Recommend some really great books (fiction/nonfiction) OUTSIDE my usual comfort zone

oh yes 'This thing of darkness' is brilliant, so is Joe Simpson's 'Touching the Void' (an articulate, literate, climber) and Robertson Davies 'What's bred in the bone'- lots of art and art history.

Ooh yes, Annejones "This Thing Of Darkness" is BRILLIANT. I've been trying to get some of my colleagues to read it but can't convince them. Franch, you really should try that; it's an amazing read. As an atheist I was surprised how much I sympathised with Fitzroy's desire to suppress some of Darwin's more "blasphemous" ideas. And interested to see when and why Darwin chose to go against his word and publish them.

On the food note - I'm not in London no; I'd love to try cooking something myself. The only restaurant I know near me doesn't tend to get very good reviews.

oh and the book that The Last King of Scotland film was based on by Giles Foden is a good read and I learned a lot about Uganda

do you fancy Fermat's Last Theorum, by Simon Singh?

another good science writer, is Dr John Emsley

I can second the Alison Weir stuff, she's great. and if you've never read it, the Michael Crick book on Jeffrey Archer is hilarious.

will ponder over some more general stuff for you

Touching the Void by Joe Simpson

Congo by Redmond O Hanlon

Definitely also second the Pepys biography - is very funny and very interesting. Also second the Wilkie Collins suggestions - and I recently read No Name by him which was a wonderful romp with a serious under-message. A bit like Victorian 'Hustle'.

Crime - I absolutely love the Henning Mankells police procedurals - perhaps start with The Fifth Woman. Set in Sweden and very well written with interesting characters.

Another excellent book I read this year was This Thing Of Darkness by Harry Thompson - is based on the voyages of the Beagle, its captain Fitzroy and its famous passenger, Darwin. Beautifully written, quite geographical with discussions of philosophy, morality and religion too. A tremendous read.

Invitation to the Waltz by Rosamund Lehmann

A Testament of Youth by Vera Brittan - superb autobiography of young girl with ambitions to be a literary type 'coming of age' during WWI. It really brought the whole period alive for me, and I am cross I avoided reading it for so long for fear it would be heavy or depressing - it is neither. Thoropughly recommended. Covers politics and history but in a very accessible way.

Okay - on my list now -

Carribbean food - am veggie so what would you recommend?

Books - I like History books but tend to not go beyond The Great (!) War, so "Wild Swans" will be a real departure for me.

"The Articulate Mammal" sounds interesting too. The Bill bryson is the only "Science" book I've read since school.

Also quite fancy "Longitude".

Has anybody else been inspired by this brilliant thread?

For history try David Starkey's books, especially Elizabeth. They're almost written like a novel and very anecdotal so quite easy to read and very gripping. On business Liar's Poker by Michael Lewis is brilliant - especially if you're interested in how The City works at all. The best sport book I ever read is called All Played Out by Pete Davies and it's about the England team at Italia 90. Also Football Against the Enemy by Simon Kuper is a great book. Romance you can't go wrong with the blockbusters Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell (ignore the politics) and The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCoullough.

Sorry Franch, my mistake

Longitude is a great read. You know what else is in that genre? Fermat's Last Theorem by Simon Singh. Unbelievably.
I also enjoyed Cod (arf) by Mark Kurlansky.
I have heard good things about Guns Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond, but haven't read it.
The Consolations of Philosophy might be a bit comfort-zone-ish but though lite it is...consoling. I found.

anything by A L Kennedy

Francis Wheen's biography of Marx.

Barbara Erskine Lady of Hay - not challenging but VERY creepy!

What about some classic horror - Lovecraft, or Mary Shelly or Bram Stoker? Or Henry James - The Turn of the Screw makes me shiver just to think about it!

Richard Dawkins - The God Delusion.

Franch: Sorry I can't do links but maybe the Amazon search doesn't like the space between G and the I. Try

GI Jews: How World War II Changed a Generation.

Deborah Dash Moore is a professor of Jewish History at the University of Michigan, and one of the subjects of this book is her father. She has written other books on Jewish history too.

I loved Longitude.
I was going to recommend the Pepys biography that won the Whitbread a couple of years ago. Claire Tomlinson, I think.
Or the Kevin Crossley Holland Arthurian books.

Has anyone suggested Longitude - can't remember who wrote it - but it is absolutely gripping and very informative.

hats off to you!!

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Has anyone finished Wild Swans??? LOL!!! I tried, i really tried (twice, about 8 years apart!!) Why does it have to get so damn boring in the middle!!?

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I second Stephen Pinker in science - The Language Instinct and How the Mind Works

How Babies Think by Gopnick, Meltzoff and Kuhl

Also Richard Dawkins - anything. If I had to choose only one, The Blind Watchmaker

Billions and Billions by Carl Sagan

History - Mary Renault's novels of ancient Greece - all of them.

History/biography: Schindler's Ark by Thomas Keneally. The Fatal Englishman by Sebastian Faulks. Claire Tomalin's biog of Samuel Pepys (The unequalled self); Mozart's last year by HC Robbins Landon; Karl Marx by Francis Wheen.

OK, in return, can you point me to anything that would help me to 'get' science fiction, fantasy or similar?