Best non-fiction

[CookieMumsters]

Looking for recommendations for any non-fiction books, doesn't matter the subject matter, the wider the variety the better. I'm just looking for things that are nicely written and easy to follow.

War doctor by David Nott is incredible, he’s one of life’s true heroes. I also enjoyed Born to Run by Christopher MacDougal, about endurance runners who can run huge distances.

Do you include memoir in non- fiction? If so then Unorthodox by Deborah Feldman is very interesting, life in a very strict Jewish community.

Thanks for the suggestions @Warmworm

Yes, I'll give memoirs a go. I'm just looking for something a bit different to my usual reading.

I don't read a lot of non-fiction but I am reading Etta Lemon by Tessa Boase and its really interesting.
It's about Etta Lemon who fought against killing birds for millinery and founded the RSPB and also about Emmaline Pankhurst who's campaign was seen as more glamorous and the suffragettes wore big feathers in their hats.

Bill Bryson writes good non fiction.

‘A short history of nearly everything’ is about the history of science. Who found things out, how did they did they do it - it’s a bit old so there are a few bits that are dated but it’s good.

‘At home’ - about normal life and the home over the centuries.

‘Shakespeare’

I find them easy to read. He has a dry sense of humour which appeals to me.

The Century Girls Tessa Dunlop interviews with centenarians
Ladies Can't Climb Ladders. Jane Robinson Female pioneers in professions
The Life Project Helen Pearson Story of longitudinal studies -sounds dry but I found it fascinating
British Summer Time Begins Ysenda Maxtone -Graham Children's experiences of school summer holidays in the twentieth century.

The World I Fell Out Of - Melanie Reid
Vaxxers - Dr Sarah Gilbert and Dr Catherine Green
The Cut Out Girl - Bart Van Es

These were my favourites over the past few years

Just started the Midnight Library

Kate Summerscale writes interesting non-fiction. I've read two of her books so far - The Wicked Boy, and The Suspicions of Mr Whicher. Both were really interesting, but I much preferred The Suspicions of Mr Whicher. It was a fascinating look at life and death in Victorian England, and the early days of police detective work.

The Midnight Library is fiction, but Matt Haig does also write non-fiction, focusing mainly on maintaining good mental health. Definitely worth a read.

The Radium Girls-

The story of women who worked with radium in aircraft factories in the US in the early 20th century; the impact on their health and how they campaigned for recognition, compensation and protection at a time where welfare at work, H&S law etc law just didn’t exist.

@babybythesea

Bill Bryson writes good non fiction.

‘A short history of nearly everything’ is about the history of science. Who found things out, how did they did they do it - it’s a bit old so there are a few bits that are dated but it’s good.

‘At home’ - about normal life and the home over the centuries.

‘Shakespeare’

I find them easy to read. He has a dry sense of humour which appeals to me.

I second The Short History of Nearly Everything.

Jon Ronson- the psychopath test
Mary Roach is a very engaging science writer also.

I'm reading Marina Wheeler's, The Lost Homestead atm and enjoying it.

These are all quite popular so you may have already read but here are some I’ve enjoyed recently.
In to Thin Air - Jon Krakauer - a first hand account of the Everest disaster in 1996

The Five - Hallie Rubenhold
Delves into the lives of the women killed by Jack the Ripper

The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11
by Garrett Graff

A really comprehensive collection of first hand stories from 9/11.

The Glass Castle - Jeanette Waters
A memoir from a lady who’s parents are truly dysfunctional.

I read Empire of pain about the Sacklers over Christmas and it is brilliant. Also Hidden Figures about the amazing black women who worked for NASA as calculators in the 1960s and worked out the maths for the moon landings.

I recommend “The hidden life of trees” by Peter Wohlleben. I promise that if you read it, you will never look at a tree in the same way again! So many “what the f*ck did I just read” moments.

Everything You Ever Taught Me - I walked from Mexico to Canada whilst fat, forty-something, female, funny and nearly four years sober. Oh, and a pandemic broke out right after I started.

Previously I had hiked from the sofa to the fridge and back. I considered camping a loathsome pursuit.

I still do.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

I'm a voracious reader and prefer non-fiction. Among my favourites over the years:

Bill Bryson [all of them!]

Josie Dew and her various travels with her bike
[free to borrow]

archive.org/search.php?query=josie%20dew

Danny Baker's autobiographical volumes are entertaining [also on archive.org]

Oh, and I mustn't forget Karen Armstrong's astonishing memoir of her life as a novice in a Roman Catholic convent in the 1960s. Read it many years ago but it stays with me.

@TellingBone

I'm a voracious reader and prefer non-fiction. Among my favourites over the years:

Bill Bryson [all of them!]

Josie Dew and her various travels with her bike
[free to borrow]

archive.org/search.php?query=josie%20dew

Danny Baker's autobiographical volumes are entertaining [also on archive.org]

Oh, and I mustn't forget Karen Armstrong's astonishing memoir of her life as a novice in a Roman Catholic convent in the 1960s. Read it many years ago but it stays with me.

Forgot to mention the title of Karen Armstrong's book. It's Through the Narrow Gate.

Brain on Fire by Susannah Cahalan.
Posted my review of this on another thread too - it's horrifying. The writer has encephalitis but is consistently wrongly diagnosed. At one point a top neurologist tells her Mum she's just a party girl who has been drinking too much.
It's very engagingly written (Cahalan is a journalist) and her boyfriend and Dad emerge as heroes who fight her corner and ensure she is supported to make a full recovery.
I also recently completed The Wild Silence by Raynor Winn. Beautifully written.
Now reading Wintering by Katherine May which seems appropriate in February.
This has been a year of reading non- fiction. For some reason I just can't focus on fiction at all.

Some authors to consider, but ~I dunno what you like
Bruce Chatwin
Dervla Murphy
AJ Jacobs
Jessica Bruder
Helen MacDonald (H is for Hawk)
Jeanette Walls
Kathleen Dayus
George Orwell (eg Homage to Catalonia)

I read a book about Kent Hop pickers but can't find link, now.

I struggle with fiction, tbh, it's so silly!

I'm on a bit of a nature-writing thing at the mo, so my first list would be:
H Is For Hawk, Helen Macdonald
Finding the Mother Tree, Suzanne Simard
The Seaweed Collector's Handbook, Miek Zwamborn
Corvus: A Life with Birds, Esther Woolfson
Adrift: A Secret Life of London's Waterways, Helen Babbs. Not exactly nature, but the author and partner live on a canal boat. There is some nice nature writing but also interesting stuff about London's waterways, currently and in history.

Also, totally different, Just My Type by Simon Garfield, about fonts: who designed some of the most well-known ones and why, what they have come to stand for, how they work. Very witty and easy to read, as well as fascinating.

Memoirs: The Moon's a Balloon by David Niven is a scream; he was quite the character and what an era he lived through.
Haven't read it yet myself but am keen to read Brian Cox's autobiog Putting The Rabbit in the Hat.

And Testament of Youth, Vera Brittain. An astonishing, sad, funny, deeply personal account of how she went from a sheltered bourgeois life to being a young VAD nurse in WW2.

I've just finished Unorthodox by Deborah Feldman, as recommended by @Warmworm. Very good read, easy to keep saying 'just 1 more page'.

The Sea Is Not Made Of Water by Adam Nicholson is my current read and is beautifully written, about rock pools developing on a remote Scottish beach. Much more engaging than it sounds. I also liked his first book, Sea Room, because I lived in the area he was writing about at the time (also remote and Scottish.

I'd also recommend The Secret World of Weather and The Natural Navigator both by Tristan Gooley. I thought I looked closely at the landscape (I used to be a Geography teacher) but he takes it many levels higher and it's really enriched my life.

Off to check your posts for other recommendations!

I've just read Under Fire by Naomi Clifford - based on the diaries of a female volunteer ambulance driver in WW2 - really fascinating and well written.
www.goodreads.com/book/show/59067795-under-fire