What was the last non fiction book you bought/ read/enjoyed?

[LemonAndAPear]

I'm always looking for non fiction recommendations and I'd appreciate any suggestions. Even if you haven't read it yet I'd be interested to know what you've bought recently.

TIA

The toddlers guide to parent taming

@FuckingHateRats I'm about a quarter of the way through the dinosaur book and have learnt loads. Bit waffly in places (on his life not the dinosaurs!) But its such a different picture than popular culture.

A Still Life by Josie George
The real history of pirates by The Great Courses

Arabia by Levison Wood, excellent. I've read a quite few of his books and they're all great. My current favourite travel/adventure writer.

Adding one that I have read and enjoyed. Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit by Barry Estabrook. (99p on Kindle at the moment.

Thank you all so much. I'm adding all of these to my list and I'm looking forward to reading as many as possible. Please keep the suggestions coming. I'm very grateful for them.

Bill Bryson The Body. A fascinating read, as are all his books.
I also enjoyed Spoon Fed by Tim Spector.

The Jigsaw Man by Paul Britton.
A forensic psychologist who talks about the murder cases he's worked on. Really interesting.

Where Did I Go Right? by Geoff Norcott. Very funny, very personal in places.

Bob Mortimers autobiography. He's a very interesting man

Anything by Patrick Radden Keefe. I've read Empire of Pain (sacklers and opioid addiction) and Say Nothing (the Troubles in NI) which are really well researched but read like a thriller.

My first thought! Reading it now, having read the Medieval and Elizabethan ones, and have Regency ready to go...

I've also started listening to Eating to Extinction by Dan Saladino. Brilliantly-written, is a commentary on the way the food we eat and the methods we use to feed ourselves as a species has changed, and the implications for humanity.

Meltdown by Chris Clearfield and Andras Tilcsik
all about why things go wrong, including the award mix up at the Oscars a few years ago, poisoned drinking water in the US and how to reduce air crashes. Highly recommended.

The Bomber Boys Trilogy, I love anything about WW2 my uncle was aircrew in a Lancaster Bomber & was shot down age 21 10 weeks before the end of the war. I read them to try to understand why he wanted to do something where his life expectancy was 6 weeks. I'm proud to say that his crew got a mention in the books & after reading the conditions they fought in I'm so proud of him & his bravery.

Last few I've read:

Letters written in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark by Mary Wollstonecraft Her best selling book during her lifetime this spanned a whole industry in travel writing.

The Instant by Amy Liptrot A follow up to the prize winning The Outrun this describes a year living in Germany.

Esther's Notebooks 1. Tales from my ten-year-old life by Riad Sattouf. Translated by Sam Taylor A best seller in France this started as a comic strip based on the regular conversations the author has with his friend's daughter. It catches the voice of a 10 yo perfectly.

Vaxxers by Sarah Gilbert and Catherine Green The story of the Oxford Covid vaccine.

Material Girls. Why Reality Matters for Feminism. Kathleen Stock The philosophy of what makes a woman a woman.

Difficult Women: A History of Feminism in 11 Fights by Helen Lewis A potted history of feminism that doesn't gloss over the imperfections and complexities of great campaigners.

Period by Emma Barnett A millenial book about menstration, I was too grown up to appreciate this.

Memories: From Moscow to the Black Sea by Teffi. Translated by Robert Chandler, Elizabeth Chandler, Anne Marie Jackson and Irina Steinberg Brilliant, funny, heartbreaking memoir of Teffi's escape from Russia during the civil war via Kyiv and Odessa?

I read that. Absolutely brilliant. Focus was totally on the victims and not the perpetrator. Can highly recommend it.

Some great books recommender on here.
My most recent kindle sample book was Tides:the science and spirit of the ocean by Jonathan White. Loved it and intend to buy the book

Bad Blood by John Carryou - about Theranos

The Choice by Edith Eger- autobiography by a woman who survived the Holocaust

Currently reading, The Stopping Places by Damian Le Bas - he is from a Gypsy/Romany/Traveller background but went to public school (on a scholarship) and to Oxford. I am interested in finding out more about travellers' lives - I live in a town with a big traveller population, and a lot of anti-traveller prejudice which I hate, but I don't really know any travellers myself. It's quite illuminating from that perspective, but I also find it more generally interesting on the experience of living with a foot in different worlds.

Have just bought Victory in the Kitchen by Annie Gray - about the life of the woman who went on to become Churchill's cook. Only read the first chapter, but looking forward to getting into it.

Enjoyed the Gran Tour and the Marmalade Diaries by Ben Aiken recently - easy, funny reads, but also quite poignant and thought-provoking in places.

Some good recommendations here - I loved the Outrun, so might try the follow up

I've just read my 40th book of the year the last book I read that I'd recommend is Everything I never told you' by Celeste Ng. Have you got a good reads account. I find it's a good way of trying to decide what to read next.

Difficult women by Helen Lewis
And invisible women by Caroline criado Perez,
12 bytes by Jeanette winterson. I think there's a theme going on there 🤔

War Doctor
The World I Fell Out Of
When Breath Becomes Air

House of Glass by Hadley Freeman
Kate Muir’s Menopause book
The Madness of Grief by Richard Coles.

The Traitor King by Andrew Lownie, about Edward VIII. Your jaw drops open wider with every revelation, and it's all thoroughly researched and referenced.