Non-Fiction You Love

[Leilamus]

Have you read any non-fiction that you just couldn't put down? I always hear about fiction that folks stayed up late reading but not non-fiction. I wonder if it's the genre or if people just aren't talking about it as much since most tend to read more fiction than non. I'm on the look for a new book to read and would love anything that's a real page turner so I don't care if it's fiction or not. I'd like to start reading some more non-fiction but I'd like something that will really pull me in. Anyone recommend something that they loved? TIA!!!

[A&A]

Have you ever read The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother ? It's really good.

[St. Margaret]

I don't tend to read a lot of auto/biographies, which I think are the most likely to be page-turners like fiction. But I have been on a huge nonfiction kick the last two years (normally I am ALL fiction).

Barbara Kingsolver's essays, like Small Wonder and High Tide in Tuscon, are great. And David Sedaris

I have been using Women Who Run with the Wolves as research, reading it over a year or so, and I LOVE LOVE LOVE this book.

Last Child in the Woods, The Omnivour's Dilemma, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and Bill Bryson's books-- all of them!-- are all great.

Okay, I've contributed... now I get to sit back and get a lot of great nonfic recs, right?

[Arduinna]

The Heroin Diaries by Nikki Sixx
Called Out of Darkness Anne Rice
The Holy Longing Ronald Rolheiser

[TEAK's Mom]

A History of Reading by Alberto Manuel was stupendous.

[crittersmum]

Originally Posted by St. Margaret

I don't tend to read a lot of auto/biographies, which I think are the most likely to be page-turners like fiction. But I have been on a huge nonfiction kick the last two years (normally I am ALL fiction).

Barbara Kingsolver's essays, like Small Wonder and High Tide in Tuscon, are great. And David Sedaris

I have been using Women Who Run with the Wolves as research, reading it over a year or so, and I LOVE LOVE LOVE this book.

Last Child in the Woods, The Omnivour's Dilemma, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and Bill Bryson's books-- all of them!-- are all great.

Okay, I've contributed... now I get to sit back and get a lot of great nonfic recs, right?

Yes, yes, yes. I am definitely raiding your bookshelf! I'd like to add "anything by Jared Diamond."

[carriebft]

Elizabeth and Mary: Cousins, Rivals, Queens by Jane Dunn


The Circus Fire: A True Story of an American Tragedy by Stewart O'Nan


The Six Wives of Henry VIII by Alison Weir

I love reading about French and British history, esp biographies, but I also love the 'autobiographies' that Margaret George has written about King Henry VIII, Mary Queen of Scots, etc. They are obviously fiction because they are 'pretend' autobiographies but they are based in the facts surrounding these lives.

[Ms Apricot]

West With the Night by Beryl Markham.

Bill Bryson's travel books

Stephen Jay Gould's books about evolution

[Leilamus]

Thank you all!!! I'm making up a list and we're heading out to the library later this afternoon. woo hoo!

[Katie Bugs Mama]

The Hemingses of Monticello

Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy

Shakespeare: The Biography

Queen of Scots: The True Life of Mary Stuart

Queen Isabella: Treachery, Adultery, and Murder in Medieval England

[superstella]

I read nonfiction way more than fiction, here are some of my favorites:

Farewell, My Subaru - Doug Fine - loved this one, just finished yesterday

a long way gone - Ishmael Beah

Not Even My Name - Thea Halo

The $64 Tomato -William Alexander

A Primate's Memoir: A Neuroscientist's Unconventional Life Among the Baboons by Robert M. Sapolsky - loved this one

Eleni - Nicholas Gage

No One Makes You Shop at Wal-Mart

[Tra1978]

I really liked The Prisoner of Tehran by Marina Nemat. It was a real page turner.

[meemee]

the places in between by rory stewart.

i cant remember the titles of these books but one was a history of the world in a nutshell and another was tracing gypsy history. v. v. fascinating.

oooh another lover of bill bryson.

gerald durrell - animal collector who left me in splits.

covering - kenji yoshino

grace and grit by ken wilbur and others by ken wilbur

krishnamurti

[St. Margaret]

Originally Posted by crittersmum

Yes, yes, yes. I am definitely raiding your bookshelf! I'd like to add "anything by Jared Diamond."

Oooh! oooh! If you like all of that stuff, then I assume I'll like him! I'm going to scope him out at the library tomorrow! Thanks!

[mammastar2]

I really enjoyed The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion. It's about her first year after her husband's death.

[Ms Apricot]

Originally Posted by mammastar2

I really enjoyed The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion. It's about her first year after her husband's death.

That is a fantastic book. She is so honest. It's heartbreaking but bracing at the same time.

Race Against Time by Stephen Lewis is also compelling - about HIV/AIDS in Africa. His rage vibrates off the page.

[dawningmama]

Animal Vegetable Miracle by Barara Kingsolver

The Ethical Slut by Dossie Easton and Cathering A. Liszt

All of the Maya Angelou autobiographies. They are all amazing.

Backlash by Susan Faludi

Fat!So? by Marilyn Wann

[That Is Nice]

I echo what many of you have already listed...

I'll add:

The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman
The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls

[myjo]

Anything by Barbara Kingsolver if you're at all into environmentalism. I've got her new book on hold at the library.

Any of Wendell Barry's essay collections, they're beautiful and brilliant.

Anything by Gene Logsdon, especially if you're into homesteading or farming.

Family Matters: Why Homeschooling Works by David Guterson

Anything by John Taylor Gatto

The Omnivore's Dilemma

[crittersmum]

Originally Posted by St. Margaret

Oooh! oooh! If you like all of that stuff, then I assume I'll like him! I'm going to scope him out at the library tomorrow! Thanks!

Oops! Now you've made me nervous. He's definitely hard science and a dense read...a bit different than the other books on your shelf!

For those of you who read The Omnivore's Dilemma (which I loved) what did you do with the information once you'd read it? After I'd read it I felt like whole new parts of my brain had been turned on...but I haven't made any changes in my life or the way I eat.