Does anyone else love Non-fiction on unusual/niche topics?

Loving these recommendations.

I love anything by Michael Lewis, especially Premonition about the Covid pandemic response in the USA

Another reader recommending for The Five by Hallie Rubenhold.

I really enjoyed Jeffrey Archer’s prison diaries recently - an insight into a world I know nothing about (though obviously over 20 years old now)

Yes, I love to read and look at vexillology books. Interesting from a picture and design perspective and also for the historical, geographical and random fact point of view, I find it totally fascinating.
Random fact incoming...Paraguay is the only country flag with a different design on the front and back.....it's mind blowing!!!!😁

I like to call my preferred niche “nerdy nutrition” but it extends to food production too. I really enjoyed Ultra Processed People by Chris Van Tulleken. I have just bought Tomatoland which I hadn’t heard of, and have added Ravenous to my kindle wish list.

I also enjoy autobiographies of rock stars, the more debauched the better. I’ve read Scar Tissue (Anthony Kiedis), a Slash one that I can’t remember the name of, and The Heroin Diaries (Nikki Sixx). Probably more but it’s been a while since I delved into this particular genre.

I can also recommend Five by Hallie Rubenhold. I really enjoyed The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande, in fact any of his books are a great read

Maybe not as unusual as some of the books suggested but I loved A Prickly Affair: My Life with Hedgehogs by Hugh Warwick.

I love non fiction audio books as its not as big a problem if I fall asleep and lose the 'page'

Recently borrowed Jeffrey Archers prison audio books and attempted an in depth look at the Chernobyl disaster but that had me sleeping within 5 minutes over the last week 😴 😳.

I love non-fiction and I’ve read lots mentioned on this thread including Rummage and Swindled, which @ShelfObsessed mentions (and waves at @ChessieFL - I know we’ve both read Entangled!).

There are just so many to recommend - too many. One of my all-time favourites as a history-lover, though, which I often mention on threads like these, is Judith Flanders' The Victorian House - it’s absolutely fascinating. Anything by Gillian Tindall is great, especially The House By the Thames, about the history of Bankside. Also unexpectedly interesting was Helena Attlee's The Land Where Lemons Grow, which is about (yes) lemons and citrus fruit and the places they’re grown in Italy.
Sarah Ogilvie's The Dictionary People was one of my top reads a couple of years ago, telling the stories of some of the extraordinary people who contributed entries to the OED. Also worthy of a mention is Annie Gray's The Greedy Queen, about Queen Victoria, the food at her court and what she ate. And a memoir suggestion: John Lanchester's Family Romance. His mother was a nun who left the convent, got married and had children…..

@CMOTDibbler I bought Debt for DH for his birthday (at his request) - he’s been glued to it ever since!

I loved “other minds” and “all that remains” - both of them are superb.

really want to read the screwdriver book now…!

@ExperiencedTeacher I love Other Minds, it really is fascinating.

I'd forgotten to add Debt: The first 5000 years by David Graeber as a recommendation which was a really random choice to read, but the reframing of debt as a driver of money was so interesting

Non-fiction books I've loved include The Arcanum and The Moneymaker by Janet Gleeson, about porcelain and paper money respectively. Also Fermat's Last Theorem by Simon Singh (haven't got on so well with other books by him though).

Have recently loved reading Islands of Abandonment by Cal Flynn; about toxic human landscapes and their natural recovery.

Finally, Extreme Weather by someone... it's got lightning in the cover. Because I love weather 😁

Going to note down some of these great recommendations - thank you!

I came here to say this!

I also loved:
Bitch by Lucy Cook about the evolution of the female species

Other Minds by Peter Godfrey-smith about octopuses

Mudlarking by Lara Maiklem about mudlarking (!)

Five by Hallie Rubenhold about the victims of the Ripper

Thank you all for the recommendations, my 'to buy' list is getting longer by the minute.
I've just finished 'Kin' which is about neanderthals and super interesting, but also the autobiography (and next in line is a biography) of Helen Suzmann. She was an MP in South Africa in the apartheid era, only woman in parliament, for years and years the only member of her party to be elected, and a tireless campaigner for many groups including the political prisoners. Just incredible

Another recommendation for all of Tim Marshall’s books on geography.
Also a book recommendation from Mumsnet which I loved “ King Leopolds Ghost”

I highly recommend:
'Written in Bone' by Professor Sue Black which looks at different bones of the body and what we can learn from them, also:
'All That Remains' by the same author - (In All That Remains she reveals the many faces of death she has come to know, using key cases to explore how forensic science has developed, and examining what her life and work has taught her.)
And for something completely different -

'The Worst Journey in the World' by Apsley Cherry-Garrard which tells the story of Scott's last expedition to the Antarctic and events beyond. It's a devastating account of what happened, as written by one of the expedition's members, but it is beautifully written and makes you aware of how horrendous conditions really were for everyone on the expedition.

I really enjoyed this
https://store.whiterabbitbooks.co.uk/products/the-foghorns-lament

Also getting back into Joan Didion essays

I love Prisoners of Geography, he has also a written one recently about maps!

Also Why the Germans do it better, by John Kampfner

and Empireland by Sathnam sanghera

Really enjoyed Ravenous. About the food industry and the planet. By the founder of Leon

I like biology, so I submit Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin and Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach.

I really loved The Darkness Manifesto by Johan Eklöf. A fascinating exploration of how the Earth and all living creatures need night, and the damage done by light pollution.

Super Infinite is a great book.

I love the Very Short Introduction To…series. They cover pretty much anything you might want a good overview of, and they’re written by top academics although in a very accessible style. I’m on Hinduism at the moment.

I recommend Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake. It’s all about fungi and I found it a very enjoyable and interesting read

In that case you will love 'Prisoners of Geography' by Tim Marshall. He writes about how physical geography, rivers, mountains, deserts, deep water ports etc affect so much about our cultures, economics, international relations, politics. Everything!

He talks about how we could only have won the Falklands War because we happened to own Ascension Island.

Also, why it actually makes perfect economic, strategic and political sense for Trump to want to purchase Greenland. Honestly. Several US presidents have wanted to buy it, the most recent was Truman back in the 1950s!

Super-Infinite by Katherine Rundell - a biography of John Donne, "the poet of love, sex and death". I just love her writing.

At Day's Close by A. Roger Ekirch - a history of nighttime. I loved imagining the world before electric light and the stuff about two-phase sleep.

Seashaken Houses by Tom Nancollas - a history of lighthouses - TBR but looking forward to it.