Well written and interesting non- fiction books

[BeverleyCleverley]

I've got a decent pile of fiction books to work through but I like to have some non fiction books on the go too and I'd love some recommendations! Particularly stuff about current affairs/politics etc but I also love geography/history/science books and open to wider suggestions

I loved Factfulness, have you read that?

I just finished Putin's People which was fascinating and horrifying (eg I was aware of the KGB/Russian mafia involvement with Trump but not the extent of it) but very dry. I prefer slightly more readable books

The Selfish Gene is thought provoking

Stolen Focus by Johann Hari

Reading interesting. A genuine page turner and really thought provoking in the age of devices.

Patriot.

Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy.

Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Start Up

Shake hands with the devil by the force commander of the UN team during the Rwandan genocide, shocking but a must read.

Thank you! This is a great list already

I’ve just read Material World by Ed Conway - all about the six fundamental raw materials we use to make everything, how we get those materials and how interconnected those processes are. Very readable

Barbarian Days - William something. Book about surfing. Random but brilliant.
Invisible Women. Depressingly fascinating.
Among the righteous - can't remember author.

The Bettencourt Affair by Tom Sancton. About Liliane Bettencourt, the multi billionaire head of L'Oreal. Fascinating story.

Empire of Pain Patrick Raddan Keeffe about the Sackler dynasty/Purdue Pharma and the opioid crisis.

The Empress and the English Doctor Lucy Ward. About Catherine the Great and the doctor who inoculated her against smallpox so that her subjects would take it too.

Simon Reeves, Step by Step. And the follow up too.

Oh interesting, this links nicely with the Putin book as it really got me thinking about the power linked to owning supplies of raw materials

I loved Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton - really made me think about nature and our relationship to the natural world, and the descriptions are beautiful.

And I’m currently reading Stone Lands by Fiona Robertson - fascinating stuff on (pre)history and standing stones, but also a meditation on grief and memory following her husband’s cancer diagnosis.

Just ordered as I think my son will love this too!

The Etymologicon by Mark Forsyth. It is fascinating and very readable, and A History of the World in 47 Borders by John Elledge, also eye opening.

Oh lovely, an opportunity for me to witter on about Siddhartha Mukherjee's The Emperor Of All Maladies. This book, by an oncologist who specialises in blood cancers, is one of the best things I've ever read. He's compassionate, knowledgeable and he writes beautifully. One word of warning; Mukherjee knows a lot about leukaemia as it affects children. I don't have children and reading what he's seen wrung me out. It would make very hard reading for those who are parents, especially if your young ones have been seriously ill.

The Radium Girls - Kate Moore - what happened to the radium dial painters in three factories in the US in the early twentieth century. This book almost functions as a precursor to Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, in the way it shows up institutional indifference, cruelty and rank stupidity. It's a very hard read (in terms of what it's about rather than difficulty) but also very hard to put down.

Just remembered another good one - The Book of Trespass, by Nick Hayes. More political than the others I suggested; it’s about access to the land and private property, with lots of historical background.

I loved The Emperor of all Maladies.

The Ghost Map.

The House by the Thames and the People who Lived There

The Five by Hallie Rubenhold, about the lives of the five victims of Jack the Ripper. Fascinating for details of the lives of working class women in Victorian London and goes against all the received wisdom about who they were and how they ended up as victims.

Yes yes to Factfulness and invisible women.
I absolutely loved The Penguin Lessons.

Victor Klemperer’s diaries - a non practising Jew (son of a rabbi but baptised Protestant), professor of German literature in Dresden in 1930s. It’s utterly utterly gripping. Goes all the way through rise of nazism, 2WW, and into communist East Germany. So well written, but so shocking. It’s vast, and I’ve literally been carving out hours to sit and read it - because it’s so gripping.

When the dust settles by Lucy Eastwood. I bought it after hearing her on desert island discs. She’s a disaster and emergency planner/responder and it’s incredibly interesting

I enjoyed Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic by Tom Holland.

Also The Popes by John Julius Norwich - a rip roaring read.

Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing is superb.

Sorry - not baptised as a baby , converted to Protestant and married to a non Jew

Yes also this one