I don’t read much non fiction, but would like to start. I enjoyed all of Jon Krakauer’s books, but other than that I’ve struggled to find any engaging. I’m not fussed on the topic, I enjoy a lot of history podcasts so open to anything. The only thing is I would prefer reading about one event or person, rather than, for example, the history of the Roman Empire, which has lots of individual stories. Any ideas at all appreciated!
by lexa8429
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Unbroken – Laura Hildenbrand
The Boys in the Boat – Daniel James Brown
Elon Musk – Walter Isaacson
Steve Jobs – Walter Isaacson (Not a fan)
Elon Musk – Ashlee Vance
Fearless – Eric Blehm
Undisputed Truth – Mike Tyson
Tiger Woods – Jeff Benedict
Jon Krakauer + single event brought to mind *Touching the Void* by Joe Simpson. Will try to think of more histories of an event that deal only with event not chain leading up to and away from it.
Manhunt-The 12-Day Search for Lincoln’s Killer
Operation Mincemeat by Ben Macintyre
The Burglary by Betty Medsger
Death in the Air by Kate Winkler Dawson
Longitude by Dava Sobel
The Lost City of Z by David Grann
The Killlers of the Flower Moon by David Grann (anything by this author)
Catch and Kill by Ronan Farrow
Bad Blood by John Carreyrou (terrific book about now-incarcerated Elizabeth Holmes and her Theranos blood testing company)
Strength In What Remains by Tracy Kidder (he has written other good books, too) (our book group still talks about how good this book is)
Appetite For Life by Noel Riley Fitch (amazing Julia Child biography)
{{Unbroken}} – Laura Hildenbrand
{{The Billion Dollar Spy}}
Dead Wake by Erik Larson. It’s about the sinking of a passenger ship at the start of WW2. Also Smoke Screen by Robert Sabbag. An adventure story about drug smugglers
Isaac’s Storm by Erik Larsen
*The Battle That Stopped Rome: Emperor Augustus, Arminius, and the Slaughter of the Legions in the Teutoburg Forest* by Peter S. Wells.
Failure Is Not an Option – Gene Kranz
Fair warning some of these recs can get pretty graphic
Stalingrad by Antony Beevor
Shake Hands With The Devil by Romeo Daillaire
Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang
The Wager/Lost City/Killers of the Flower Moon all by David Grann
Pretty much anything by Ben Macintyre, hes phenominal in this type of writing.
Absolutely Tunnel 29 by Helena Merriman – about the Berlin Wall going up and a resistance effort to dig a tunnel under it to help people escape East Berlin. It’s gripping and reads like a thriller.
Anything by Erik Larson is great. He’s famous for *Devil in the White City*, about America’s first urban serial killer.
*The Indifferent Stars Above* by Daniel James Brown is popular, it’s about the Donner Party.
*King Leopold’s Ghost* by Adam Hochschild. It’s about Belgium’s colonization of the Congo River territory in Africa, and how they brutally forced the locals into labor harvesting rubber.
**The Ghost Map** by *Steven Johnson* is about the 1854 London cholera outbreak and the efforts of Dr. John Snow to stop the outbreak and prevent others while unknowingly becoming the “father of epidemiology.”
Gone at 3:17 by David Brown and Michael Wereschagin
To Sleep With the Angels by David Cowan and John Kuenster
Killer Show by John Barylick
Fire in the Grove by John Esposito
The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See
The Black Count by Tom Reiss.