To ask you to name-drop your favourite non-fiction books?

[Blinketyblink]

Just that really - please and thanks!

Into thin air

Another vote for Guns, Germs and Steel.

And William Goldman's books about Hollywood, Adventures in the Screen Trade and Which Lie Did I Tell?

Chasing the Scream by Johann Hari. Brilliant and fascinating about the history and war on drugs.

David Lancy: The anthropology of childhood
Georgina Ferry: Dorothy Hodgkin, a life
Andrew Solomon: far from the tree
Guy Deutscher: the unfolding of language
Irvin Yalom: love’s executioner and other tales of psychotherapy

Ice Bound: A Doctor's Incredible Battle For Survival at the South Pole by Jerri Nielsen. It is a truly amazing story.

Spillover by David Quammen, it looks at how animal diseases can 'spillover' and start infecting humans. Very interesting (and topical).

The immortal life of henrietta lacks - her cancer cells are still used today by scientists

Nothing to envy

Freakonomics

Hadley Freeman is a staunch defender of child molester Woody Allen, and other violent men.
Bollocks she is. She's written very sympathetically about the Farrow/Allen children on each side of that issue. You may not like that, it may not always be comfortable reading, but the idea that she's a 'staunch defender' of Allen or any other 'violent men' is horseshit on steroids.

She is, however, gender critical (irrelevant to this book) so maybe that's what's causing you to froth about her.

I really love Wild by Cheryl Strayed

Has anyone else read A London Child of the 1870s, a memoir first published in the 1930s and republished by Persephone Books? I read it a couple of years ago and it's stuck with me ever since. Nothing exciting happens for most of it, but it's a fascinating window into a Victorian middle class childhood.

I have one that will change everything.

The Examined Life by (I think) Stephen Grosz.

Really, it changes everything and is beautifully written, gripping and wise.

bollocks I'd like to read that one.

pitter-patter You'd love the Examined Life.

If you like horses and a cosy autobiography, Pat Smyth's Jump for Joy is a wonderful read. Despite a wardrobe wartime childhood, very limited funds, losing her dad and then her mum, Pat took a carthorse to the Olympics and won (or something similar). Lovely book.

Guns, Germs, and Steel
The Omnivore's Dilemma

Names for the Sea by Sarah Moss A family moves to Iceland. Great observations about cultural difference.
H is tor hawk by Helen McDonald
Mudlark by Lara Maikem
The Sewing Circles of Herat by Christina Lamb
The Necessary Aptitude by Pam Eyres. A really vivid depiction of mid century growing up in rural England.

Wild Swans by Jung Chang. I don't think a book has ever made such an impression on me. I went to Hong Kong just before the handover, I was in my early to mid 20's and couldn't fully appreciate the worry people had. This was recommended to me then. It tells the history of China from the Manchu Empire to the Cultural Revolution.

Some of these have been mentioned but off the top of my head:

Invisible Women (brilliant and frustrating in equal measure!)
Tipping Point and Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
The Psycopath Test by Jon Ronson

I also love anything by Bill Bryson, always an easy read and yet entertaining and informative

Maybe try biographies/autobiographies of anyone you're interested in? I haven't read Michelle Obama's yet but heard good things about it

Bad Blood by Lorna Sage, her memoir of growing up through the 50s in an impoverished Shropshire vicarage with an eccentric grandfather, clue to the tone is in the first chapter, titled The Old Devil and his Wife and proceeds through family, school, friendships to her teenage years when she became pregnant during her A Levels, married her boyfriend but they both still went to University as young parents. She became a noted academic and died very young. Just got it from my bookcase to read again.

There are so many amazing books on here that I have loved.
House of Glass
Black and British
Lowborn

Ones that I have not seen so far:
McMafia by Micha Glenny - Investigative Journalism about the global mafia. Really shocking I couldn’t put it down.

In Control by Professor Jane Monkton Smith- the author is a former police detective turned university professor and she created the homicide timeline. A fascinating read about controlling relationships and the personalities of those who murder.

Mad bad and sad by Lisa Apiganessi a book about women and mental illness and how they have been treated throughout history.

Oh and all the call the midwife books.

@DavidTheDog

(I’m not sure this is what “name-drop” means, is it?).

No but we all got the gist regardless

William Dalrymple - Indian history

Still after all these years, the Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer, although I have enjoyed many later books by her.

Anything by Oliver Sacks, a scientist who wrote like a poet.

Moondust: in search of the men who fell to earth by Andrew Smith.

Bedsit Discoqueen by Tracey Thorne particularly if you're an 80s girl.

Killers of the Flower Moon: David Grann
The Lost City of Z: Ditto
Bad Blood: John Carreyrou
H is for Hawk: Helen Mcdonald
The Lonely City: Olivia Laing
Into Thin Air: John Krakeur

The Eighth Day of Creation. Basically about the early days and personalities of molecular biology. Maybe not for the layman but really interesting if you have a bit of knowledge about biology.