Non-fiction books for bright 14 year old girl

[Tillytwaddle]

Hello. I sometimes see these threads and get really good recommendations. This is for my niece.

Does anyone have any ideas for non-fiction? I wondered about Helen Lewis’s Difficult Women, or Sophie’s World. CS Lewis’s Surprised by Joy? but I’m a bit out of touch. Any ideas?

Sophies World is very good. If she likes history, sone of Dan Jones earlier, smaller books would be great..his more recent are a bit huge. How about Freakonomics?

Thank you @BibbleandSqwauk. Those are really good suggestions.

I might take her to the library and pull some suggestions off the shelves.

it’s funny… I hadn’t really thought about non-fiction, but there’s so much out there!

This might help:

https://www.thebailliegiffordprize.co.uk/#nav

You can look through past years’ nominees and winners as well - so it would be useful for building up a library of non-fiction.

Thank you so much @WhatWillIWear I didn’t know that existed. There are some brilliant books on there. I wonder if James Shapiro might interest her.

What does.she enjoy? There is loads. 'what if' is popular plus others by the same author. My dd likes the Alice Roberts books, Steve Brusatte, basically lots of anthropology, paleo etc. She's got loads. If it involves evolution of the world, rocks, dinosaurs or neanderthal people she'll read it.

Thank you @OakleyStreetisnotinChelsea . I hadn’t heard of Alice Roberts but she looks spot on. As does Steve Brusatte, who I hadn’t heard of, either. I love Mumsnet. So helpful (but Oakley Street is still in Chelsea, I’m afraid - you are pedalling a fiction with your name choice).

Wild Swans by Jung Chang. It's definitely on the longer side, but I wasn't much older when I read it for the first time and was absolutely captivated!

I would never have thought of that @Welshcake15 . I haven’t read that, but it might be just the thing.

can anyone else offer suggestions? What about maths, science, climate change, feminism?

Biographies - Marie Curie, Rosalind Franklin, Ada Lovelace, the Hidden Figures book about the NASA mathematicians, Connected Women book, about women that have shaped the world. Science / Climate Change - The Store of More.

You should find some or all of those covered within the annual lists of Baillie Gifford nominees, @Tillytwaddle.

Otherwise have a look at the lists from the Royal Society:

https://fivebooks.com/books/royal-society-book-prizes/

She could also sign up to receive the Five Books newsletters, which offer curated lists on an infinite variety of subjects, like this:

https://fivebooks.com/best-books/maria-sveland-on-feminism/

(NB - if she regularly reads the literature pages of ‘quality’ newspapers, or follows established journals on Instagram, she’ll soon build up a cache of resources for finding the most important old and new books on any chosen subject.)

Diary of a Young Naturalist by Dara McAnulty

To add to the list: Invisible women - Caroline Criado Perez (feminism via the data gap: an amazing book) ; Unruly by David Mitchell (a very funny history of English kingship and Englishness) and maybe Sapiens: a brief history of mankind by Yuval Noah Harari(I guess sociology/history natural science?) that is VERY long though!

This is an amazing list. And so much I didn’t know about. Thank you so much!

I am really looking forward to exploring this non-fiction world together!

Science lists:

https://www.thebailliegiffordprize.co.uk/books-and-authors?years=&accolades=&genres=science#filter

Current affairs:

https://www.thebailliegiffordprize.co.uk/books-and-authors?page=2#filter

Etc, etc. Just choose a topic and scroll through the lists. (I don’t work for them! But life’s too short to waste time wading through too much second rate stuff.)

Hidden Figures is an amazing story but unfortunately the book is badly written and tedious IMO. The women deserve a re-telling.

Other Minds is excellent, about octopus intelligence.

Non-fiction books I loved at that age:

• Cod and Salt - A World History both by Mark Kurlansky
• Guns, Germs & Steel
• Mutants: On genetic variety and the human body
• Devil take the hindmost: a history of speculation
• Surely you're joking, Mr Feynman - Adventures of a curious character - this is a good one if she's seen Oppenheimer

I couldn’t agree more @WhatWillIWear . And I am so grateful to you for knowing all this stuff. You have really inspired me!

DD has enjoyed Helen Czerskis books on science.

Bill Bryson At Home. Easy read and fascinating

If she’s into history then books on the subject by eg Antonia Fraser, The Time Travellers Guide to… eg Restoration Britain or Medieval etc there are a few of those out.

A few more:

• Oliver Sacks, in particular the two short case history books (Man who mistook his wife for a hat, and an Anthropologist on Mars)
• Also Oliver Sacks's autobiography Uncle Tungsten
• The Man who knew infinity about the mathematician and genius Srinivasa Ramanujan
• The man who loved only numbers about mathematician Paul Erdos

I’ve just ordered this for mine:
https://amzn.to/3Px9Too “I Am Malala tells the remarkable true story of a girl who knew she wanted to change the world - and did.”

Laura Bates.

Also Invisible Women though that is very statistic heavy and despite its important message I found it dull as a result. If she's into maths, she would undoubtedly like it though.

If she enjoys biographies / memoirs, I was obsessed with Gerald Durrell's 'Corfu Trilogy' at that age: wonderfully evocative descriptions of the landscape and wildlife of Corfu and a brilliant cast of characters.