While She Knits: Nonfiction, of all things

[checkers65477.livejournal.com]

So, I don't read much nonfiction, not by choice. But lately, I've been thinking a lot about it and reading some, and it has grown on me. 

Anyway.  Who out there reads nonfiction?  What is it that appeals to you?  Does it have to be written more in a narrative style, or do you like hard-core informational books, too?  What have you read that you've liked? 

Comments

[chubbyleng.livejournal.com]

Does a textbook count? XP

Hehe, but to answer seriously, I like books that are a bit psychological. For example, books that tell you how to deal with anger, or how to boost your self-confidence, or... I don't know, what men think, I guess. Although I don't take them too seriously, because it's difficult to box a whole group of people and expect yourself to be able to deal with them in one manner.

The kinds of non-fiction that I can rarely stand (unless it's for a personal project) is historical non-fiction. If they have a more creative side to them like folklore or mythology, maybe I'll read them.

Hmm... I can't think of any specific titles that I've really enjoyed, since I don't read many non-fiction books.

[chubbyleng.livejournal.com]

Oh wait... I think I sort made a wrong impression of myself here. I don't read books just about dealing with anger, but the whole range of human emotions, and why we feel them and why we need them. (Yes, we do need anger too.) Lol. And the whole self-confidence thing includes other topics like beauty, gender roles, misconceptions, etc.

Hehe.

[checkers65477.livejournal.com]

Oh great, now I can no longer picture you as a raving, angry student, hoping against all hope that those nonfiction books will rescue you from your rage. :) Although, that does sort of describe college students, some of the time.

[chubbyleng.livejournal.com]

Hehe. Just making sure!! Although now that I think about it, people dealing with anger don't usually read a book about it.

[(Anonymous)]

I love reading fiction. That is the ultimate thing for me, but I have begun reading more non-fiction recently and I've actually enjoyed the books I have read. I do tend to read more books related to my field, but still, I would never have imagined that I would actually read a non-fiction book for fun. Now, I search for non-fiction books, especially if I like a certain author. Although I love reading fiction, sometimes I finish the book and feel as if it was a waste of time. Of course, the QT books are way different, but not all books are up to that caliber. I do enjoy non-fiction that has a narrative style, but because I have a science background, I can handle a hard-core informational book if the topic is right.

[checkers65477.livejournal.com]

I am reading Nothing Daunted by Dorothy Wickenden, recommended to me by my dad. It's the story of 2 wealthy girls from New England who went to Colorado to teach in 1916. It's a very compelling story, told through letters and journal entries, but somehow is dry and goes off on too many tangents about the time period. Not sure yet how I feel about it.

[philia-fan.livejournal.com]

I think I actually like nonfiction more than I think I do, if that makes any sense at all. I don't tend to choose it often, and I don't think of myself as a big nonfiction reader, but I do have many nonfiction favorites: memoirs by good writers (e.g., This Boy's Life, Iron and Silk, Sleeping Arrangements, Pamuk's Istanbul), essays (e.g. Jeanette Winterson's Art Objects, Nabokov's lectures on literature), odd things that have caught my interest (e.g., The Zuni Man-Woman, Ceremonial Time), books I've read as research but got interested in (The Meso-American Ballgame, Religions of MesoAmerica), and books about the Amazon (The Lost City of Z, Aguirre) or Antarctica (The Worst Journey in the World). So yeah, obviously I am somehow squeezing some nonfiction into my reading. But what I mean about liking it more than I think is that, for instance, I got a book from the library for my daughter's school project on Machiavelli, and I find myself dipping into it every time I see it lying on a table, thinking to myself, "Wow, I didn't even know Machiavelli and daVinci ever met," and I read a chapter at random. So maybe I should choose nonfiction more often.

[aged-crone.livejournal.com]

I love nonfiction. Lots of what I read is history and biography (which of course are often in narrative form). The older ones with extensive, even exhaustive, footnotes are especially enjoyable - it's so interesting to follow the links by hunting down the works that are cited.

Since, being the librarian, I get first dibs on the new books, I often read some of the new nonfiction books on science or whatever that come in at work. Love the Eyewitness books from Dorling Kindersley. And I read cookbooks, and craft books. Also some political and social commentary - Michael Medved, Christine Hoff Summers, Ann Coulter, Mark Steyn, etc. And old travel books, like Emily Kimbrough's books and the series The World in Color with its faboulous maps by Jacques Liozu: http://www.flickr.com/photos/marals/sets/72157611186906082/

And then religious books. If you ever want to feel really, really inferior and unintelligent, tackle St. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica. I haven't been able to get very far into it yet (and we're talking several years of trying), but I shall persevere. Others are less difficult, like the various Catechisms, and Radio Replies by two priests who answered questions on the radio in Australia and in America in, I think, the 1930's, and sundry others.

[(Anonymous)]

Steyn is such a wit! :)

Have you read any Thomas Sowell? Love him! So many wise insights and such clear writing.

--Handmaiden

[aged-crone.livejournal.com]

I've read his columns (at Townhall) but not any of his books.

[sgwordy.livejournal.com]

Oh I quite like non-fiction and read a lot of it. As I recall we exchanged brief comments on this in another WSK. I think I listed a few before but I will again because I've read some great non-fic this year.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
Chasing Aphrodite by Jason Felch
Gang Leader for a Day by Sudhir Venkatesh
Blood and Thunder by Hampton Sides
Moneyball by Michael Lewis
Romanov Riches by Solomon Volkov
Reality is Broken by Jane McGonigal
This I Accomplish by Kyra Hicks (a great one for quilters/crafters)
Death to the BCS by Dan Wetzel
Dark Alliance by Gary Webb

[(Anonymous)]

Overall in my reading life, and definitely recently, I have been more fiction-heavy, but I think there have been times that my ratio of fiction reading to non-fiction reading has been about fifty/fifty. It doesn't really matter to me what style or genre of non-fiction it is as long as the subject interests me, and my range is pretty wide--biography, economics, history, memoir, philosophy, etc.

Is there any particular subject or style that you are drawn to or want recommendations for, Checkers?

Anyway, here are several with different subjects and styles that I enjoyed and would recommend to anyone who is interested in that particular thing:

The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, by Diana Wynne Jones
Snarky commentary on tropes and cliches of the fantasy genre in the form of a travel guide. (The Dark Lord of Derkholm is its counterpart in her fiction writings.)

Undaunted Courage, by Stephen Ambrose
History. About the journey of Lewis and Clark. I thought it told the story well without being draggy.

Jane Austen: A Life, by Claire Tomalin
A biography. Kept my attention throughout.

Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C.S. Lewis, by Michael Ward
I have mentioned this one on Sounis before. The thesis is that each of the Narnia books draws its key symbolism from one of the planets and its various attributes in the Medieval cosmology: LWW draws on Jupiter and his "joviality"; Prince Caspian, a story about war--Mars the god of war, etc. Ward offers a whole new way to look at and understand Narnia that simultaneously makes you say "why didn't anyone ever notice that before?" because it seems so obvious once someone points it out. Scholarly but accessible. Highly recommended.

Amusing Ourselves to Death, by Neal Postman
What is the difference between television and books as media? And how has our culture changed in going from word-based (pre-television) to visual-based as our most important form of communication?

How to Read Slowly, by James Sire
Short, well written, very thoughtful. Highly recommended if one wants to learn how to read with understanding the various forms of writing (fiction, non-fiction, poetry) or analyze a book for its worldview.

The Hiding Place, by Corrie ten Boom
Memoir. The true story of how Miss ten Boom and her family hid and smuggled Jews to safety during WWII, until they were discovered and she and her sister were themselves sent to a concentration camp. A classic.

Curiosities of Puritan Nomenclature, by Charles W. Bardsley
Are there any other name nerds among you Sounisians? This one is all about the naming practices of England in the late 1500s through the 1600s (and just a smidgen of 1700s), with a focus on the Puritans (and, ahem, yes I do own it). A pretty niche recommendation, I suppose ☺. But even if it's not the kind of thing you would want to read for pleasure, it's a very good reference resource if you ever happen to be writing a story set in this era. Thanks to it, when I was reading a book set in the early 1600s this summer and several of the characters had middle names, I was able to say ...um, that's inaccurate. If only the author had known about it...

--Handmaiden

[aged-crone.livejournal.com]

UNDAUNTED COURAGE was good. And have you read his NOTHING LIKE IT IN THE WORLD, about building the transcontinental railroad? (Sorry about the caps, but I can't remember how to do italics and am too lazy to go look).

[(Anonymous)]

Undaunted Courage is the only book of Ambrose's that I have read. I really ought to give some of his others a try since I liked UC.

--Handmaiden

[etv13.livejournal.com]

Anything by John McPhee, but especially The Control of Nature, and Coming into the Country. He is an amazing writer. Bill Bryson is often entertaining and informative. Tony Horwitz, Blue Latitudes, and Confederates in the Attic, the former (partly) about Captain Cook, and the latter (partly) about the Civil War and the way we're still dealing (or failing to deal) with it. Sarah Vowell. Roger Ebert's series of books on The Great Movies. (Also, because I like Old Hollywood, Otto Friedrich's City of Nets, about Hollywood in the 1940's.) Gary Taylor's Reinventing Shakespeare. Bruce Catton's Army of the Potomac trilogy, esp. the last chapter of the middle book, Glory Road. James McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom. A college textbook that turned me on to economic history, J.L. Bolton's The Medieval English Economy. Ruth Reichl's Garlic and Sapphires, about becoming a New York Times restaurant critic, going in in disguise, and what that did to her soul. Jan Brunvand's books of urban legends (start with The Vanishing Hitchhiker). John Keegan's The Mask of Command, about Alexander and Wellington and Ulysses S. Grant. Jack Miles, God, A Biography. Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America, by David Hackett Fisher. Matt Ridley, Genome.

I majored in English, but I also majored in History. Guess it kind of shows.

[aged-crone.livejournal.com]

I love Bruce Catton's Civil War books, not least because of the little anecdotes he puts in that bring people to life - the trading across the river, tobacco for coffee, for example; and one of my personal favorites, about how during a battle the soldiers were not only shooting at each other, they were screaming insults, and two of the combatants got so furiously angry with each other over the insults that on that part of the battle line they called a little truce so those two could go out between the lines and have a fist fight, because shooting at each other just wasn't good enough!

Haven't read MASK OF COMMAND but I may read it because of the Grant part.

[etv13.livejournal.com]

When the Ken Burns Civil War documentary first aired, I watched the first episode because I was living in Manassas at the time, and I got hooked. Then I kept reading because I wanted answers to "What is so great about Lincoln?" (and that reminds, Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals is also great non-fiction) and then, having read Shelby Foote's account of some battle where guys were down in the trenches and every now and then a guy would go up to the top and shoot down at the guys on the other side, and his buddies would send loaded rifles up to him to keep shooting until he himself was shot down, "What would make a person DO that?" So now I have two shelves of an IKEA Billy bookcase filled to overflowing with Civil War books (and I still don't really understand why a person would do that). I also got interested in Grant, and a colleague recommended the Keegan book to me for that reason. The whole book is pretty interesting, with an overriding theme of how commanders become more and more divorced from the fighting itself as time goes on; there are also sections on the WWI "Chateau generals" and Hitler. Catton also has a nice short piece in a collection of his shorter pieces (alas, I got it from the library and don't remember the title) about Grant's heroism at the end of his life, when he completes his memoirs while dying of throat cancer. I noticed a whole book at Barnes & Noble the other day on the same topic.

[checkers65477.livejournal.com]

What got me started on this train of thought was Sugar Changed the World, by Marc Aronson and Marina Budhos. It is brilliant, and I couldn't put it down. I suppose it's written in a more narrative style, but the writing itself is beautiful. You can read Jonathan Hunt's take on it here:

http://blog.schoollibraryjournal.com/heavymedal/2010/12/04/sugar-changed-the-world/

I really think it should have been one of the Newbery winners.

[jennifer19l.livejournal.com]

I really liked this book as well! I'm a fan of the Heavy Medal blog as well and I'd highly recommend Charles and Emma: The Darwin's Leap of Faith by Deborah Heiligman. Also, though I haven't read it yet, I've heard great things about Amelia Lost by Candice Fleming. I just got it out of the library and can't wait to start it. Fleming wrote a book about the Lincolns which was fantastic as well.
The Battle of the Kids's Books at School Library Journal always has some nonfiction selections and I try to read as many as I can each year.

[elvenjaneite.livejournal.com]

I checked out Amelia Lost and then left it at work, but I'm really excited, after reading the Heavy Medal take on it!

(I'm also very distantly related to Amelia Earhart, so there'st hat bonus.)

[sclerotia.livejournal.com]

I would like to second the Charles and Emma recommendation. It is excellent

[diadactic.livejournal.com]

I read a lot of nonfiction and I prefer narrative nonfiction. I like anthologies too. Here are some books I've really liked over the last many years that might interest someone without my special interests:
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer - this is about a boy who built a windmill. It was more interesting to me as being about Malawi and what it's like to be there than about the windmill. William Kamkwamba was born within a year of me and he lives in a world so different from mine- it's amazing. This is a fairly easy read, except emotionally.

Fat: The Anthropology of an Obsession edited Don Kulick and Anne Mendey- I picked this book out because it was a paperback and I was traveling. It's an anthology, so it's not at all uniform but the essays all talk about fat in really different ways.

Muses, Madmen and Prophets: Rethinking Auditory Hallucinations by Daniel B Smith - the author of this book doesn't hear voices but wishes he did. This book looks at history in a way that may give you connections to The Thief.

The Mummy at the Dining Room Table: Eminent Therapists Reveal Their Most Unusual Cases by Jeffrey A Kottler and Jon Carlson is really intense but the authors do a really good job with a series of interviews, with therapists who have really really different takes on what therapy is.

The spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures by Anne Fadiman is a book I walked past many times before I finally checked it out and read it. Whoa! This book will make you think about what medical care is about. It also contains a cultural history you almost certainly don't know yet.

The Octopus and the Orangutan by Eugene Linden is just a fun book of animal stories.

It's Raining Frogs and Fishes: Four Seasons of Natural Phenomena and Oddities of the Sky by Jerry Dennis il Glenn Wolff is really old and really good. It's about stuff you might see or stuff you've never noticed seeing in the sky or stuff you would see if you lived somewhere else. It's an old book and might not be so easy to find.

Proofiness: The Dark Arts of Mathematical Deception by Charles Seife is a book I finished today and it really resonated with me. It's political.

Armed America: Portraits of Gun Owners in Their Homes ph by Kyle Cassidy. Ever wanted to look inside lots of people's homes? This is your chance.

[booksrgood4u.livejournal.com]

I'm not really into non-fiction, it feel a little to much like s-c-h-o-o-l-w-o-r-k. However I read a book about body language recently and I thought it was pretty good, the subject was very interesting and I liked the authors style. For the life of me, I can't remember the title or the authors name, but it was written by an ex-FBI agent......Joe something....Okay, got it, thank goodness for internet searches!
What Every BODY is saying: An Ex-FBI agent's guide ot speed reading people by Joe Navarro.

[elvenjaneite.livejournal.com]

I definitely tend more towards fiction, and my nf has to be fairly narrative. One I did enjoy recently is "The Dead Beat" by Marilyn Johnson. All about obituaries, and very fascinating! I also read "London Under" recently, which I had super mixed feelings about. The topic is really neat, but the writing style drove me insane.

[filkferengi]

I don't read much nonfiction. Usually I watch it, on PBS or similar channels, or BookTV [lots of videos are online here: http://www.booktv.org/schedule.aspx ], usually history or science. Ze spouse prefers politics & presidents.

I enjoyed these, though:

Randy O. Frost & Gail Steketee--Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding & The Meaning Of Things [how & why hoarders hoard]

Don Aslett--Clutter’s Last Stand [funny & useful]

Louann Brizendine, M. D.--The Female Brain

Bill Bryson--At Home: A Short History Of Private Life

More on-topic here, you might also enjoy _Fearless Girls, Wise Women & Beloved Sisters: Heroines in Folktales from Around the World_ edited by Kathleen Ragan, with a foreword by Jane Yolen.

[deirdrej.livejournal.com]

I actually love nonfiction, especially if it's about natural history or literature.

Handmaiden, I absolutely agree with you about Planet Narnia. I loved that book -- in a way, it was like reading "The Thief," because I kept saying to myself, OH! That was SO OBVIOUS! Why didn't I see it?

I love the Scientists in the Field series (though the latest one, Elephant Scientist, irked me with a bout of bad grammar, about which I ranted in a review). Animal stories, like Helen Brown's "Cleo" are also good imo, and I love the essays of G. K. Chesterton, James Thurber, E. B. White, & Flannery O'Connor.

An author I adore, & who hasn't been mentioned here yet, is Carlos Eire. I just reread the 2nd vol. of his autobiography, "Learning to Die in Miami." (The 1st vol., "Waiting for Snow in Havana," won the National Book Award a few years back). He's got what the British (or at least C. S. Lewis) would call a very taking style. His writing is entertaining & carries you along, but gives you a lot to think about at the same time. My dad and I are also reading his "Very Brief History of Eternity," & we both think it's great.

Happy reading, everyone, & goodnight!

~D. (who just started rereading the Queen's Thief series -- again!)