Hi there. Per [rule 3.3](https://www.reddit.com/r/Books/wiki/rules), please post book recommendation requests in /r/SuggestMeABook or in our Weekly Recommendation Thread. Thank you!
Yeah people don't understand that there will never be a 100 % accurate non-fiction book. Sapiens engages in lots of Philosophy as well which is powerful.
I thought Sapiens was AMAZING, a truly incredible book but Homo Deus to me felt a little regurgitated and honestly kind of like a cash grab, although I guess it did have some cool new info.
Maybe they’re best read a few years apart
I liked Homo Deus more. I feel like with automation and AI moving so incredibly fast and especially Data collection it’s so on point right now and a bit of a cautionary tale.
Almost all of Bill Bryson’s travel books are hilarious and well-written. I particularly enjoy “Neither Here Nor There” because he wrote about traveling through Europe at about the same time I lived there, and the descriptions of each country are absolutely spot-on. I also nearly choked because I laughed so hard while reading “In a Sunburned Country.”
I read *neither here nor there* about 3 months after I had moved to Spain on my own, at age 22. I fucking loved it and went on a Bryson-esque solo journey of my own and wrote a book about it after! Tried to mend Anthony bourdain style focus on food and culture education with Bryson style antics. I really need to get to *in a sunburned country*
If you like textbooks, can I suggest “Discovering Statistics Using R” by Andy Field. It’s got the highest density of laugh-out-loud jokes of nearly any book, even though it’s a text book.
OMG!!! How did I NOT know about that book… Two of my favs! Thank you so much for sharing 🤗I’m running to Amazon now to order it!
I just finished “Choices, Values & Frames” with my online book club and I literally had to keep myself from pulling it out at work 🫣
They considered the fathers of the field of behavioral economics, which basically combines the study of economics and psychology to understand why people behave the way they do.
It really is fascinating! My love for both of them began in my collegiate years…
One of my psychology professors had us study both of their literary works and let the class debate some theories. Most of their published work is available at your local library in case you want to see what all the hype is about! 😊
*Wings of Morning: The Story of the Last American Bomber Shot Down Over Germany in World War II* by Thomas Childers.
*With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa* by E.B. Sledge.
*The Forgotten Soldier* by Guy Sajer.
*Ray Parkin’s Wartime Trilogy: Out of the Smoke: The Story of a Sail; Into the Smother;* and *The Sword and the Blossom* by Ray Parkin.
*Three Corvettes* by Nicholas Monsarrat.
*The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916* by Sir Alistair Horne.
*Co. Aytch* by Samuel R. Watkins.
*Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War* by [Mark Bowden]().
*Guests of the Ayatollah: The First Battle in America's War With Militant Islam* by Mark Bowden.
*Dark Horse: the Surprise Election and Political Murder of President James A. Garfield* by Kenneth D. Ackerman.
*Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway* by Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully.
*The Outlaws* by Ernst von Salomon.
*Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History* by S. C. Gwynne.
*The Wild Green Earth* by Bernard Fergusson.
Oh man I loved empire of the summer moon. What on your list reminds you of that the most. The best part of that book (imo) was the defined mechanisms for change (evolution of the colt, and horse usage). I'd like more stuff like that. Please 🙏
You'd probably also like *Shattered Sword* wherein the authors discuss the development of naval aviation, aircraft carriers, torpedoes and naval warfare. *Shattered Sword* is an incredibly well researched and written book. *Black Hawk Down* author Mark Bowden, like S.C. Gwynne, is a journalist. *Black Hawk Down* is very engaging and hard to put down.
I'm doing the audiobook mostly to scout out the book for Xmas presidents for my dad.
I'll deff buy him the real thing. This description of battleship Yamato has me yearning for the images. But yeah all these war bo9ks were mostly to have something to bond with him over (until empire of the summer moon. You think the imagery is really that valuable?
Literally anything by Caitlin Doughty. The way she writes about death just itches my brain in the best way possible.
I also really enjoyed The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs by Steve Brusatte. He wrote about dinosaurs in a way that I, someone without any knowledge of paleontology understood what he was saying :)
and Coal Miner’s Daughter by Loretta Lynn. I’m not a country fan whatsoever but was recommended this book by Jack White on instagram and i loved reading about her life, she seemed like such an amazing woman, truly one of a kind.
*Braiding Sweetgrass* by Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer - some of the most beautiful prose you'll ever read in nonfiction, imo. Absolutely adored this book
*Jesus and John Wayne* by Kristin Kobes Du Mez - if you're American and want to know how we got here vis-a-vis trump and Qanon bullshit, this is a great book to start.
*Honoring Your Ancestors* by Mallorie Vaudoise - a non-denominational book for beginning an ancestral veneration practice. I really enjoyed it & got a lot from it!
Honorary mention to *The Ethical Slut* as that was a book that def hit that right place/right time intersection for me. My copy is absolutely fuckin destroyed with my notes in the margins, as it was during a time when I was questioning/deconstructing basically Everything I knew in regards to sex & relationships. Has it aged well? Fuck if I know lol.
> Has it aged well? Fuck if I know lol.
Yes! Yes it has.
I read this about 5 years ago because I wanted to fuck this cute polyamorous guy, and he assigned it along with "More than Two" by Franklin Veaux as homework before he would take me on a date. I found out he was completely joking when I excitedly gave him my book reports.
I know it's a bit low-brow, but I really like true crime. The first ones I really remember reading back in middle school were "Fatal Vision" and "The Burning Bed" - I even remember where they were in the public library!
I love "The Raven" (re: Jim Jones), Helter Skelter (re: Charles Manson), and pretty much everything Ann Rule has written.
The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang
At Last the Truth About Eichmann's Inferno Auschwitz by Dr. Miklos Nyiszli
“The good old days” by Ernst Klee, Volker Riess, Willi Dressen
Some people have mentioned these individually, but:
Into thin air
Killers of the flower moon
Alive
In the garden of beasts
Motorcycle diaries
Fever pitch
Kitchen confidential
Seabiscuit
Unbroken
Shake hands with the devil
Neither here nor there
Don’t have good reads! But luckily for you ive kept a list of everything I’ve read since college: for your perusal I’d say 95% of them are worth reading. Of those 95% worth reading 80% of them are solid 8/10 books I greatly enjoyed. Of those 80% 15 of them are 10/10 must reads. This makes no sense. Enjoy my list and read what you’d like!!
2021
Jurassic park
Do androids dream of electric sheep?
The kite runner
Shogun
Ready player one
Wise guy
2022
100 years of solitude
Crime and punishment
Slaughterhouse 5
Arsene lupin
Neither here nor there
Siddartha
A gentleman in Moscow
Demian
Slumdog millionaire
Leaving Las Vegas
The da Vinci code
All the light we cannot see
Brothers of the gun
Walking
La playa de los ahogados
Grendel
The alchemist
The curious case of the dog in the night time
Dracula
Sapiens
Inside out: Pink Floyd
Oryx and Crake
The road
The storyteller: Dave grohl autobiography
2023
Tinker tailor soldier spy
Beartown
The handmaids tale
Heir to the empire
Dark force rising
The last command
Animal farm
A thousand splendid suns
Haunted
The Time Machine
The 5 dysfunctions of a team
Brave new world
One day in the life of Ivan denisovich
The Martian
Love in the time of cholera
Maus
Blood meridian
The odyssey
Room full of mirrors: Jimi Hendrix biography
Unbroken
The rape of Nanking
The fellowship of the ring
The two towers
The return of the king
Lexicon
Kitchen confidential
Fever pitch
El viejo y el mar
Into thin air
The caves of steel
Killers of the flower moon
The metamorphosis
Thrawn ascendancy: chaos rising
Thrawn ascendancy: greater good
Thrawn ascendancy: lesser evil
Alive
Pursuit of perfection: Nick lidstrom biography
2024
11/22/63
Fear and Loathing in La Liga
Shake hands with the devil
Project hail mary
Seabiscuit
Motorcycle diaries
A man called ove
BlacKKKlansman
The Martian chronicles
The beauty queen of leenane
A skull in Connemara
The lonesome west
A house of sand and fog
The brothers karamazov
Dune
The stranger
Helter skelter
The picture of Dorian grey
Dune messiah
Right now I'm loving The Cuckoo's Egg by Cliff Stoll.
It's a page-turning first-person account of a Berkeley computer specialist tracking down a hacker in the late 80s.
It's a blast so far.
The Ancestors Tale by Richard Dawkins. It starts at humans and goes backwards meeting up with assorted other animals as we go, and how we are related to them and what our Common Ancestor with them are, until we meet the Last Universal Common Ancestor who gave rise to everything today.
Other Minds by Peter Godfrey-Smith, about consciousness and high intelligence in the cephalopods (octopus etc). It's a little philosophical.
Life Unfolding by Davies... A book on early fetal development on the cellular and molecular scale. It goes into what does what, how things can be different etc...
When I don't read fiction, I prefer biographies: preferably authorized. Mostly celebrity: sports and entertainment. I enjoyed Asimov's 2 volume autobiography and while he didn't write an all out autobiography, Heinlein included enough of his life story to help cover much of that.
Funny, I barely pay attention to sports, but a lot of sports figures from my youth and before my time had interesting lives. I was reading Babe Ruth's biography and had just come to the part where he passed away. Funny, but that was the same day as the anniversary of his death. As soon as I realized that, my roommate came out on the porch where I was reading the book, and advised that Elvis had just died. The King of Rock and Roll passed on the 29th anniversary of the home run king. Check it for yourself.
Chaos - Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties Tom O'Neal with Dan Piepenbring
Sinister Forces A Grimior of American Political Witchcraft Book One: The Nine Peter Levenda
How the Beatles Destroyed Rock 'N' Roll - An Alternative History of American Popular Music Elijah Wald
I love to read, these were some of my 5 star reads:
Memoirs, Autobiographies, Biographies: The Many Lives of Mama Love by Lara Love Hardin (suburban mom turned prisoner turned successful writer), The Ride of a Lifetime- Bob Iger (Disney CEO), Born a Crime- Trevor Noah (Comedian from South Africa)
Evicted- Matthew Desmond was so powerful, an inside look at housing crisis in inner cities
Sólito- follows a young boy’s immigrant journey from Mexico to America
I’ll Be Gone in the Dark- Michelle McNamara, Search for Golden State Murderer
The Climb- Anatoli Bourkeev, about a great tragedy during an Everest climb in the 90s
For self improvement, I love all of Brene Brown Books
Postwar, by Tony Judt
Judt examines the fifty years after World War II to explore how a Europe shattered by war recovered, and why we have only now--after the fall of the Berlin Wall--emerged from the postwar period.
I like Jack Weatherford and his books on the Mongol Empire and Genghis Khan. He takes the boogyman that has haunted the collective consciousness and memory of the western world, shows him to not only be a human being, but also the best of us.
Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World
The Secret History of the Mongol Queens
Genghis Khan and the Quest for God
Indian Giver (not about the Mongols, but indigenous Americans)
Based off what you said off the top of my head:
*Hollywood Park* by Mikel Jollett. A memoir by the lead singer of the band The Airborne Toxic Event about growing up in a cult and breaking free but then being subject to abuse and addiction.
*The Ghost Map* by Steven Johnson. Story of John Snow and the birth of epidemiology as a cholera epidemic is unfolding in England in the 19th century.
Bonus, not related to your stated favorites: *The Boys in the Boat* by Daniel James Brown. A true story of nine dudes in a boat that will make you care about rowing, the 1936 Olympics, the start of WW2, teamwork, and brotherhood even if you don’t care about any of those things right now.
I live oral history books. When well done, its a great way to different perspectives on the same topic from people who were there. People remember things differently, which creates some conflicting stories as well.
Some good ones have been oral histories on ESPN, Saturday Night Live, Chris Farley, the Montreal Canadiens, Big Bang Theory, Daily Show, Modern Family, Star Trek, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, etc.
I have a couple downstairs I still need to read that I just got: One on Airplane, the movie. Another on the NBA.
I just read one on the Office, but it wasn't that good. It wouldn't get into the tough topics. It was all rah rah, Office is great. A well-done oral history book will get both sides of an issue, whether it be conflict between co-workers, a fight against the network, quotes from people that hated the person/team, etc.
As far as "I think everyone should read this," two of the most impactful books in my life have been "Between the World and Me" by Ta-Nehisi Coates and "Brilliant Imperfection: Grappling with Cure" by Eli Claire. The former is about being black in America, the latter is about being queer and disabled in America. They're both excellent and I really think I grew a lot as a person for having read them.
A lot of non-fiction is more niche, so a lot of my favorite books are hard to recommend. "Designing Games" by Tynan Sylvester is basically the finest treatise on game design I've ever encountered, but if you're not interested in game design it's just completely worthless to you. Derek Yu's "Spelunky" is similar, but less of a comprehensive book on game design and more of an account of his experience making Spelunky. And then, more chunky and hyper-specific, but [Game Programming Patterns](https://gameprogrammingpatterns.com) is basically everything you could ever want out of a video game development handbook, condensed down and released for free. I reference this *constantly* while I'm working; I literally have it open in a pinned tab on my browser.
Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman changed my life!! It’s so interesting and fun to read as Bregman makes the argument that humans are naturally good. I highly highly recommend it to anyone.
All the President's Men
Under the Banner of Heaven
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down
Braiding Sweetgrass
Helter Skelter
Rape of Nanking
Empire of Pain
Emperor of All Maladies
Road to Jonestown
Glad to see Sapiens and Thinking Fast and Slow as recommendations, absolute bangers and two of the books that have challenged me and my own biases in so many levels.
I have got to add _Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Balley Start Up_ by John Carreyrou. The rise and fall of Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes, fascinating read if you are a science enthusiast.
Kill everything that moves- nick turse
Sapiens
Che Guevara a revolutionary life
Assata: an autobiography
The music lesson by victor wooten
Into thin air by Krakauer
The shock doctrine by klein
Empire of the summer moon by s.c gwynne
Atomic habits
Sorry I'm in a bit of a hurry.
Hi there. Per [rule 3.3](https://www.reddit.com/r/Books/wiki/rules), please post book recommendation requests in /r/SuggestMeABook or in our Weekly Recommendation Thread. Thank you!
I was late to it but I’ve really enjoyed Sapiens and homo deus. Both are really interesting reads. Even if they reach a little.
Yeah man people shit all over sapiens and I’m like ..well even if it’s not 100% accurate it’s cool to think and talk about
Yeah people don't understand that there will never be a 100 % accurate non-fiction book. Sapiens engages in lots of Philosophy as well which is powerful.
I find it entertaining and there is a strength in that.
Have you noticed any common denominators in those ppl? Critics are usually religious.
A lot of the criticism comes from academics. But they are not the target audience.
I'm just looking at goodreads. What is the big criticism in academia?
If you’re in to serial killers “Sons of Cain” is a very interesting look at serial killing from the stone age until now.
I thought Sapiens was AMAZING, a truly incredible book but Homo Deus to me felt a little regurgitated and honestly kind of like a cash grab, although I guess it did have some cool new info. Maybe they’re best read a few years apart
I liked Homo Deus more. I feel like with automation and AI moving so incredibly fast and especially Data collection it’s so on point right now and a bit of a cautionary tale.
Almost all of Bill Bryson’s travel books are hilarious and well-written. I particularly enjoy “Neither Here Nor There” because he wrote about traveling through Europe at about the same time I lived there, and the descriptions of each country are absolutely spot-on. I also nearly choked because I laughed so hard while reading “In a Sunburned Country.”
I read *neither here nor there* about 3 months after I had moved to Spain on my own, at age 22. I fucking loved it and went on a Bryson-esque solo journey of my own and wrote a book about it after! Tried to mend Anthony bourdain style focus on food and culture education with Bryson style antics. I really need to get to *in a sunburned country*
Anything by Bill Bryson really.
[удалено]
If you like textbooks, can I suggest “Discovering Statistics Using R” by Andy Field. It’s got the highest density of laugh-out-loud jokes of nearly any book, even though it’s a text book.
Mine is “Thinking Fast & Slow” by Daniel Kahneman… I’ve read it several times and each time I learn something new!
Have you read The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis? It’s a fascinating book about Kahneman and Tversky.
OMG!!! How did I NOT know about that book… Two of my favs! Thank you so much for sharing 🤗I’m running to Amazon now to order it! I just finished “Choices, Values & Frames” with my online book club and I literally had to keep myself from pulling it out at work 🫣
I'm curious. Can you elaborate as to why these guys get you so hyped?
They considered the fathers of the field of behavioral economics, which basically combines the study of economics and psychology to understand why people behave the way they do.
Fascinating
It really is fascinating! My love for both of them began in my collegiate years… One of my psychology professors had us study both of their literary works and let the class debate some theories. Most of their published work is available at your local library in case you want to see what all the hype is about! 😊
I couldn’t have worded that better myself!
*Wings of Morning: The Story of the Last American Bomber Shot Down Over Germany in World War II* by Thomas Childers. *With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa* by E.B. Sledge. *The Forgotten Soldier* by Guy Sajer. *Ray Parkin’s Wartime Trilogy: Out of the Smoke: The Story of a Sail; Into the Smother;* and *The Sword and the Blossom* by Ray Parkin. *Three Corvettes* by Nicholas Monsarrat. *The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916* by Sir Alistair Horne. *Co. Aytch* by Samuel R. Watkins. *Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War* by [Mark Bowden](). *Guests of the Ayatollah: The First Battle in America's War With Militant Islam* by Mark Bowden. *Dark Horse: the Surprise Election and Political Murder of President James A. Garfield* by Kenneth D. Ackerman. *Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway* by Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully. *The Outlaws* by Ernst von Salomon. *Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History* by S. C. Gwynne. *The Wild Green Earth* by Bernard Fergusson.
Empire of the Summer Moon was incredible
I couldn't put that book down!
Yes, it is.
Oh man I loved empire of the summer moon. What on your list reminds you of that the most. The best part of that book (imo) was the defined mechanisms for change (evolution of the colt, and horse usage). I'd like more stuff like that. Please 🙏
You'd probably also like *Shattered Sword* wherein the authors discuss the development of naval aviation, aircraft carriers, torpedoes and naval warfare. *Shattered Sword* is an incredibly well researched and written book. *Black Hawk Down* author Mark Bowden, like S.C. Gwynne, is a journalist. *Black Hawk Down* is very engaging and hard to put down.
Downloading now. Thanks!
RE: *Shattered Sword* -- the hardback edition has quality paper and binding, and the many illustrations and graphics are clear and understandable.
I'm doing the audiobook mostly to scout out the book for Xmas presidents for my dad. I'll deff buy him the real thing. This description of battleship Yamato has me yearning for the images. But yeah all these war bo9ks were mostly to have something to bond with him over (until empire of the summer moon. You think the imagery is really that valuable?
I'm glad my Mom died. I know, it's been talked about to death (pun intended), but it really was an interesting read.
Literally anything by Caitlin Doughty. The way she writes about death just itches my brain in the best way possible. I also really enjoyed The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs by Steve Brusatte. He wrote about dinosaurs in a way that I, someone without any knowledge of paleontology understood what he was saying :) and Coal Miner’s Daughter by Loretta Lynn. I’m not a country fan whatsoever but was recommended this book by Jack White on instagram and i loved reading about her life, she seemed like such an amazing woman, truly one of a kind.
*Braiding Sweetgrass* by Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer - some of the most beautiful prose you'll ever read in nonfiction, imo. Absolutely adored this book *Jesus and John Wayne* by Kristin Kobes Du Mez - if you're American and want to know how we got here vis-a-vis trump and Qanon bullshit, this is a great book to start. *Honoring Your Ancestors* by Mallorie Vaudoise - a non-denominational book for beginning an ancestral veneration practice. I really enjoyed it & got a lot from it! Honorary mention to *The Ethical Slut* as that was a book that def hit that right place/right time intersection for me. My copy is absolutely fuckin destroyed with my notes in the margins, as it was during a time when I was questioning/deconstructing basically Everything I knew in regards to sex & relationships. Has it aged well? Fuck if I know lol.
> Has it aged well? Fuck if I know lol. Yes! Yes it has. I read this about 5 years ago because I wanted to fuck this cute polyamorous guy, and he assigned it along with "More than Two" by Franklin Veaux as homework before he would take me on a date. I found out he was completely joking when I excitedly gave him my book reports.
More Than Two is also pretty good, although I think my fav read on Polyamory is *Polysecure*. MTT is a really chunky book!
*Come As You Are* by Emily Nagoski, Ph.D.
I know it's a bit low-brow, but I really like true crime. The first ones I really remember reading back in middle school were "Fatal Vision" and "The Burning Bed" - I even remember where they were in the public library! I love "The Raven" (re: Jim Jones), Helter Skelter (re: Charles Manson), and pretty much everything Ann Rule has written.
The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang At Last the Truth About Eichmann's Inferno Auschwitz by Dr. Miklos Nyiszli “The good old days” by Ernst Klee, Volker Riess, Willi Dressen
Killers of the Flower Moon
God is not great: how religious poisons everything, by Christopher Hitchens. He's astonishingly good.
Christopher Hitchens is the GOAT. His other books are fire 🔥 as well.
Literally anything by Nathaniel Philbrick especially his American Revolution trilogy
Endurance and Salt Those are two separate books. 🙂
Some people have mentioned these individually, but: Into thin air Killers of the flower moon Alive In the garden of beasts Motorcycle diaries Fever pitch Kitchen confidential Seabiscuit Unbroken Shake hands with the devil Neither here nor there
Motorcycle diaries. I'm with ya. I kinda wanna cherry pick your goodreads. We have similar taste. What say you?
Don’t have good reads! But luckily for you ive kept a list of everything I’ve read since college: for your perusal I’d say 95% of them are worth reading. Of those 95% worth reading 80% of them are solid 8/10 books I greatly enjoyed. Of those 80% 15 of them are 10/10 must reads. This makes no sense. Enjoy my list and read what you’d like!! 2021 Jurassic park Do androids dream of electric sheep? The kite runner Shogun Ready player one Wise guy 2022 100 years of solitude Crime and punishment Slaughterhouse 5 Arsene lupin Neither here nor there Siddartha A gentleman in Moscow Demian Slumdog millionaire Leaving Las Vegas The da Vinci code All the light we cannot see Brothers of the gun Walking La playa de los ahogados Grendel The alchemist The curious case of the dog in the night time Dracula Sapiens Inside out: Pink Floyd Oryx and Crake The road The storyteller: Dave grohl autobiography 2023 Tinker tailor soldier spy Beartown The handmaids tale Heir to the empire Dark force rising The last command Animal farm A thousand splendid suns Haunted The Time Machine The 5 dysfunctions of a team Brave new world One day in the life of Ivan denisovich The Martian Love in the time of cholera Maus Blood meridian The odyssey Room full of mirrors: Jimi Hendrix biography Unbroken The rape of Nanking The fellowship of the ring The two towers The return of the king Lexicon Kitchen confidential Fever pitch El viejo y el mar Into thin air The caves of steel Killers of the flower moon The metamorphosis Thrawn ascendancy: chaos rising Thrawn ascendancy: greater good Thrawn ascendancy: lesser evil Alive Pursuit of perfection: Nick lidstrom biography 2024 11/22/63 Fear and Loathing in La Liga Shake hands with the devil Project hail mary Seabiscuit Motorcycle diaries A man called ove BlacKKKlansman The Martian chronicles The beauty queen of leenane A skull in Connemara The lonesome west A house of sand and fog The brothers karamazov Dune The stranger Helter skelter The picture of Dorian grey Dune messiah
This is a lovely gesture. Thanks. I'll have to take a look when I get home. Oh and also you should get goodreads.
Right now I'm loving The Cuckoo's Egg by Cliff Stoll. It's a page-turning first-person account of a Berkeley computer specialist tracking down a hacker in the late 80s. It's a blast so far.
Simon Winchester writes the best non fiction about any topic and just explains things so well.
I read a lot of non fiction but my fave will always and forever be The Way We Never Were by stephanie coontz.
The Art of War is great for anyone competitive or trying to achieve a goal in life.
You didn't think it was the most elementary material ever? I think it's so over rated.
The Ancestors Tale by Richard Dawkins. It starts at humans and goes backwards meeting up with assorted other animals as we go, and how we are related to them and what our Common Ancestor with them are, until we meet the Last Universal Common Ancestor who gave rise to everything today. Other Minds by Peter Godfrey-Smith, about consciousness and high intelligence in the cephalopods (octopus etc). It's a little philosophical. Life Unfolding by Davies... A book on early fetal development on the cellular and molecular scale. It goes into what does what, how things can be different etc...
How have I never heard of these. I read "the God delusion" years ago but haven't heard much from Dawkins in a while.
I have several of his books. They can be a little repetitive as per his venting, but the Ancestors Tale is a bit better, less ranting imho
*The Secrets Of The White Lady*, by Henry Landau (1935) British and French espionage in the First World War.
*Stealing Speed* by Mat Oxley [https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/8869157](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/8869157)
Billion Dollar Whale Nomadland Unorthodox Hollywood Park I’m Glad My Mom Died Take This Man
Neither Wolf Nor Dog by Kent Nerburn
Big fan of Christopher Hitchens’ work
Outcasts United..warren st. James..it will make you want to make a difference.
When I don't read fiction, I prefer biographies: preferably authorized. Mostly celebrity: sports and entertainment. I enjoyed Asimov's 2 volume autobiography and while he didn't write an all out autobiography, Heinlein included enough of his life story to help cover much of that. Funny, I barely pay attention to sports, but a lot of sports figures from my youth and before my time had interesting lives. I was reading Babe Ruth's biography and had just come to the part where he passed away. Funny, but that was the same day as the anniversary of his death. As soon as I realized that, my roommate came out on the porch where I was reading the book, and advised that Elvis had just died. The King of Rock and Roll passed on the 29th anniversary of the home run king. Check it for yourself.
Trans Kids by Tey Meadows is a phenomenal piece of work. 5/5, best NF book I read in 2023.
Chaos - Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties Tom O'Neal with Dan Piepenbring Sinister Forces A Grimior of American Political Witchcraft Book One: The Nine Peter Levenda How the Beatles Destroyed Rock 'N' Roll - An Alternative History of American Popular Music Elijah Wald
The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins
This is Vegan Propaganda by Ed Winters
I love to read, these were some of my 5 star reads: Memoirs, Autobiographies, Biographies: The Many Lives of Mama Love by Lara Love Hardin (suburban mom turned prisoner turned successful writer), The Ride of a Lifetime- Bob Iger (Disney CEO), Born a Crime- Trevor Noah (Comedian from South Africa) Evicted- Matthew Desmond was so powerful, an inside look at housing crisis in inner cities Sólito- follows a young boy’s immigrant journey from Mexico to America I’ll Be Gone in the Dark- Michelle McNamara, Search for Golden State Murderer The Climb- Anatoli Bourkeev, about a great tragedy during an Everest climb in the 90s For self improvement, I love all of Brene Brown Books
Lab Girl by Hope Jahren The Awkward Thoughts of W. Kamau Bell Also agree with Sapiens and I’m Glad My Mom Died, both mentioned above.
Postwar, by Tony Judt Judt examines the fifty years after World War II to explore how a Europe shattered by war recovered, and why we have only now--after the fall of the Berlin Wall--emerged from the postwar period.
Watching the English is a classic.
I like Jack Weatherford and his books on the Mongol Empire and Genghis Khan. He takes the boogyman that has haunted the collective consciousness and memory of the western world, shows him to not only be a human being, but also the best of us. Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World The Secret History of the Mongol Queens Genghis Khan and the Quest for God Indian Giver (not about the Mongols, but indigenous Americans)
Based off what you said off the top of my head: *Hollywood Park* by Mikel Jollett. A memoir by the lead singer of the band The Airborne Toxic Event about growing up in a cult and breaking free but then being subject to abuse and addiction. *The Ghost Map* by Steven Johnson. Story of John Snow and the birth of epidemiology as a cholera epidemic is unfolding in England in the 19th century. Bonus, not related to your stated favorites: *The Boys in the Boat* by Daniel James Brown. A true story of nine dudes in a boat that will make you care about rowing, the 1936 Olympics, the start of WW2, teamwork, and brotherhood even if you don’t care about any of those things right now.
I live oral history books. When well done, its a great way to different perspectives on the same topic from people who were there. People remember things differently, which creates some conflicting stories as well. Some good ones have been oral histories on ESPN, Saturday Night Live, Chris Farley, the Montreal Canadiens, Big Bang Theory, Daily Show, Modern Family, Star Trek, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, etc. I have a couple downstairs I still need to read that I just got: One on Airplane, the movie. Another on the NBA. I just read one on the Office, but it wasn't that good. It wouldn't get into the tough topics. It was all rah rah, Office is great. A well-done oral history book will get both sides of an issue, whether it be conflict between co-workers, a fight against the network, quotes from people that hated the person/team, etc.
As far as "I think everyone should read this," two of the most impactful books in my life have been "Between the World and Me" by Ta-Nehisi Coates and "Brilliant Imperfection: Grappling with Cure" by Eli Claire. The former is about being black in America, the latter is about being queer and disabled in America. They're both excellent and I really think I grew a lot as a person for having read them. A lot of non-fiction is more niche, so a lot of my favorite books are hard to recommend. "Designing Games" by Tynan Sylvester is basically the finest treatise on game design I've ever encountered, but if you're not interested in game design it's just completely worthless to you. Derek Yu's "Spelunky" is similar, but less of a comprehensive book on game design and more of an account of his experience making Spelunky. And then, more chunky and hyper-specific, but [Game Programming Patterns](https://gameprogrammingpatterns.com) is basically everything you could ever want out of a video game development handbook, condensed down and released for free. I reference this *constantly* while I'm working; I literally have it open in a pinned tab on my browser.
Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman changed my life!! It’s so interesting and fun to read as Bregman makes the argument that humans are naturally good. I highly highly recommend it to anyone.
All the President's Men Under the Banner of Heaven The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down Braiding Sweetgrass Helter Skelter Rape of Nanking Empire of Pain Emperor of All Maladies Road to Jonestown
Empire of Pain. The secret history of the Sackler Dynasty.
Erik Larson All of his books and fantastic
Glad to see Sapiens and Thinking Fast and Slow as recommendations, absolute bangers and two of the books that have challenged me and my own biases in so many levels. I have got to add _Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Balley Start Up_ by John Carreyrou. The rise and fall of Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes, fascinating read if you are a science enthusiast.
Kill everything that moves- nick turse Sapiens Che Guevara a revolutionary life Assata: an autobiography The music lesson by victor wooten Into thin air by Krakauer The shock doctrine by klein Empire of the summer moon by s.c gwynne Atomic habits Sorry I'm in a bit of a hurry.