Non fiction

[coragreta]

Can anyone recommend any good non fiction books? Not really sure what I'm looking for so any suggestions would be great.

Random selection of things I’ve found interesting over the last few years:

Stiff: Curious Lives of Human Cadavers - Mary Roach
A Woman in the Polar Night - Christiane Ritter (Austrian woman who over-wintered in Svalbard in the 1930s)
Do No Harm - Henry Marsh (eminent neuro surgeon talks about his work)
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (the story of the woman from whom the immortal cell line used for medical/cancer research came from)
The Tent, The Bucket and Me - Emma Kennedy (funny anecdotes of holidays with family)
Love Nina - Nina Stibbe (letters between sisters about London literary life in the 80s)
Biogs of Samuel Pepys and Charles Dickens. - both by Claire Tomalin
Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? - Jeannette Winterson (autobiography)
Man’s Search for Meaning - Victor Frankl
If This is A Man - Primo Levi
Behind the Beautiful Forevers - Katherine Boo (Mumbai)
Happy Like Murderers - Gordon Burn (25 Cromwell Road/Fred and Rose West)
The Psychopath Test or anything else by Jon Ronson
Forensics: The Anatomy of Crime - Val McDiarmid (fascinating look at many aspects forensics through history)
I Am Malala - Malala Yousefzai
The Bookshop Book - JenCampbell (lovely dip into type of book)

Into Thin Air by John Krakauer - about an Everest expedition that went awry. It is a compelling and fascinating read, and it doesn’t require knowledge or interest in mountaineering, it is about endurance and how humans behave in extreme situations.

I don’t read many non-fiction but I can recommend Pompeii by Mary Beard. I’ve alao recently read How to Win Friends and Influence People after se8ng it recommended on MN.

I'm reading How to read a graveyard by Peter Stanford. It's basically a history of various famous graveyards around the world as well as a history of funerals/how the dead were seen dating back to Roman times. Very interesting if you like that kind of stuff!

If you're interested in self-improvement, then I'd recommend Feel the Fear and do it anyway.
I found it really inspiring and intend to re-read it every year or so.

Am currently reading Sapiens- again, I'd recommend it highly. It's not a difficult or heavy read and really interesting.

All great suggestions. I want to start reading when feeding rather than mumsneting. Thanks for the ideas.

I've just read an amazing book about DNA. Will root out the author. I read quite a bit of nonfiction. Yay to Jon Ronson, also the Time Travellers series is interesting if you like history reconstruction.

I just finished Mistakes Were Made, But Not By Me by Tavris & Aronson. I heard it discussed on A Good Read on Radio 4, I think it was Alexei Sayle's choice. It's about the lengths we go to avoid responsibility for things going wrong & why we do this. It's fascinating and well-written and I think everyone will recognise some of the behaviour it discusses, in themselves and others.

Another book I enjoyed recently was Gastrophysics by Charles Spence, which is all about the way our senses perceive food and how chefs and food companies use this information to manipulate our appetites.

Second vote for The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee was really good

I started this thread last week, some great suggestions here:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/3191699-Recommend-some-fascinating-non-fiction-books