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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:
PacificallyRequested · 04/04/2023 22:12

Stasiland: stories from behind the Berlin Wall by Anna Funder
This House of Grief by Helen Garner

glassofwaterpls · 04/04/2023 22:15

RedDoughnut · 04/04/2023 15:15

Educated- Tara Westover

Yes, I am reading this at the moment!

Eyesopenwideawake · 04/04/2023 22:15

Dark Money by Jane Mayer. Watch the results playing out on the news tonight.

Hbh17 · 04/04/2023 22:17

"The Romanovs" by Simon Sebag Montefiore. It is fascinating and complex history, written like a cracking, pacy thriller. Unputdownable. I have already read it 3 times, and is the book I would take to my desert island (along with the Bible & Shakespeare).

Hairymaery · 04/04/2023 22:32

Papillon

EmilyMayishere · 04/04/2023 22:35

Most recently:

Becoming by Michelle Obama.

I couldn't put it down.

IbizaToTheNorfolkBroads · 04/04/2023 22:37

The Radium Girls - Kate Moore

Story of the groups of women in the early 1900s who worked with fluorescent pa

IbizaToTheNorfolkBroads · 04/04/2023 22:39

IbizaToTheNorfolkBroads · 04/04/2023 22:37

The Radium Girls - Kate Moore

Story of the groups of women in the early 1900s who worked with fluorescent pa

Posted too soon

.... fluorescent paint, how they became ill and how they sued the businesses they worked for and changed US law.

IbizaToTheNorfolkBroads · 04/04/2023 22:39

EmilyMayishere · 04/04/2023 22:35

Most recently:

Becoming by Michelle Obama.

I couldn't put it down.

Yep x

Jewel1968 · 04/04/2023 22:41

I too struggle to read fiction these days. Recently started reading - We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families - which is about the genocide in Rwanda. Horrific and compelling and an important book.

EmilyMayishere · 04/04/2023 23:04

David Notts War Doctor books but they are not for the fainthearted.

One of the nice parts: he was having tea with the Queen, very traumatised by what he had gone through and was unable to make polite conversation. She realised this and they just fed the corgis dog biscuits instead.

Cleebope2 · 04/04/2023 23:08

Spare by Prince Harry… thought it would be shit but I can’t wait to get into bed to read the next few pages every night!! He has an awesome ghost writer.

RainBlue13 · 04/04/2023 23:15

I've recently been mesmerised listening to the audiobook version of Michelle Obama's memoir Becoming.

Currently reading and would so far recommend Happiness by Design: change what you do, not what you think by Paul Dolan.

Plus some of my behavioural economics favourites:

The Marshmallow Test: Understanding Self-Control and How to Master it by Walter Mischel

Mindset by Carol Dweck

Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape our Decisions by Dan Arierly

maddy68 · 04/04/2023 23:16

There is an author called Paul Burston. He is a gay activist There are a series of books and all fascinating particulate if you grew up in the 80s. So poignant

EineReiseDurchDieZeit · 04/04/2023 23:21

The extremely moving and sad but absolutely essential

The Only Plane In The Sky by Garrett Graff

and

Night by Elie Wiesel

AchillesElbow · 04/04/2023 23:23

Stuart, a Life Backwards really gripped me. It definitely explains how a person ends up in their life situation.

Stopsnowing · 04/04/2023 23:31

Came on to recommend Henrietta Lacks. The subject matter sounds dull but it is a real page turner. Also liked Edicated and King Leopold Ghost.

1stWorldProblems · 05/04/2023 00:15

The Collapse about the fall of the Berlin Wall - it's a page turning thriller - so many times it could have gone horribly wrong but it didn't (phew)

https://amzn.eu/d/38XSjKd?tag=mumsnet&ascsubtag=mnforum-book-of-the-month-4777990-what-is-the-most-gripping-non-fiction-book-you-have-ever-read

McSlowburn · 05/04/2023 01:52

Quent · 04/04/2023 18:49

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

The TV series absolutely gripped me!

heldinadream · 05/04/2023 07:09

1stWorldProblems · 05/04/2023 00:15

The Collapse about the fall of the Berlin Wall - it's a page turning thriller - so many times it could have gone horribly wrong but it didn't (phew)

Not my thread but thank you for this recommendation it sounds right up my street! 🙂

PurpleParrotfish · 05/04/2023 07:48

Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman is the best book I’ve ever read about how to live, “a book about happiness disguised as a time management book”.

Unfollow by Megan Phelps Roper is amazing.

I just listened to the audiobook of ‘A Bit of a Stretch’ by Chris Atkins, his experience in Wandsworth prison, which he manages to make both very funny and excoriating on the state of prisons.

I’m also rereading the first volume of John Simpson’s autobiography, Strange Places, Questionable People.

wonkylegs · 05/04/2023 07:55

The radium girls by Kate Moore
Brilliantly written but tragic account of these girls lives

anormalperson · 05/04/2023 10:24

I'm glad my Mom died by Jenette McCurdy. Heartbreaking but brilliantly written

tiredpuppymum · 05/04/2023 13:12

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

I second this

Butterfly44 · 06/04/2023 00:45

Shamelessly placemarking :)