The best/most interesting NONfiction

[Mouseferatu]

So, in the spirit of broadening my horizons, I ask this question.

You must understand, less than 1% of what I read is nonfiction. I'm a huge fantasy fan, somewhat less so but still into sci-fi, mystiers, mythology, historical fiction, the occasional bit of horror... But I rarely read nonfiction. So I'm looking for some that might prove worthwhile.

For my own contribution to the list, I'd say The Mother Tongue: English and How it Got That Way, by Bill Bryson. A history of the English language may sound boring, but the book is really fascinating--to say nothing of funny.

So how about it? What's the best/most interesting nonfiction you've read?

 

[Furn_Darkside]

Salutations,

I like biographies and history-

John Adams by David McCullough
We Were Soldiers Once... and Young: Ia Drang--The Battle That Changed the War in Vietnam by Harold G. Moore, Joseph Galloway
My Wicked Wicked Ways by Errol Flynn (autobio, but I am sure most is made up.)

That is all I have off the top of my head, other then philosophy books by Ayn Rand.

FD

 

[madriel]

Great idea, Ari.

I'll have to look over my bookshelves for more, but here's one for starters. Non Campus Mentis is a book of excerpts from college history papers.

non campus mentis

It is screamingly funny. You would swear that some of them are made up they're so dumb. For example, there's a reprint of a student's map that shows the countries known as Beyond and Back of Beyond.

 

[Krug]

Fast Food Nation by Eric Schloesser
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America
Working, by Studs Terkel
In Pharaoh's Army: Memories of the Lost War by Tobias Wolff
Dispatches by Michael Herr

 

[Sulimo]

Hmmm....pretty much all the non-fiction I read is tied to mythology and history (ancient and medieval only). Oh and a bit of computer/science stuff.

The Hacker Crackdown by Bruce Sterling was pretty cool I thought.

 

[Richards]

Don't laugh, but I really enjoyed The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book, not only for the comics (which were great, of course!), but for the behind-the-scenes peek at the entire comics industry. I not only learned a bunch of stuff I didn't know, but my already-considerable respect for Bill Waterson cranked up a couple of notches.

Okay, so it's not as serious as some of the other choices, but it's still kind of technically non-fiction...

Johnathan

 

[ColonelHardisson]

I recently read The Nature of Alexander by Mary Renault. It's a fascinating attempt to create a portait of Alexander the Great by way of piecing together all the consistent details scattered across all the historical sources available. We'll never know how accurate Renault's deductions are, but it's a great read nonetheless.

I also recommend reading Cosmos by Carl Sagan. Get the hardback version which has all the pictures, which add immeasurably to the text. One of my very favorite books by one of my personal heroes. Reading Cosmos, and then viewing the TV series, is a good way to understand what the word "awesome" truly means.

 

[Eosin the Red]

A short history of Byzantium, John Norwich. Incredible.

War of the Roses, Allison Weir. Well written. One of the few history books that I felt was a page turner.

The Beat of a Different Drum, M. Scott Peck.

Slouching towards Gomorah, Robert Bork.

Living with our Genes, Dean Hamer.

The Science of God, ???.

Anything by Robert Fulgum.

Anything by C.S. Lewis (Screwtape Letters is my fav)

Sagan is always good.

And of course Joseph Campbell.

 

[Welverin]

I liked The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene, even thought the farther into it the less I understood. Though considering the subject I guess it only makes sense (it's about Superstring THeory).

 

[Fenros]

Like you, I hardly ever read non-fiction. But lately, I'm readying, "See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism" by Robert Baer.

Written by a guy who retired from the CIA and was sick of all the political crap that was going on over the years. Very interesting.

A couple of neat things about the book--- since the text had to be screened by CIA first before being published, they go in a mark what can be mentioned and what can't. The author in his foreward mentions how surprised he is at what stuff wasn't deleted. But the things that were deleted are still in there, except now in those sections it looks like someone took a big Sharpee marker and blacked out certain sentances or words. It was cool that the publishers didnt' re-write the text after the CIA blacked out the parts they didn't want civilians to read, they just kept it in there, all blacked out.