06-11-2011, 07:39 AM | #16 |
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Thanks for your recommendations , arkivaren! I see that you have many and varied interests. I like that in a fellow nonfiction reader
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06-12-2011, 10:57 AM | #17 |
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Likewise
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06-29-2011, 01:15 PM | #18 |
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Haven't updated this in a while. Here is a " Best Nonfiction All-Time List" by the editorial board of the Modern Library, of Random House, Inc.
THE EDUCATION OF HENRY ADAMS by Henry Adams THE VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE by William James UP FROM SLAVERY by Booker T. Washington A ROOM OF ONE’S OWN by Virginia Woolf SILENT SPRING by Rachel Carson SELECTED ESSAYS, 1917-1932 by T. S. Eliot THE DOUBLE HELIX by James D. Watson SPEAK, MEMORY by Vladimir Nabokov THE AMERICAN LANGUAGE by H. L. Mencken THE GENERAL THEORY OF EMPLOYMENT, INTEREST, AND MONEY by John Maynard Keynes THE LIVES OF A CELL by Lewis Thomas THE FRONTIER IN AMERICAN HISTORY by Frederick Jackson Turner BLACK BOY by Richard Wright ASPECTS OF THE NOVEL by E. M. Forster THE CIVIL WAR by Shelby Foote THE GUNS OF AUGUST by Barbara Tuchman THE PROPER STUDY OF MANKIND by Isaiah Berlin THE NATURE AND DESTINY OF MAN by Reinhold Niebuhr NOTES OF A NATIVE SON by James Baldwin THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS by Gertrude Stein THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE by William Strunk and E. B. White AN AMERICAN DILEMMA by Gunnar Myrdal PRINCIPIA MATHEMATICA by Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell THE MISMEASURE OF MAN by Stephen Jay Gould THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP by Meyer Howard Abrams THE ART OF THE SOLUBLE by Peter B. Medawar THE ANTS by Bert Hoelldobler and Edward O. Wilson A THEORY OF JUSTICE by John Rawls ART AND ILLUSION by Ernest H. Gombrich THE MAKING OF THE ENGLISH WORKING CLASS by E. P. Thompson THE SOULS OF BLACK FOLK by W.E.B. Du Bois PRINCIPIA ETHICA by G. E. Moore PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION by John Dewey ON GROWTH AND FORM by D’Arcy Thompson IDEAS AND OPINIONS by Albert Einstein THE AGE OF JACKSON, Arthur Schlesinger by Jr. THE MAKING OF THE ATOMIC BOMB by Richard Rhodes BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON by Rebecca West AUTOBIOGRAPHIES by W. B. Yeats SCIENCE AND CIVILIZATION IN CHINA by Joseph Needham GOODBYE TO ALL THAT by Robert Graves HOMAGE TO CATALONIA by George Orwell THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MARK TWAIN by Mark Twain CHILDREN OF CRISIS by Robert Coles A STUDY OF HISTORY by Arnold J. Toynbee THE AFFLUENT SOCIETY by John Kenneth Galbraith PRESENT AT THE CREATION by Dean Acheson THE GREAT BRIDGE by David McCullough PATRIOTIC GORE by Edmund Wilson SAMUEL JOHNSON by Walter Jackson Bate THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MALCOLM X by Alex Haley and Malcolm X THE RIGHT STUFF by Tom Wolfe EMINENT VICTORIANS by Lytton Strachey WORKING by Studs Terkel DARKNESS VISIBLE by William Styron THE LIBERAL IMAGINATION by Lionel Trilling THE SECOND WORLD WAR by Winston Churchill OUT OF AFRICA by Isak Dinesen JEFFERSON AND HIS TIME by Dumas Malone IN THE AMERICAN GRAIN by William Carlos Williams CADILLAC DESERT by Marc Reisner THE HOUSE OF MORGAN by Ron Chernow THE SWEET SCIENCE by A. J. Liebling THE OPEN SOCIETY AND ITS ENEMIES by Karl Popper THE ART OF MEMORY by Frances A. Yates RELIGION AND THE RISE OF CAPITALISM by R. H. Tawney A PREFACE TO MORALS by Walter Lippmann THE GATE OF HEAVENLY PEACE by Jonathan D. Spence THE STRUCTURE OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTIONS by Thomas S. Kuhn THE STRANGE CAREER OF JIM CROW by C. Vann Woodward THE RISE OF THE WEST by William H. McNeill THE GNOSTIC GOSPELS by Elaine Pagels JAMES JOYCE by Richard Ellmann FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE by Cecil Woodham-Smith THE GREAT WAR AND MODERN MEMORY by Paul Fussell THE CITY IN HISTORY by Lewis Mumford BATTLE CRY OF FREEDOM by James M. McPherson WHY WE CAN’T WAIT by Martin Luther King by Jr. THE RISE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT by Edmund Morris STUDIES IN ICONOLOGY by Erwin Panofsky THE FACE OF BATTLE by John Keegan THE STRANGE DEATH OF LIBERAL ENGLAND by George Dangerfield VERMEER by Lawrence Gowing A BRIGHT SHINING LIE by Neil Sheehan WEST WITH THE NIGHT by Beryl Markham THIS BOY’S LIFE by Tobias Wolff A MATHEMATICIAN’S APOLOGY by G. H. Hardy SIX EASY PIECES by Richard P. Feynman PILGRIM AT TINKER CREEK by Annie Dillard THE GOLDEN BOUGH by James George Frazer SHADOW AND ACT by Ralph Ellison THE POWER BROKER by Robert A. Caro THE AMERICAN POLITICAL TRADITION by Richard Hofstadter THE CONTOURS OF AMERICAN HISTORY by William Appleman Williams THE PROMISE OF AMERICAN LIFE by Herbert Croly IN COLD BLOOD by Truman Capote THE JOURNALIST AND THE MURDERER by Janet Malcolm THE TAMING OF CHANCE by Ian Hacking OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS by Anne Lamott MELBOURNE by Lord David Cecil The List plus an alternative list by readers HERE Can personally recommend Tuchman, Neihbur, McPherson , Pagels, Strunk & White, and Fussell Last edited by stonetools; 06-29-2011 at 01:22 PM. |
06-29-2011, 01:36 PM | #19 |
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For something that's fresher here is a list from The Atlantic Magazine of the 100 best pieces of journalism for 2010:
nearly-100-fantastic-pieces-of-journalism You can use either Read It Later or Instapaper to save these articles from the Web to your reading devices, and read them later in a more reader-friendly format. |
07-04-2011, 07:52 AM | #20 |
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I can recommend just about anything by Bill Bryson especially The Mother Tongue which is a history of the English language. Also A Short History of Nearly Everything and At Home which is a history of private life (mostly homes) and how they got to be the way they are today.
Last edited by MickeyC; 07-04-2011 at 05:57 PM. |
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07-04-2011, 07:58 PM | #21 | |
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07-05-2011, 03:23 PM | #22 | |
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Quote:
The best crime nonfiction book that I have read is : Homicide, David Simon It chronicles a year in the life of some homicide detectives in Baltimore City in the year 1988. If you want the gritty , "hard boiled " reality of how big city homicide detectives do their work, then this is the book for you. I was in Baltimore at the time and had some contact with that milieu, and he was spot on. This was the same David Simon who went on to create several award winning TV series, including one based on the book. |
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07-05-2011, 05:11 PM | #23 | |
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And I notice wide differences among those. Two giant opus like A THEORY OF JUSTICE by John Rawls and THE ART OF MEMORY by Dame Frances A. Yates should not be in the same list as the others. Yes, the Cambridge lectures by Forster are deliciously witty, Out of Africa is a literary masterpiece, Goodbye to all that is a touching and poetic autobiography. But to me they look like dwarfs compared to the other two. I am ready to bet that there are no more than 6 living people that have read and understood The Art of Memory, certainly not me that I am struggling with it since more than XX years. |
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07-05-2011, 06:02 PM | #24 |
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Pulitzer Prize Nonfiction Winners for past two years:
2010: The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy by David E. Hoffman The Evolution of God by Robert Wright How Markets Fail: The Logic of Economic Calamities by John Cassidy 2011: Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas G. Carr Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History by S.C. Gwynne The complete list since 1962: LINK |
07-05-2011, 06:13 PM | #25 |
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Of those I am afraid that I read only
Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter very funny. |
07-05-2011, 08:13 PM | #26 |
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Recently read (in no particular order):
1. Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks - Rebecca Skloot 2. Hunting Eichmann - Neil Bascomb 3. Shock Doctrine: Disaster Capitalism - Naomi Klein (should be required reading for every American, IMHO) 4. Killer Politics - Ed Schultz 5. Right is Wrong: How the Lunatic Fringe Hijacked America, Shredded the Constitution, and Made Us All Less Safe - Arianna Huffington 6. Trainwreck: The End of the Conservative Revolution (and Not a Moment Too Soon) - Bill Press 7. The Assault On Reason - Al Gore 8. Holy Blood, Holy Grail - Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh & Henry Lincoln To Be Read (in no particular order): 1. Hostile Takeover - David Sirota 2. Back to Our Future: How the 1980s Explain the World We Live in Now—Our Culture, Our Politics, Our Everything - David Sirota 3. Talking To Girls About Duran Duran - Rob Sheffield 4. Love Is A Mix Tape - Rob Sheffield |
07-11-2011, 05:30 PM | #27 |
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Just finished The Perfect Storm, by Sebastian Junger. It was well written, but showed its origins as based on a long magazine article. I got it for a deal on Amazon.
The book makes clear that fishing is a tough, dirty, and dangerous profession. Things are worse now, because they have to go out further and stay longer to find ever scarcer fish. It was precisely because of this that one boat owner stayed out as long as he could to get as big a catch as possible, despite being alertyed to bad weather. He tried his luck-and he and his crew paid the ultimate price. My next nonfiction will be Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food, which discusses the attempt to supply humanity's needs for seafood in the face of the collapse of the world's fisheries. |
07-11-2011, 05:53 PM | #28 | |
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07-12-2011, 04:04 AM | #29 |
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I read a book about bicycling called Bike Snob. It was actually pretty good, but I like riding bicycles so your mileage may vary.
At the moment (not this exact one??) I'm reading Digital Barbarism, it's a kind of diatribe about the virtues of an almost perpetual copyright. I'm not sure if I'll finish it though since the author just seems to insult everyone he mentions who opposes his viewpoints. |
07-12-2011, 04:07 AM | #30 | |
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http://www.amazon.com/Bike-Snob-Syst.../dp/0811869989 I'm a casual (for simple pleasure, not commute), if constant, "hybrid" bike, bike-path cyclist, riding about 90-100km a week. Do you think I might enjoy it or is it more for the lycranaut set? Cheers, Marc |
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