. I always tell people to read both because it's super interesting.

Oh thank you for this rec! I will definitely look for this one!

[christy082]

Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan

[aurora]

May 15, 2024 19:20:33 GMT -5 Pibs said:

I just skimmed because I'm fighting a migraine, but I saw Into Thin Air by John Krakauer mentioned more than once (and totally agree with the recommendations - it's a great book). I went down a rabbit hole with that experience when I read it, and found out that several of the survivors wrote books.

But, I think the most interesting one is Climb by Anatoli Boukreev. He was one of the guides on the expedition and has very different views about how things happened, could have been prevented, etc. I always tell people to read both because it's super interesting.

100% agree with this. It's fascinating to get the two different perspectives, and eye-opening to realize what Krakauer may have gotten wrong.

Another one I didn't see mentioned is I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai (ETA she was the schoolgirl who was shot by the Taliban). She is so courageous.

[minzy]

So many good ones listed already. I love nonfiction and tend to split my reading 50/50.

If I had to pick a single nonfiction book to recommend from the last several years of reading I think it would be What the Eyes Don’t See by Mona Hanna-Attisha. It was phenomenal IMO. It is about the Flint water crisis.

Bloodsworth - The True Story of the First Death Row Inmate Exonerated by DNA Evidence by Tim Junkin was also excellent. I also really liked American Sirens - The Incredible Story of the Black Men Who Became America’s First Paramedics by Kevin Hazzard.

[aurora]

Also to expand horizons in multiple directions the non-fiction graphic memoir Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi was really interesting and well done.

ETA about growing up through the Islamic Revolution in Iran

[ellipses84]

I think every American should read The Sum of Us and Poverty, by America.

For historical nonfiction that reads more like fiction I like Erik Larson’s books. Devil in the White City is a favorite for me, with a mashup of true crime and architectural history. 🎯

I read a lot of celebrity memoirs (or listen to them on audio book in their voice which is great). Two of my favorites are Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime and Anne Glenconner’s Lady in Waiting because they are incredible life stories and give a lot of context for the time / place they lived in. Some other good memoirs I’ve read lately are Viola Davis, Patrick Stewart and Minka Kelly.

There’s a lot of good books that have been made into movies but I recommend reading the book first. Reading Born on the 4th of July had an impact on me as a teen. I related to The Glass Castle and A Beautiful Mind so much, probably because the fathers are so much like my own.

For everyone who loves non-fiction stories but sometimes needs a short story break between novels, The Moth and Modern Love podcasts are fantastic. For Modern Love, there are episodes where they just have an actor read the story as printed in the NYT and there are other episodes with interviews/ follow up.

[wise_rita]

May 15, 2024 11:52:51 GMT -5 mrshandy said:

In the Garden of Beasts

I need to point out how educational this was for me about how WWII started. It was like a decade slow burn. I had no idea! Highly recommend.

[wise_rita]

May 15, 2024 16:42:27 GMT -5 Nonny said:

May 15, 2024 14:32:07 GMT -5 luckystar2 said:

The Only Plane in the Sky - I recommend listening to the audio of this

I'm listening to this audiobook right now, and I'm about half-way through. I've been kind of taking my time with it and only listening when I go out for walks because it's so heavy that I feel better listening to it when I'm outside and moving around.

Then prepare to cry in public.  Uff, a tough read but I'm so glad I did.  Though I was very confused by the same voice actors voicing different people.

The Feather Thief was fascinating and fun.

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End is a must read for everyone, I think.

[basilosaurus]

May 15, 2024 13:57:10 GMT -5 devonpow said:

The Emperor of all Maladies

This is what my brain was searching for! I kept coming up with related fiction books.

[basilosaurus]

May 15, 2024 17:22:17 GMT -5 dove said:

Unwell Women: Misdiagnosis and myth in a manmade world by Elinor Cleghorn. A must read for any woman

This has been on my list for awhile, but my e-library still doesn't have it. I may have to suck it up and pay.

I have to say, I'm feeling kinda proud of myself for having read and enjoyed so many recommended. I've been condescended to for being a fiction reader. Ironically usually by people who rarely actually read.

[Velar Fricative]

I only read non-fiction, and mostly boring subject-specific stuff lol. Here’s what I think could be appealing to others:

Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed by Men by Caroline Criado-Perez (soooooo eye-opening)

The Story of French by Jean-Benoit Nadeau and Julie Barlow (global sociolinguistic history of the French language)

Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World by Margaret McMillan (very dense, but really informative about 20th century global history)

[lilac05]

May 16, 2024 0:44:45 GMT -5 ellipses84 said:

I think every American should read The Sum of Us and Poverty, by America.

Yes to Poverty, by America! (Added The Sum of Us to my Want to Read list.) I see a lot of my favorites already on the list and added several more.

I often comment in the Reading thread, even though it’s mostly fiction books. I’d love to have more non-fiction readers participating!

[weightlossae]

A Woman of No Importance

[cheeseplease]

Every Plane in the Sky is a step by step accounting of every aspect of 9-11.

HIGHLY recommend, I thought I'd hate the format when I first started but it was 5* for me