what non-fiction are you reading now?

[NicknameTaken]

I just finished Lucy Worsley's If Walls Could Talk - great fun, very well-written and engaging. Next up is Tom Holland's In the Shadow of the Sword, about the origins of Islam.

Anyone else?

I have a copy of The First Crusade waiting for me.

I've just got to finish reading book 1 of the Scream Street series first...

I am reading 'working class cultures 1890-1960' by Joanna Bourke. I know her so keep imagining her narrating which makes me chuckle at times.

Worth a read if working class social history is your bag.

Gorbachev's memoirs. What a chap

And a Very Short Intro to Children's Literature

am dipping into "a history of
the english language in 100 words" which is really interesting

Have got dorothy rowe's "the real meaning of money" lined up next

Just started the Pagrave Macmillian 'History of Sexuality'. Intro and a chapter on Demography and it had grabbed me yet.

'A Short History of England' by Simon Jenkins (I think). It's pretty good but it is very short. You notice when you get to a bit of history you know about... e.g. Black Death got a paragraph. I think he dwells on things that really contributed to the shape of the modern country; the Black Death killed a lot of people, but to an extent it just happened.

And if people are reading to get inspiration, my favourite ever non-fiction book is.... 'Fermat's Last Theorum' by Simon Singh (he's so engaging and clever that I have a crush on him - wonderful to go and see talk with his Skeptic and scientific friends).

I don't read much fiction; there's so much brilliant non-fiction around. I have recently enjoyed:
The Blitz, The Thirties and Wartime Britain, all by Juliet Gardiner
The Strangest Man by Graham Farmelo - a biography of Paul Dirac
She-Wolves by Helen Castor
Magnificent Obsession by Helen Rappaport
Dickens and the Workhouse by Ruth Richardson
Courtiers by Lucy Worsley
A Passionate Sisterhood by Kathleen Jones
Quantum by Manjit Kumar
Marie Curie by Susan Quinn
Serving Victoria by Kate Hubbard
Stonehenge by Mike Parker Pearson
The Brontes by Juliet Barker is magnificent
Austerity Britain and Family Britain by David Kynaston
And if you want to know about Hitler Ian Kershaw's your man!

Currently plodding through Sorry! The English and their Manners. It's not bad, but it doesn't match up to, say, Watching the English by Kate Fox.

MissRenataFlitworth - what did you think of Family Britain? I enjoyed Austerity Britain, meant to buy Family Britain when it came out, and then never got round to it. It just seemed so, well, long.

Fat book I picked up for £2.50 today- Soviet foreign policy after Stalin- published in 1962 author so far seems intent on framing Stalin a rather lamblike light shudder to think how he'll deal with Khrushchev.....

Framing Stalin in a lamblike light - well, that's creative, at any rate...

Enjoying solomon's far from the tree - about families raising children who are in various ways different from the parents - deaf, autistic and others. Not far in, but the intro talking about the author's own experience of growing up gay is fascinating. The complexity of the issues and decisions facing the families are a revelation.

I know, Zombie thread and that, but I'm currently reading god Is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens, and it's better than I thought it would be.

Next up is The Death Of Money by James Rickards, entirely down to an excerpt which described how airline shares wers shorted prior to the 11th September 2001 attacks and the paper trail showing where it originated, which was, according to somebody in the know, the CIA.

Have just found this thread! Am loving The Times' Great Women's Lives at the moment - just dipping in and out of it really. It's a collection of obituaries - sounds morbid but actually really fascinating!

I also enjoyed The Old Ways.

Cornishblues: Far from the tree is fantastic - I really would recommend it to people. Very interesting and very moving too.

I've just finished The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks - an amazing book that I highly recommend.

It's about a woman who dies from cancer, but is much, much more than that.
All sorts of scientific breakthroughs and discoveries have been made using her 'HeLa' cancer cells and the author sets out on a journey to find out the truth about what happened to Henrietta and her family. Her relatives are poor, black and American. They cannot afford health insurance despite the fact that their relative's cells have generated millions of dollars for others.

It is an emotional read in parts but truly fascinating.

The Henrietta Lacks book is great.

Currently reading Clothes, Clothes, Clothes, Music, Music, Music, Boys, Boys, Boys - a memoir by Viv Albertine of the Slits. Very enjoyable.

Van Gogh The Life by Steven Naifeh and Gregory a white Smith. This is an awesome book. It is so good that I immediately turned to the beginning as soon as I finished it. It took them ten years to write and it is the definitive biography. Forget Lust for Life.

Pear Shaped by Adam Blain (see other thread in this section about it) It's self published on Amazon and makes me wonder what other self-published gems I am missing out on.....

I'm about halfway through Far From The Tree.

The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest by Anatoli Boukreev & G Weston DeWalt

I have just finished "The Climb" - Chris Froome's Autobiography, which I loved.

I am now reading "So You've Been Publicly Shamed" by Jon Ronson which is good too.

Next Non-fiction is "Flash Boys" by Michael Lewis.

I'm currently reading Divergent by Veronica Roth

Last one was The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson, which I found very interesting.

Next - can't decide between Mountains of the Mind by Robert Macfarlane and Quiet - The Power of Introverts by Susan Cain.

Just finished Reasons To Stay Alive by Matt Haig (excellent) and now reading Man's Search For Meaning by Viktor Frankl.