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Original poster

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

115 replies

blinkaa · 04/04/2023 14:46

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

OP posts:
StylishM · 04/04/2023 19:06

Unnatural causes by Dr Richard Shepherd. He's a forensic pathologist who worked on Hungerford, the marchioness disaster, 9/11, Princess Diana, an absolutely fascinating book & not 'morbid' in its style. He's also done a follow up which is just as excellent

WhatTheHeckyPeck · 04/04/2023 19:07

pjani · 04/04/2023 15:14

The autobiography Wild Swans by Jung Chang, telling the story of three generations of women in her family from her grandmother (concubine, bound feet) to her mother (and the impacts of the cultural revolution) and then her. It’s a fat book, usually I love a slender book but I have read it so many times now. Highly recommended.

I was about to suggest the same book. The story of the concubine (I think it was the author's grandmother), had be both angry and sad at the same time.

EmmaGrundyForPM · 04/04/2023 19:21

Needmorelego · 04/04/2023 14:54

I like the Simon Garfield compilations of people's war time diaries.

me too!

pinkspaghetti · 04/04/2023 19:23

This Is Going to Hurt by Adam Kay.

tiredpuppymum · 04/04/2023 19:32

Unfollow by Meghan Phelps Roper.
About growing up within the westboro baptist church and leaving all of her family behind when she realised she was raised in a cult.

I'm not that interested in the family but the book was incredible. She's a really cool person and there are so many layers to her decision to leave.

HuggingtheHRT · 04/04/2023 19:54

Mudlarking by Lara Maiklem
(Not really personal development but fascinating brain fodder.)

Design Your Life - Bill Burnett and Dave Evans

LindorDoubleChoc · 04/04/2023 19:57

Gripping personal development?

I've read loads of gripping non-fiction but none in the genre of personal development which is usually pretty dull.

What are you actually after?

afaloren · 04/04/2023 19:58

American Kingpin, about the online Silk Road.

AlexCabot · 04/04/2023 20:00

The Wicked Boy by Kate Summerscale.

Madhouse at the end of the earth by Julian Scanton - quite possibly the best book I've ever read.

WhatWouldHopperDo · 04/04/2023 20:00

ofasphodel · 04/04/2023 14:49

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

I’m 2/3 way through this and agree. It’s fascinating.

AlexCabot · 04/04/2023 20:02

Oh and King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild. Pretty grim though.

Pallisers · 04/04/2023 20:08

Far From The Tree by Andrew Solomon. Series of chapters about families where the children are profoundly different from the parents. Really fascinating.

I loved In Cold Blood. years ago I worked with one of the people mentioned in it .
I also loved Can Any Mother Help Me - as pp said pre-internet mumsnet - but quite sad in a way.

ZebraKid71 · 04/04/2023 20:17

Marya hornbacher- wasted. Not personal development, bit a memoir about her eating disorder and I could not put it down.

FormerlySpeckledyHen · 04/04/2023 20:36

StylishM · 04/04/2023 19:06

Unnatural causes by Dr Richard Shepherd. He's a forensic pathologist who worked on Hungerford, the marchioness disaster, 9/11, Princess Diana, an absolutely fascinating book & not 'morbid' in its style. He's also done a follow up which is just as excellent

Came on to say exactly this.

ladygindiva · 04/04/2023 20:36

Truman Capote in cold blood. It's sort of non fiction , but novelized iyswim

ladygindiva · 04/04/2023 20:36

I see I'm not the first 🤣

Partyandbullshit · 04/04/2023 20:43

Touching the Void

NashvilleQueen · 04/04/2023 20:44

Ten Men Dead about the 1981 IRA hunger strike

L3ThirtySeven · 04/04/2023 20:45

Not in front of the Servants

dotdotdotdash · 04/04/2023 20:49

For personal development, anything by Gitta Sereny or Erich Fromm. There is also one I go back to again and again on Myers Briggs called Personality Type by Lenore Thomson. And some of my book club pals loved The Pants of Perspective by Anna McNuff about a woman who runs across New Zealand; oh and The Salt Path, we all raved about it.

And also I loved The Heart of the Sea, which another poster recommended.

Misknit · 04/04/2023 20:50

Anything by Matthew Syed is fascinating: Black Box Thinking, Rebel Ideas, Bounce.

Soes · 04/04/2023 20:59

Not personal development but definitely one man’s development. The Boy in the River by Richard Hoskins. It’s about the African boy’s torso found in the Thames - kind of true crime but so more more than that, fascinating.

Cookiedough41 · 04/04/2023 21:03

Wild by Cheryl Strayed - one woman's hike along the Pacific Crest Trail. Her mum died, she struggled to cope and her marriage imploded. Reese Witherspoon made a movie out of it and Cheryl appears in the film briefly.

Alcemeg · 04/04/2023 22:06

Daniel Start, The Open Cage, a first-hand account of being kidnapped by a tribe in Papua New Guinea. He's better known for his books about wild swimming in the UK, but this book about his traumatic experience in captivity was really gripping because everything seems sort of normal and OK.... until it isn't. Truly nightmarish.

Also loved The Devil Drives, a biography of the explorer Richard Burton. Extraordinary man, not quite sure where to begin doing justice to his adventurous life.

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