Books: Favourite Non-Fiction Books?

[MrFunnyWobbl]

Curious to see everyone's favourite non-fiction books.

Just started The Big Short, It's pretty solid.

I'm a big fan of the Freakonomics series myself.

Also just read Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky, which was a good read.

Click to read more...

 

[Jumptheshark]

Most John Keegan books are a great read

 

[themightyquinn]

My choice: "To Rule the Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the Modern World" by Arthur Herman.

It has a target audience (politics, history, war) but is very well written and the stories are great. Would recommend it to anyone with even a passing interest in politics/history/war.

 

[Wee Baby Seamus]

Postwar by Tony Judt is top of my list.

 

[Ceremony]

Orwell's Essays

 

[tony d]

I enjoy reading political non fiction books or autobiographies on them. Always nice to read back on events that happened at 1 time. Currently reading 1 on Winston Churchill (The Last Lion)

 

[Eco]

Shoe Dog - Memoir of Nike founder Phil Knight

Meditations - Marcus Aurelius

 

[Hippasus]

Gottlob Frege: Basic Laws of Arithmetic: derived using concept-script (2 vols. bound as one)
Gottlob Frege, edited by Terrell Ward Bynum: Conceptual Notation: and related articles
Various authors, edited by Hans Sluga: The Philosophy of Frege (4 vols.)
Gottlob Frege, edited by Michael Beaney: The Frege Reader
Gottlob Frege: Logical Investigations
Erich H. Reck, Steve Awodey, Gottlob Frege, Rudolf Carnap: Frege's Lectures on Logic: Carnap's student notes, 1910-1914
Michael Beaney: Frege: making sense
Richard Dedekind: Essays on the Theory of Numbers (not finished yet)
Ludwig Wittgenstein: Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosophical Investigations
Friedrich Nietzsche: On the Genealogy of Morals: a polemic
Friedrich Nietzsche: The Birth of Tragedy: out of the spirit of music
Friedrich Nietzsche: Thus Spoke Zarathustra: a book for all and none (this probably shouldn't count, but it has similar intentions to a non-fiction book)
Arthur Schopenhauer, edited by R. J. Hollingdale: Essays and Aphorisms

 

[kihei]

On Movies, by Dwight Macdonald
God Is Not Great, by Christopher Hitchens
I Lost It at the Movies, by Paulene Kael
Tune In: The Beatles - All These Years, Vol. 1, by Mark Lewisohn
Portrait of a Marriage, by Nigel Nicholson
Gabriel Faure: A Musical Life, by Jean-Michel Nectoux
Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, by Tom Wolfe
Truffaut, by Anoine de Baecque and Serge Toubiana
Paris to the Moon, by Adam Gopnik
A Moveable Feast, by Ernest Hemingway
Travels. by Paul Bowles
Miami and the Siege of Chicago, by Norman Mailer
Against Interpretation, by Susan Sontag
The Year of Magical Thinking, by Joan Didion
Speak, Memory, by Vladimir Nabokov
Living to Tell the Tale, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
A Tramp Abroad, by Mark Twain
The Innocents Abroad, by Mark Twain
Wind, Sand and Stars, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
An Anthropologist on Mars, by Oliver Sacks
Consider the Lobster, by David Foster Wallace
Experience: A Memoir, by Martin Amis
Chagall: Life and Works, by Franz Meyer
The Richard Burton Diaries, edited by Chris Williams
The City of Falling Angels (Venice), by John Berendt
Acquainted with the Night: Excursions through the World after Dark, by Christopher Dewdney
The Evil Hours : A Biography of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, by David J. Morris
My War Gone By, I Miss It So, by Anthony Loyd
Days of Grace: A Memoir, by Arthur Ashe
Open, by Andre Agassi
Over Time: My Life as a Sportswriter, by Frank Deford
The Game, by Ken Dryden
The Long Season, by Jim Brosnan
The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, by Bill James

 

[Osprey]

I'm a big fan of the Freakonomics series myself.

I'm a big fan of Freakonomics, as well. If you haven't yet, check out the books of Malcolm Gladwell. They are very much like Freakonomics and just as popular. The Tipping Point (which I think is the one that really made him famous and is also the one that got me into him) is probably the one to start with, but they're all good and accessible.

 

[kmad]

No contest

 

[Oscar Acosta]

The Autobiography of Malcolm X

 

[member 51464]

On Movies, by Dwight Macdonald
God Is Not Great, by Christopher Hitchens
I Lost It at the Movies, by Paulene Kael
Tune In: The Beatles - All These Years, Vol. 1, by Mark Lewisohn
Portrait of a Marriage, by Nigel Nicholson
Gabriel Faure: A Musical Life, by Jean-Michel Nectoux
Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, by Tom Wolfe
Truffaut, by Anoine de Baecque and Serge Toubiana
Paris to the Moon, by Adam Gopnik
A Moveable Feast, by Ernest Hemingway
Travels. by Paul Bowles
Miami and the Siege of Chicago, by Norman Mailer
Against Interpretation, by Susan Sontag
The Year of Magical Thinking, by Joan Didion
Speak, Memory, by Vladimir Nabokov
Living to Tell the Tale, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
A Tramp Abroad, by Mark Twain
The Innocents Abroad, by Mark Twain
Wind, Sand and Stars, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
An Anthropologist on Mars, by Oliver Sacks
Consider the Lobster, by David Foster Wallace
Experience: A Memoir, by Martin Amis
Chagall: Life and Works, by Franz Meyer
The Richard Burton Diaries, edited by Chris Williams
The City of Falling Angels (Venice), by John Berendt
Acquainted with the Night: Excursions through the World after Dark, by Christopher Dewdney
The Evil Hours : A Biography of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, by David J. Morris
My War Gone By, I Miss It So, by Anthony Loyd
Days of Grace: A Memoir, by Arthur Ashe
Open, by Andre Agassi
Over Time: My Life as a Sportswriter, by Frank Deford
The Game, by Ken Dryden
The Long Season, by Jim Brosnan
The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, by Bill James

You're definitely the poster I bookmark single posts for to follow up on later. I've only read a few of these (The Evil Hours and My War Gone By, I Miss It So), but will need to read many of the rest it seems!

 

[kook10]

Empire of the Summer Moon by S. C. Gwynne

Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee by Dee Brown

Among The Thugs by Bill Buford

Bill Graham Presents: My Life Inside Rock and Out by Bill Graham

The Last Sultan: The Life and Times of Ahmet Ertegun by Robert Greenfield

Hit Men: Power Brokers and Fast Money Inside the Music Business by Frederic Dannen

Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung: The Work of a Legendary Critic: Rock'n'Roll as Literature and Literature as Rock'n'Roll by Lester Bangs

Zodiac by Robert Graysmith

Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer

The Worldly Philosophers by Robert Heilbroner

Chief!: Classic Cases from the Files of the Chief of Detectives by Albert Seedman

Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga by Hunter S. Thompson

We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families by Philip Gourevitch

Into Africa: The Epic Adventures of Stanley and Livingstone by Martin Dugard

 

[Hippasus]

Empire of the Summer Moon by S. C. Gwynne

Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee by Dee Brown

Among The Thugs by Bill Buford

Bill Graham Presents: My Life Inside Rock and Out by Bill Graham

The Last Sultan: The Life and Times of Ahmet Ertegun by Robert Greenfield

Hit Men: Power Brokers and Fast Money Inside the Music Business by Frederic Dannen

Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung: The Work of a Legendary Critic: Rock'n'Roll as Literature and Literature as Rock'n'Roll by Lester Bangs

Zodiac by Robert Graysmith

Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer

The Worldly Philosophers by Robert Heilbroner

Chief!: Classic Cases from the Files of the Chief of Detectives by Albert Seedman

Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga by Hunter S. Thompson

We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families by Philip Gourevitch

Into Africa: The Epic Adventures of Stanley and Livingstone by Martin Dugard

Read that, as well as The Economic Transformation of America: 1600 to the Present by him. Great writer for history of economics. The bolded focuses on the lives of transformative economists. In that sense I see him as the Eric Temple Bell of economics. Eric Temple Bell did likewise, but for mathematics, in The Men of Mathematics. The latter was also a good writer.

 

[kihei]

You're definitely the poster I bookmark single posts for to follow up on later. I've only read a few of these (The Evil Hours and My War Gone By, I Miss It So), but will need to read many of the rest it seems!

If you decide to tackle any of the above and have questions about them, please feel free to PM me.

 

[WarriorOfGandhi]

everything by Jon Krakauer and Erik Larsen

 

[CycloneLaunch]

 

[Chili]

Some memorable ones...

Axel Madsen-William Wyler: The Autorized Biography
Anthony Brandt-The Man Who Ate His Boots: The Tragic History of the Search for the Northwest Passage
Charlie Chaplin-My Autobiography
Christopher Frayling-Sergio Leone:Something to do With Death
David Itzkoff-Robin
David Talbot-Brothers
Errol Flynn/Earl Conrad-My Wicked Wicked Ways
George Carlin-Last Words
Geronimo-His Own Story
James Leasor-The One That Got Away
Jean Béliveau-My Life in Hockey
Jim Tully-Beggars of Life
Joe Jackson-A Furnace Afloat: The Wreck of the Hornet and the Harrowing 4,300-mile Voyage of Its Survivors
John Pearson-The Life of Ian Fleming
John Henry Tilden-Appendicitis
John le Carré-The Pigeon Tunnel: Stories from My Life
John Steinbeck-A Life in Letters
Jonathan Bastable-Voices From Stalingrad
Jonathan Bastable-Voices From The World of Samuel Pepys
Joseph Persico-Eleventh Month, Eleventh Day, Eleventh Hour: Armistice Day, 1918 World War I and Its Violent Climax
J. Paul Getty-As I see it
Ken McGoogan-Ancient Mariner:The Arctic Adventures of Samuel Hearne
Laura Hillenbrand-Unbroken
Laurence Bergreen-Columbus:The Four Voyages
Laurence Bergreen-Over the Edge of The World
Leicester Hemingway-My brother, Ernest Hemingway
Louis Armstrong-Satchmo: My Life in New Orleans
Marlon Brando-Songs My Mother Taught Me
Max Arthur-Last Post: The Final Word From Our First World War Soldiers
Nellie McClung-Three Times and Out
Orlando Figes-Just Send Me Word
Oscar Browning-The Boyhood and Youth of Napoleon: Some Chapters on the Life of Bonaparte, 1769-1793
Richard Pryor-Pryor Convictions
Sidney Poitier-The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography
Svetlana Palmer-A War in Words
Todd Denault-Jacques Plante: The Man Who Changed the Face of Hockey
Tracey Goessel-The First King of Hollywood: The Life of Douglas Fairbanks
Walter Isaacson-Leonardo da Vinci
Will Ferguson-Road Trip Rwanda: A Journey Into the New Heart of Africa

 

[Spring in Fialta]

Not much of a non-fiction reader when it comes to books, but Vladimir Nabokov's Speak, Memory takes the crown really easily. Though I'd be hesitant to call it non-fiction. Its peaks are incomparable. The stylist to end all stylists.

 

[Nemesis Prime]

The Motley Crue books were all great reads. The Dirt, Heroin Diaries, Tommyland.

 

[Hippasus]

James Stewart's Single Variable Calculus: early transcendentals is quite good in terms of exposition and challenging problems. However, it's possible I'm currently learning slightly better from William Briggs, Lyle Cochran, Bernard Gillett, and Eric Schultz' Calculus: early transcendentals. The Briggs book has easier problems and also very good exposition in the introductory sections (i.e. prior to the problems). Briggs' book covers calculus III unlike the Stewart volume I own. Calculus III is covered by Stewart in a separate volume that I haven't touched. (The Briggs text is not finished.)

God Created the Integers. Famous papers in the history of mathematics. (This book is not finished.)

The Undecidable: basic papers on undecidable propositions, unsolvable problems, and computable functions. Some overlap with the above, but this volume has more modern selections and is focused on logic. (This book is not finished by me.)

Rhythm Reading for Drums: books 1-2. This book says as little as possible on the subject and yet is perpetually challenging for me. Very good if one is into percussion. (These volumes are unfinished by me.)

Gottlob Frege: Basic Laws of Arithmetic: derived using concept-script (2 vols. bound as one.)

Gottlob Frege, edited by Terrell Ward Bynum: Conceptual Notation: and related articles. This is a landmark work that made logic a thriving discipline.

Gottlob Frege, edited by Michael Beaney: The Frege Reader. This book is good for undergraduate-level philosophy.

Gottlob Frege: Logical Investigations

Ludwig Wittgenstein: Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosophical Investigations

Friedrich Nietzsche: On the Genealogy of Morals: a polemic

Friedrich Nietzsche: The Birth of Tragedy: out of the spirit of music. This is usually considered Nietzsche's first published book, although perhaps not technically correct, and concerns aesthetics. It anticipates the psychoanalytic model of the individual psyche even though Nietzsche seemed not to have much regard for the scientific mindset.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

God Is Not Great, by Christopher Hitchens

Not one of my favorite per se, but one I often go back to. Kind of a "livre de chevet".

I'm not much of a reader anymore, but here's a few I've loved:

L'interférence, by Michel Serres
Poétique du cinéma, by Raoul Ruiz
The Shell and the Kernell, by Maria Torok and Nicolas Abraham
Décadrages: peinture et cinéma, by Pascal Bonitzer

and pretty much anything by Roland Barthes.

 

[heatnikki]

Sapiens - Yuval Noah Harari, great book. I'm working on my essay right now. I found writing service here https://gpalabs.com/. Hope with its help I'll finish my essay on time and get good grade. These guys helped me hundreds of times with my homework. They are pro in writing and proofreading.

 

[The Professional]

Been into true crime mob history books lately. Nick Pileggi's Wiseguy and Casino are up there for me. Both were of course the source material by Scorsese for Goodfellas and Casino. Also for Canadian mafia history, The Sixth Family: The Collapse of the New York Mafia and the Rise of Vito Rizzuto is a solid investigation into the history of Canada's most powerful crime family.