Breaking into Non-Fiction

[Old Jim]

Greetings all,

 

For the most part, all I've really read is genre fiction, with a few bits of literature thrown in from schooling. I've never really made an effort to read any non-fiction and lately I've been trying to find something a little more... enriching (no offence to genre fiction, still love it all).

 

It feels like finding a good non-fiction novel is way more difficult than good fiction; a premise of a fictional novel can sell me on it alone, and I am aware of a wide body of generally agreed upon classics that I've yet to read. With minimal research, I can usually find a good fiction novel that aligns to my tastes. However, it seems more difficult to find a solid non-fiction novel since I don't yet know what my tastes are, and I'm worried about factual authenticity; it's hard to differentiate what is legitimate and what might just be pulp. On any given topic, it feels like there is the book while the rest are trying to cash in on a popular topic, though this could be my personal biases.

 

So, basically what I'm asking is for non-fiction recommendations since you all seem like an intelligent lot. I feel like I might enjoy something with a more scientific slant or perhaps military historical, but I'll take any suggestions. Also I would prefer more topic-focused instead of biographies. I've had this odd urge to learn more about WWII era tanks....

 

Oh, and preferably on Kindle since most of my reading time is right before I go to bed but while my girlfriend is asleep.

Thanks in advance.

[tberton]

Recommending non-fiction is way tougher than recommending fiction, because it's so much more topic-specific. That said, I think the most valuable thing a piece of non-fiction can do is to introduce you to a topic you never knew about, or force you to re-evaluate something that you thought you knew. Here are some non-fiction books that have had a big effect on me. (Unfortunately, I don't know if any of these are available on Kindle).

 

Goedel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter - a weird, meandering trip through music, art, math, philosophy, molecular biology, computer science and information theory, looking at different sorts of self-referential systems and their relationship to consciousness. It's not a easy read, but it sure does get you thinking.

 

Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman - a critique of the television age. It's a bit dated, but a lot of Postman's analysis, while somewhat flawed, is still quite valuable.

 

Fun Home by Alison Bechdel - a memoir in the form of a graphic novel, so it might be a nice bridge between fiction and non-fiction for you. Bechdel, a renowned comic artist, recounts the story of growing up in the shadow of her father and the funeral home he ran, her journey to discovering her sexuality and dealing with her father's death mere weeks after she came out to her parents as a lesbian and discovered that her father was gay.

 

Travels with Charlie in Search of America by John Steinbeck - Steinbeck's a novelist, so this is another easy read if you're not used to non-fiction. In 1960, he packed his dog and a bunch of supplies into an RV and drove around the US, trying to chart the changing character of the country. It's a lovely read.

[gregbrown]

Since you like science and military-historical stuff, I'd highly recommend COMMAND AND CONTROL by Eric Schlosser and THE DEAD HAND by David E. Hoffman. Both have really great "plots" and are more addictive than most non-fiction while still being factually rigorous.

COMMAND AND CONTROL covers the history of nuclear weapon accidents, and the efforts to ensure there's never an accidental or unauthorized detonation. Outstanding and scary.

THE DEAD HAND overlaps slightly, covering the de-escalation of the arms race towards the end of the Cold War, and efforts to neutralize weapons of mass destruction as the Soviet Union disintegrated. COMMAND touches on the subject briefly in the last 100 pages, but there isn't a ton of overlap between the two books.

[Nappi]

If you want to read non-fiction but still want a good story you might be interested in Laurent Binet's HHhH. The book covers Operation Anthropoid, an assassination attempt of SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich by a Czech and a Slovak. The narration can be a bit annoying at times (that is, when Binet dwells on how hard it is to right non-fiction when you don't have all the information), but the story is really captivating and Heydrich is so vile* that you can't help rooting for the assassins.

 

I should warn you that there are a few detailed descriptions of Nazi atrocities of the fuck-the-whole-humankind variety.

 

Other non-fiction I have enjoyed: Consider the Lobster and A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace, Kon-Tiki by Thor Heyerdahl, Venetian Navigators by Andrea Di Robilant, Wind, Sand and Stars by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry... I'm forgetting many.

 

 

*The name of the book should give the idea what kind of man we are talking about here. Himmlers Hirn heißt Heydrich "Himmler's brain is called Heydrich"

[TangoCharlie]

I haven't read as much non-fiction as I'd like to, but I got a little taste recently and now I'm looking to read more of it, too. It seems like the way to go would be to identify authors and/or writing styles you enjoy reading and then just reading whatever they have to offer, regardless of topic. That seems like a more direct path to enjoyment than trying to find books you like on topics you like, but then everyone's different, right?

 

Definitely check out some Jon Ronson (THE PSYCHOPATH TEST) or Jon Krakauer (INTO THIN AIR, INTO THE WILD). Disclaimer: I haven't read any of these myself, but friends rave about them so much they're my first recommendation. And I liked the INTO THE WILD movie.

 

Take a look at THE END OF ABSENCE and see if the description grabs you. It recently got nominated for a Governor General's award, and it's extremely timely. Disclaimer: if pressured, I would reluctantly describe the author as a friend.

 

I really liked Oliver Burkeman's THE ANTIDOTE: HAPPINESS FOR PEOPLE WHO CAN'T STAND POSITIVE THINKING. Disclaimer: it sort of takes the same approach as a self-help book, but Burkeman writes with a great sense of humour and there are a lot of excellent takeaways to discover. It is what it says on the tin.

 

If you're up for some art history intertwined with personal drama, my recent reading has been circling around early 19th-century cultural imperialism. YEE HAW, I know. I enjoyed all of them, but they're not of the same standard as some of the top modern non-fiction.

DISARMED: THE STORY OF THE VENUS DE MILO

MISTRESS OF THE ELGIN MARBLES

LORD ELGIN AND THE MARBLES

DREAMING OF EAST: WESTERN WOMEN AND THE EXOTIC ALLURE OF THE ORIENT

[namman siggins]

I'm in a bit of a rush, but here are some rec's--I'll give more info later and these are just books I've read this year:

 

Women Sailors and Sailors' Women: An Untold Maritime History

 

Savage Harvest: A Tale of Cannibals, Colonialism, and Michael Rockefeller's Tragic Quest for Primitive Art

 

Men Explain Things to Me

 

Island of the Lost: Shipwrecked at the Edge of the World

 

Bad Feminist: Essays

 

In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette

 

Hellhound on His Trail: The Electrifying Account of the Largest Manhunt in American History

 

Intuition Pumps And Other Tools for Thinking

 

Queer and Trans Artists of Color: Stories of Some of Our Lives

 

Unruly Places: Lost Spaces, Secret Cities, and Other Inscrutable Geographies

 

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory

 

Hair Story: Untangling the Roots of Black Hair in America

 

On Immunity: An Inoculation

 

The Empathy Exams: Essays

[supasheep]

Some of my non-fiction recommendations: 

 

The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver - a good look at the science of prediction across a variety of different fields. Silver takes a really close look at what it means to make a prediction, and some of the maths that goes behind both everyday predictions and big-picture ones too. 

 

A Spy Among Friends by Ben Macintyre - an examination of Kim Philby and how he was able to infiltrate the British spy establishment. A fascinating read, as he takes a broader view of the structure of the British spy apparatus and is a pretty damning indictment of how the class system enabled Philby to hide. 

 

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson - covers a broad range of scientific concepts in an easy to understand manner

[Hume's Spork]

I would highly recommend The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson that was mentioned earlier.

 

Also, it's a little out of a date and very English in terms of case studies, but Bad Science by Ben Goldacre is a really good read if you want to dwell upon how you think things work versus how things actually work. It is specifically about medicine but more generally about how portrayal of a subject matter often differs from the substance of the subject matter, and this helps you think about how the media or exploitation of human tendencies can cloud an issue that would otherwise be clear.

[Roderick]

Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel instantly jumps to mind. If you're into biology things, Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene is a classic, as is Desmond Morris' The Naked Ape. For straight up science, maybe Michio Kaku's books? I also had tons of fun with Descartes' Error by Antonio Damasio.

[prettyunsmart]

Erik Larson's The Devil in the White City is a good place to start for a few reasons. It mixes a true-crime story with some more substantive history about urbanization, architecture, and other changes that Chicago underwent around the turn of the century. It also reads more like a mystery novel than most non-fiction books, so that can be a plus if you're not used to dryer prose. 

 

To copy tberton's idea of suggesting graphic memoirs, David Small's Stitches is dark, beautifully drawn, and a pretty quick read actually. I'd probably recommend Fun Home over it, but still worth a look. 

[Mangela Lansbury]

For straight up science, maybe Michio Kaku's books?

 

Michio Kaku writes kind of sciencey speculative works, not really science non-fiction. I think Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe is a better introduction to string theory than Kaku's, if that's of interest. Also, Feynman has some stellar and easy to understand lectures on physics. Six Easy Pieces is six of his easiest lectures on physics, followed by Six Not So Easy PIeces, or there's just Feynman's lectures in general. 

 

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers is good, and it should be obvious what it's about.

 

Depending on how broadly you're willing to define non-fiction, you could always read The Hot Zone. It's a novelization of the last time Ebola was in America, so it's a little topical, I guess?

 

I don't know any great WWII history, but Lawrence in Arabia applies a cogent, compelling narrative to the Middle Eastern front of WWI. A Savage War of Peace does the same for the Algerian War, and is a strong enough history that it was cited as an example of what not to do in the Iraq War and recommended to/by US military officers.

[feelthedarkness]

Haha, it seems like you've received plenty of recommendations, but here is mine: 

 

The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America

 

It's a very exciting narrative of a huge forest fire and the creation of the American park services, and the birth of the conservation movement. It's also much about immigration, and class issue as most of the struggle is about preserving the land for the people vs the whims of the robber barons of the gilded era.

 

The thing I would stress most is how engaging and exciting the narrative plays out. Timothy Egan paints a vivid picture of danger and struggle. Also, a cool primer for that Firewatch game some of you might have heard of.  

[seamus2389]

9/11 wars by Jason Burkes is a very indepth look at the "war" on terror and it general failure.

 

Explaining Hitler, Ron Rosebaum is an investigation into various historians to explain Hitler and the Holocaust.

 

The black swan, Taleb - a very interesting book on how we view risk and probability.

 

Tim Hardfords the undercover economist and the undercover economist strikes back which are very good introductions to micro and macro economics

 

Norman Davies Vanished Kingdoms on Eastern European history

 

Red sun by Sudeep Chakravarti looks the Naxailte rebel movement in India

 

The great war and modern memory, Paul Fussell

 

Margaret Macmillians books 1914 on the outbreak of WW1 and 1919 on the Paris peace conference

 

Daivd Simon's Homicide and the corner

 

Edward W Said's Culture and Imperalism and Orientalsim

 

Destiny distrupted - a history of the world through islamic eyes. Also the crusades thtough Arab eyes

 

The making of modern Japan, Jansen

 

The making of the English working class, E.P Thompson

 

Finally empire of the Summer moon which is a history of the Commanche

 

 

[sclpls]

The World That Never Was: A True Story of Dreamers, Schemers, Anarchists, and Secret Agents by Alex Butterworth

 

Covers the turbulent politics of left-wing radicalism in late 19th century Europe, and is written in a very approachable style that is well suited for someone that has principally read fiction. Lots of great details and anecdotes covered.

[Merus]

Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel instantly jumps to mind.

 

This is a really readable book about why Western Europe came to dominate the globe. I'd definitely check it out.

[Sorbicol]

I can think of two off the top of my head, but neither are scientific or military history based. However they both have a great deal to say about the human spirit and the will to survive in the most extraordinary of circumstances from very different angles.

The first is Papillon by Henri Charreire and is an account of his conviction for Murder in the late 1920s and being sent to the French Penal island in South America, his various escape attempts and his life as a fugitive. While it seems there are a lot questions as to it's veracity (a lot of it likely stuff that happened to other people and has been heavily embellished) it is still a remarkable tale of just how brutal things get in such conditions.

The second is Touching the Void by Joe Simpson, and is an account of his climbing accident in the Pervuian Andes with his climbing Partner Simon Yates. without giving too much away he was abandoned by Yates (who cut the rope connecting them believing Simpson was dead) but survived and managed to crawl back to the base camp.