I am reading Dongri to Dubai by S. Hussain Zaidi.
Growing up in Mumbai in the 1980s/90s, I remember reading news stories about the Mumbai gang wars.
This book covers that in great detail and as such qualifies as a genuine history book.
And yet, it reads like a potboiler. It is essentially unputdownable.
10/10
by ta9876543205
8 Comments
Start with Zinn.
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote is another book like that. Absolutely recommend that one to anyone who craves good True Crime
*The Perfect Storm* and *Into Think Air* are nonfiction books that read like fiction. *The Right Stuff*, too.
I went through a “New Journalism” phase a few years ago.
Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe
Ghost Wars (or anything else) by Steve Coll
I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai and Christina Lamb (way deeper than I thought it would be!)
Robert Caro’s LBJ books, especially Master of the Senate
The Big Short by Michael Lewis
Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
Legacy of Ashes by Tim Weiner (not sure everything he discusses is really verifiable—got panned by some legitimate historians)
The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman
River of Darkness by Buddy Levy.
The Johnstown Flood, by David McCullough
Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann.
The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson