OT: Recommend some good non-fiction reading
I realized recently my reading taste has started to favor non-fiction. Right now I'm reading Malcom Gladwell's "Outliers", bought "Tipping Point" at the same time, and will pick up "Blink" soon. He's a fun author.
Anyone got some good ones? Bonus points if they're a little under the radar.
On the Shackleton....
Any discussion of (American) non-fiction has to include John McPhee. I especially liked Founding Fish, Annals of the Former World and Survival of the Bark Canoe, but there's lots of it - all great, Also love Jim Harrison's The Raw and the Cooked. Dude is both a Sparty and a complete diva, but love his writing.
"Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood & the Prison of Belief" by Lawrence Wright
It's the book the recent HBO documentary was based on. Absolutely fascinating and terrifying read. And as well as that doc was made, the book is even crazier.
Seconded. I though it would be kind of a chore to read, but I couldn't put it down.
Hey! Two lawrence wright's in a row. Obviously a great writer.
"The Guns of August" by Barbara Tuckman is a great history of the history of the beginnings of WWI. Those European monarchs were crazy and we are still paying for their mistakes!
"The Big Short" by Michael Lewis is an interesting explanation of part of the reason for the recent economic recession.
"The Making of the Atomic Bomb" by Richard Rhodes is a detailed history of the science behind nuclear fission and the associated military history. Rhodes is one of the best authors and his autobiography is one of the saddest and most inspiring books I've read.
"The Lost City of Z" by David Grann
"In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex" by Nathaniel Philbrick. Read it before Hollywood gums it up.
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Unbroken made my recent 12 hour flight go by much smoother. I devoured it. I'll download a recommended book from this thread for my flight back. It makes it easier to avoid work with a good read in hand. Avoiding work becomes even easier when economy class morphs me into T-Rex arms when trying to use my laptop.
Manhunt: the hunt for Lincoln's Assassins, by James L. Swanson
Helmet for my Pillow: Robert Leckie's WWII memoir
First Light: Wellum, a British WWII Spitfire Pilot's memoir
The Killer Angels (Pulitzer Prize Winner): Historical Fiction on the Battle of Gettysburg
Arc of Justice by Kevin Boyle. It is an account of a black man (Ossian Sweet) who moved to Detroit in the 1920s. A mob of local whites gathered outside of his house, and one of the protestors was shot and killed. Clarence Darrow ended up defending Sweet, and I think Frank Murphy (future governor of Michigan and Supreme Court Justice) was the judge in the case. The author went to Michigan for his PhD (yay!) then taught at OSU for a while (boo!) and now is at Northwestern (uh, fine?). He studied with the legendary Sidney Fine--I'm guessing more than a few of us on the board took a class with Fine during his many decades in the history department.
Did it say that the Apple logo is a tribute to Alan Turing? Because Steve Jobs himself said that it's not.
Yes. He said they chose Apple because it would mean they were near the front of the phone book.
Michael Lewis is great. There are the sports ones, Money Ball and The Blind Side, but I prefer the financial stuff. I just finished Flash Boys recently. The Big Short was also a really good explanation as to what happened with the financial collapse.
Other stuff: I recommend Nudge to everyone who asks for any book recommendation. Really enjoyed Born to Run, too.
Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors
House to House
Outlaw Platoon
Last Stand of Fox Company
Unbroken
Undaunted Courage
Fearless
If you like other non-war non-fiction:
Endurance
Into Thin Air
In the Heart of the Sea
River of Doubt
Destiny of the Republic
The Devil in the White City
The Big Short
Hatching Twitter
The Everything Store
I've got lots more...I read 20-25/yr and 90%+ are non-fiction.
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"Bonk" is interesting and hilarious.
So is "Stiff" by Roach.
Similarly, I like Sarah Vowell's works too. 'Assassination Vacation' was particularly good. It's a bit like Roach in style, but Roach is more science and Vowell is more history.
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The story of the authorizing of the first 6 frigates of the United States Navy: The USS Constitution along with her sister ships President, Constellation, United States, Chesapeake, and Congress. If your into Naval History, reading about these ships going up against the might of the greatest navy in the world by far at that time - The British Fleet - during the war of 1812 never fails to elicit patriotic feelings.
"Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman is a really great book about the process of thinking. It speaks to some of the easy traps we all fall into in terms of thought error. He also mentions his time at the University of Michigan quite fondly. Very interesting.
"The Signal and the Noise" by Nate Silver is supposed to be a great read. He's the guy behind fivethirtyeight.com, which successfully predicted the outcome of the 2008 election in remarkably accurate fashion. It's about using statistics more effectively.
We may have two winners here.
We may have two winners here.
For independent study in grad school I got to pick a whole bunch of books having to do with stuff I liked, basically. (Loosely supposed to have to do with choice architecture and stats.) My prof knows Kahneman and said it's a good book but really dense, so he didn't recommend it as something that can be gotten through too easily.
We did read Signal and the Noise. It wasn't bad. But it was a lot of Nate Silver bragging about how great he is. And I love Nate Silver, so I can put up with a lot of that.
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Skeptical when I saw the ambition of the book: "a world history that really is a history of all the world's peoples, a unified narrative of human life." But it has lived up to it so far.
i liked GJS so much I got "Collapse" - possibly it was my mood but the book just seemed too depressing and I barely made a dent in it. It's about societies collapsing so it also just may be really depressing. GJS is a ton of fun, though.
Sadeto
For a funny and informative science read, try What If? by Randall Munroe. He also has an app that he updates pretty regularly with new What If's.
I'm currenly reading Dead Wake by Erik Larson about the sinking of the Lusitania. It's okay. Doesn't compare to his Devil in the White City.
If you like that, you should check out Hyperbole and a Half. Different approach, similarly irreverent.
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The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas Stanley. Great insights into how ordinary Americans accumulate and preserve wealth. It's a sociological analysis but is very accessible and written for a non-academic audience.
Though it's not something you read per se, but if you're into history Dan Carlin's "Hardcore History" podcast is simply one of the best things out there. They're actually more like mini-audio books ranging from 2-4+ hours. And they're free.
He just released the final installment of his 6 part tale of WWI. It's absolutely amazing and honestly I'm just using this thread to promote it because I can't recommend it enough. Living in Los Angeles, where like 60% of my time is spent sitting in traffic, these have been amazing.
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