Does anyone else love Non-fiction on unusual/niche topics?

[ShelfObsessed]

I’m always looking for non-fiction books on unusual topics and would appreciate any recommendations.

As an example here’s last month’s non fiction haul mostly picked up from charity shops. I can’t personally recommend them as I haven’t read most yet but I’ll list them should anyone else care to take a look at them.

Rummage: A History of the Things We Have Reused, Recycled and Refused to Let Go by Emily Cockayne.

Pickled, Potted and Canned: The Story of Food Preserving by Sue Shepard

Strange Antics: A History of Seduction by Clement Knox

Eject! Eject! by John Nichol. (A History of the Ejection Seat.

Tomatoland: How modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit by Barry Estabrook.

Breath from Salt: A Deadly Genetic Disease, a New Era in Science, and the Patients and Families Who Changed Medicine Forever by Bijal P Trivedi.

Swindled: From Poison Sweets to Counterfeit Coffee - The Dark History of the Food Cheats by Bee Wilson

The Man Who Ate the Zoo: Frank Buckland, forgotten hero of natural history by Richard Girling

Through The Looking Glasses: The Spectacular Life of Spectacles by Travis Elborough.

Swimming Pretty: The Untold Story of Women in Water by Vicki Valosik.

Any other suggestions would be much appreciated.

TIA

Really enjoyed Ravenous. About the food industry and the planet. By the founder of Leon

I love Prisoners of Geography, he has also a written one recently about maps!

Also Why the Germans do it better, by John Kampfner

and Empireland by Sathnam sanghera

I really enjoyed this
https://store.whiterabbitbooks.co.uk/products/the-foghorns-lament

Also getting back into Joan Didion essays

I highly recommend:
'Written in Bone' by Professor Sue Black which looks at different bones of the body and what we can learn from them, also:
'All That Remains' by the same author - (In All That Remains she reveals the many faces of death she has come to know, using key cases to explore how forensic science has developed, and examining what her life and work has taught her.)
And for something completely different -

'The Worst Journey in the World' by Apsley Cherry-Garrard which tells the story of Scott's last expedition to the Antarctic and events beyond. It's a devastating account of what happened, as written by one of the expedition's members, but it is beautifully written and makes you aware of how horrendous conditions really were for everyone on the expedition.

Another recommendation for all of Tim Marshall’s books on geography.
Also a book recommendation from Mumsnet which I loved “ King Leopolds Ghost”

Thank you all for the recommendations, my 'to buy' list is getting longer by the minute.
I've just finished 'Kin' which is about neanderthals and super interesting, but also the autobiography (and next in line is a biography) of Helen Suzmann. She was an MP in South Africa in the apartheid era, only woman in parliament, for years and years the only member of her party to be elected, and a tireless campaigner for many groups including the political prisoners. Just incredible

I came here to say this!

I also loved:
Bitch by Lucy Cook about the evolution of the female species

Other Minds by Peter Godfrey-smith about octopuses

Mudlarking by Lara Maiklem about mudlarking (!)

Five by Hallie Rubenhold about the victims of the Ripper

Non-fiction books I've loved include The Arcanum and The Moneymaker by Janet Gleeson, about porcelain and paper money respectively. Also Fermat's Last Theorem by Simon Singh (haven't got on so well with other books by him though).

Have recently loved reading Islands of Abandonment by Cal Flynn; about toxic human landscapes and their natural recovery.

Finally, Extreme Weather by someone... it's got lightning in the cover. Because I love weather 😁

Going to note down some of these great recommendations - thank you!

@ExperiencedTeacher I love Other Minds, it really is fascinating.

I'd forgotten to add Debt: The first 5000 years by David Graeber as a recommendation which was a really random choice to read, but the reframing of debt as a driver of money was so interesting

I loved “other minds” and “all that remains” - both of them are superb.

really want to read the screwdriver book now…!

I love non-fiction and I’ve read lots mentioned on this thread including Rummage and Swindled, which @ShelfObsessed mentions (and waves at @ChessieFL - I know we’ve both read Entangled!).

There are just so many to recommend - too many. One of my all-time favourites as a history-lover, though, which I often mention on threads like these, is Judith Flanders' The Victorian House - it’s absolutely fascinating. Anything by Gillian Tindall is great, especially The House By the Thames, about the history of Bankside. Also unexpectedly interesting was Helena Attlee's The Land Where Lemons Grow, which is about (yes) lemons and citrus fruit and the places they’re grown in Italy.
Sarah Ogilvie's The Dictionary People was one of my top reads a couple of years ago, telling the stories of some of the extraordinary people who contributed entries to the OED. Also worthy of a mention is Annie Gray's The Greedy Queen, about Queen Victoria, the food at her court and what she ate. And a memoir suggestion: John Lanchester's Family Romance. His mother was a nun who left the convent, got married and had children…..

@CMOTDibbler I bought Debt for DH for his birthday (at his request) - he’s been glued to it ever since!

I love non fiction audio books as its not as big a problem if I fall asleep and lose the 'page'

Recently borrowed Jeffrey Archers prison audio books and attempted an in depth look at the Chernobyl disaster but that had me sleeping within 5 minutes over the last week 😴 😳.

Maybe not as unusual as some of the books suggested but I loved A Prickly Affair: My Life with Hedgehogs by Hugh Warwick.

I can also recommend Five by Hallie Rubenhold. I really enjoyed The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande, in fact any of his books are a great read

I like to call my preferred niche “nerdy nutrition” but it extends to food production too. I really enjoyed Ultra Processed People by Chris Van Tulleken. I have just bought Tomatoland which I hadn’t heard of, and have added Ravenous to my kindle wish list.

I also enjoy autobiographies of rock stars, the more debauched the better. I’ve read Scar Tissue (Anthony Kiedis), a Slash one that I can’t remember the name of, and The Heroin Diaries (Nikki Sixx). Probably more but it’s been a while since I delved into this particular genre.

Yes, I love to read and look at vexillology books. Interesting from a picture and design perspective and also for the historical, geographical and random fact point of view, I find it totally fascinating.
Random fact incoming...Paraguay is the only country flag with a different design on the front and back.....it's mind blowing!!!!😁

I really enjoyed Jeffrey Archer’s prison diaries recently - an insight into a world I know nothing about (though obviously over 20 years old now)

Another reader recommending for The Five by Hallie Rubenhold.

Loving these recommendations.

I love anything by Michael Lewis, especially Premonition about the Covid pandemic response in the USA