What is the most gripping non fiction book you have ever read?

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Looking for non fiction reads preferably in personal development. I really struggle to get into books. Any recommendations?

I second Educated, Tara Westover.

Also What to look for in winter: a memoir in blindness - Candia McWilliam

I've just started The River Kings which I'm enjoying. About Viking history and how they travelled much longer distances than we thought. Using river networks to travel through Europe, Middle East and India. Fascinating.

The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson - absolutely fascinating. Helped me categorize all sorts if unpleasant people I’ve met in the past.

The Emperor of All Maladies

The Five, by Hallie Rubenhold. The five victims of Jack the Ripper, the society they grew up in, how they came to be where they were on the night of their murder and the myths constructed around them at the time and since.

Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang. Interesting historical account of three generations of mother/daughters in China from approximately late 1800s to around 1970/80s.

Can any mother help me - pre-internet Mumsnet! Or Diary of a young Naturalist

Murderous Contagion. It's about the race to (try to) eradicate dangerous infectious diseases.

Paul O’Grady’s ‘biography’ - probably pure confabulation - but how he survived his various exploits - physically-I do not know his guardian Angel must have worked overtime 🙄 I think it impacted him psychologically in that he seems to have a Freudian Thanatos instinct evidenced in his disregard for his health

The Mistresses of Cliveden by Natalie Livingstone
Really well written and well researched, and absolute page turner, and absolutely fascinating, and doesn't just focus on the Profumo affair.
Picked this up last week on a visit to Cliveden and finished it 3 days later (a lengthy read, lots of pages)
https://www.abebooks.co.uk/book-search/author/livingstone-natalie/

One of many reviews picked at random:
https://www.countrylife.co.uk/out-and-about/theatre-film-music/book-review-the-mistresses-of-cliveden-74261

Also the autobiography of MM Kaye, author of The Far Pavillions - she grew up in colonial India, absolutely fascinating detail

• Autobiography: Share of Summer
• Part 1: The Sun In The Morning 1990
• Part 2: Golden Afternoon 1997
• Part 3: Enchanted Evening 1999

Into Thin Air by John Krakauer.

It's about the huge loss of life on one day on Everest in the 1996 climbing season, the author was a survivor. Absolutely gripped me.

Escape by Carolyn Jessop

A Spy Among Friends by Ben Macintyre (now an ITV series), about Kim Philby

I could stop listening to it and then bored everyone who would listen to me recommending it. Still blows my mind how long he got away with being a Russian spy because of his upper class credentials and connections and mates in the service.

The other night I sat and read all the way through Survivors, True Stories of Children in the Holocaust by Allan Zullo & Mara Bovsun.

I literally read each child / teen's story and didn't stop until I'd finished the book, it was a real page turner but obviously quite upsetting in places given the subject, however there were some good endings.

It's in paperback on Amazon, a new copy is £4.04.
Now, an bit of an embarrassing thing, it turns out its aimed at 9-12 yr olds although personally I think the subject material is definitely more for older teenagers.

No wonder I found it so easy to read!! But I'm unable to concentrate for very long due to poor mental health so it was perfect for me at present.

Endurance: Shackleton's incredible voyage, by Alfred Lansing. Not personal development, but a real page-turner and every word of it true.

Do No Harm by Henry Marsh - his account of being a brain surgeon and it's absolutely fascinating

I also loved Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond. It's all about the fundamental causes of the success/ failure of different nations and societies through history.

The only plane in the sky.
The story of 9/11

Man’s Search For Meaning by Victor Frankl.
Operation Mincemeat by Ben MacIntyre.
The Bolter by Frances Osborne.

Iron Coffins by Herbert A. Werner. He was a German U-Boat commander in WW2. Gripping stuff.

Oh that’s what I came on to say. Utterly fascinating.

I'm enjoying Consequences of Love by Gavanndra Hodge. Only half way through though.

Freakonomics and Super freakonomics.
The general concept of the book is that economics is the study of incentives. It really made me think!

Also"Blink-the power of thinking without thinking "

I read a lot of non fiction, but I wouldn't class most of them as 'gripping'. The closest I can think of is "Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup" by John Carreyrou, about Elizabeth Holmes' fraudulent startup company, Theranos, which has some astonishing twists and turns if you haven't been following the case in the news

White Mischief by James Fox