In the mood for some enlightening, eye-opening and well-written non-fiction. Recommend me your favourite ones. My favourite topics are anything science-related (astronomy, evolution, biology, dinosaurs etc.), travelogues and travel writing, and history.
Some of my favourite ones for reference:
– into thin air by John krakauer
– endurance by alfred lansing
– a short history of nearly everything by bill bryson (and anything else by bryson)
– all of richard dawkins’ books
– all of carl sagan’s books
– the emperor of all maladies by sid chakravarty
– the spy and the traitor by ben mcintyre
– coming into the country by john mcfee
– your inner fish by neil shubin
– the snow leopard by peter mathiessen
– the rise and fall of the dinosaurs by steven brusatte
– killers of the flower moon by david grann
– undaunted courage by steven e. ambrose
– liberation trilogy by rick atkinson
What are the other best non-fiction books you’ve read?
by I_hate_humanity_69
12 Comments
Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott!
The Modern Mind by Peter Watson
All books by Bill Bryson
From Dawn to Decadence by Jacques Barzon
An Immense World by Ed Yong
Since you like biology, I recommend one of my favorite non-fiction books: *The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks* by Rebecca Skloot
I read a lot of non-fiction and my interests are all over the place.
Most books by Mary Roach. For me especially Stiff and Gulp.
I surprisingly loved Shady Characters The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols & Other Typographical Marks by Keith Houston [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17573647-shady-characters](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17573647-shady-characters)
The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41881472-the-psychology-of-money](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41881472-the-psychology-of-money)
The Woman They Could Not Silence: One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men Who Tried to Make Her Disappear by Kate Moore [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56132724-the-woman-they-could-not-silence](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56132724-the-woman-they-could-not-silence)
The Ends of the World: Supervolcanoes, Lethal Oceans, and the Search for Past Apocalypses by Peter Brannen [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32075449-the-ends-of-the-world](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32075449-the-ends-of-the-world)
Land by Simon Winchester. Very informative.
A Fever in the Heartland by Timothy Egan. Not enough people talk about this book.
Ed Yong, An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us
You will love this book, I fully assure you! It delves so deep into the sensory world of animals that you’re asked (literally, within the opening 10 minutes of the book) to imagine senses that you simply don’t have the tools to understand.
He does this by describing a cosy living room. He then builds the scene hu introducing a wide array of animals – an elephant, spider, mouse etc – and brilliantly explaining what each can sense *or not* at that moment.
And then it gets really good!!
You might really like *The Periodic Table* by Primo Levi. He was a Jewish-Italian chemist and WW2 camp survivor. The book consists of 21 elements from the periodic table (hence the title), which he interweaves into 21 short stories about his experiences before, during, and after the war. It’s beautifully written, harrowing, and has that history/science edge you seem to enjoy.
A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson
In Cold Blood by Capote.