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Well written and interesting non- fiction books

161 replies

BeverleyCleverley · 28/06/2025 20:20

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

OP posts:
Abracadabra12 · 28/06/2025 21:21

Nothing To Envy by Barbara Demick about life in North Korea based on interviews with people who’ve escaped from there

supersun23 · 28/06/2025 21:22

The Only Plane in the Sky - an Oral History of 9/11 - an extraordinary book.

EasternStandard · 28/06/2025 21:23

Richard Rhodes ‘The Making of the Atomic Bomb’

Incredible coverage of the whole thing

Empire of Pain for the opioid crisis

Biomic · 28/06/2025 21:25

The Girl Who Smiled Beads by Clementine Wamariya. Her life story of being separated from her family as a child in Rwanda, refugee camps and then living in the US. I really enjoyed it, a more thoughtful and intelligent account than other such memoirs. It doesn’t present as a typical something awful happened/ misery-lit book.

DaveWatts · 28/06/2025 21:26

Otherlands by Thomas Holliday if you like natural history - liked it so much I read it twice over. I am completely obsessed with prehistoric life though.

Have you read any Svetlana Alexievitch? Her books on Russia are incredible, I'd recommend Second Hand Time which is about the fall of the Soviet Union. She writes these sort of palimpsests of people's stories that sort of coalesce together, such an unusual format but they're fascinating.

PluckyBamboo · 28/06/2025 21:27

Anything by Bill Bryson and I quite like a biography too.

If you are interested in true crime, Mae West's book (Fred and Rose West's daughter) is a good read although horrifying due to the subject.

Biomic · 28/06/2025 21:30

Written in Bone by Professor Sue Black, a Scottish forensic anthropologist. Narrated by the author on Audible, fascinating.

BeverleyCleverley · 28/06/2025 21:31

@PeonyPanda Oh gosh! I have been meaning to read Klemperer's diaries and totally forgot. They were referenced in another book I read recently. Possibly "How to Win an Information War" (which was excellent)

OP posts:
MissScarletInTheBallroom · 28/06/2025 21:31

Unnatural Causes, by Richard Shepherd.

EasternStandard · 28/06/2025 21:33

Alive was also incredible

The crashed plane

Blackmetallic · 28/06/2025 21:40

The Idea of the Brain by Matthew Cobb. It's a history of neuroscience and the gradual discoveries of how the brain works. Interesting and well-written. Matthew has also written two books about WW2 - about the French Resistance and the liberation of Paris, both of which are very good (the French Resistance one especially).

NoelFaraday · 28/06/2025 21:54

https://amzn.eu/d/7P4Xs82

Gates of Hell: Why Bill Gates Is the Most Dangerous Man in the World by Daniel Jupp

The Gates of Hell is a damning critique of the unaccountable power and enormous influence of Bill Gates on global health, food, and science policies.

In this powerful and hard-hitting analysis, Daniel Jupp examines the enormous personal power and political influence of one of the world’s richest men. The Gates of Hell covers everything from the childhood influences that shaped Bill Gates to the Microsoft years and his current incarnation as the most powerful philanthropist on the planet. Jupp traces just how vast and unaccountable the influence of Gates has become, including his leading role in current global health policies and the drive toward a net zero “Green Revolution,” which threatens the economic and social fabric of the entire western world.

Firmly asking the questions that mainstream commentators often avoid, Jupp supplies a damaging criticism not just of Gates himself but of the political corruption and inertia which has allowed one man to effectively direct key global policies adopted by multiple nations without any democratic accountability. From educational and health campaigns of dubious efficacy and unexamined risk to green policies that make little rational sense, Jupp shows how the public-private funding hybrid championed by The Gates Foundation allows a powerful billionaire to push health, agriculture, and science policies in directions which profit investors whilst harming others who have no say in any part of the process.

Now more than ever, following the COVID-19 pandemic, the consequences of lockdowns, mass mRNA vaccinations, and the advances of net zero policy, questioning why one man—who has never been elected to office—has such influence on these decisions is vital.

NoelFaraday · 28/06/2025 21:57

https://amzn.eu/d/3wrmDab

F*ck the Planet: How to Resist the Great Reset in the Trump Era by Daniel Jupp

In a world where globalist agendas threaten our rights and freedoms, Fck the Planet is a raw and unapologetic call to arms for those who refuse to be silenced.*

We are told that the planet is dying. We are told that we are to blame. We are told insane things—that we need to worry about cow farts changing the climate and to accept huge spending on unreliable energy supplies. And none of it makes sense while all of it makes us poorer and the people who propose it richer. All of it is forced on ordinary people who don’t want it by leaders who don’t care about the things we care about, including our lives and our way of life.

It’s all about their clown planet, and none of it concerns our very real world.

For many people in the western world today, it seems as if our leaders, our mainstream media, our institutions, and our political parties have gone insane. Now our economies are failing, our standards of living are falling, our ruling class treat their own people with ever increasing authoritarianism, our borders are opened, and our wishes are ignored.

If you feel alienated by all of this and wonder what you—an ordinary person who loves liberty and your country, but hates what your government is doing—can do, then this book is for you. It doesn’t just describe the growth of Globalist censorship and authority, but equips you with the attitudes and tactics you need to peacefully resist.

This is the book that gives you the tools to protect the things that really matter.

Manzana · 28/06/2025 22:04

my suggestion is One River by Wade Davis, a travelogue of the Amazon rainforest, its plants and people and history

PeonyPanda · 28/06/2025 22:07

BeverleyCleverley · 28/06/2025 21:31

@PeonyPanda Oh gosh! I have been meaning to read Klemperer's diaries and totally forgot. They were referenced in another book I read recently. Possibly "How to Win an Information War" (which was excellent)

Honestly, best thing I’ve read in years. I love history, but I’ve never understood things like - why Jews with assets didn’t get out of there with all the rising anti semitism, why ordinary Germans stood by / accepted these things. Klemperer’s diary is so illuminating.

I’m also listening to the diaries of an American psychologist assigned to the defendants in the Nuremberg war trials , and that’s another eye opener. He recounts what the defendants said about their beliefs etc. totally fascinating. (Clearly they’re all innocent and knew nothing…).

Manzana · 28/06/2025 22:08

also Bill Bryson A short History of Nearly Everything, humorous, interesting and easy to read

SkeletonBatsflyatnight · 28/06/2025 22:11

The drowned places: in search of Atlantis by Damien La Bas. Beautifully written. Blending myth with his personal story. Made me want to learn to dive.

GasperyJacquesRoberts · 28/06/2025 22:13

The Decade in Tory by Russell Jones is an incredibly funny, absolutely infuriating and essential book about the record of the UK government between 2010 and 2020. I love it but I can only read it in chunks before I get angry at being reminded of all the bullshit that went on.

The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat by Oliver Sacks is a record of some of the neurological patients he saw over the years and the effects their maladies had on them. It's an absolutely fascinating, well written and deeply sympathetic view of how our brains can go wrong.

Longitude by Dava Sobel is a biography of John Harrison, an absolute genius 18th century clock maker who tackled the biggest navigation problem of his time.

BunsForTea · 28/06/2025 22:19

Another vote for Written in Bone by Prof Sue Black - I found it absolutely fascinating, engagingly written, and my (late teens) daughter is now enjoying it too.

ColdTofuSandwich · 28/06/2025 22:19

A history of nearly everything by Bill Bryson.

SydneyCarton · 28/06/2025 22:20

@SkeletonBatsflyatnight Oh, that’s interesting, I’m halfway through Damien Le Bas’s The Stopping Places and enjoying it. I didn’t know he’d written another book.

powershowerforanhour · 28/06/2025 22:24

Primo Levi - If This Is A Man + The Truce
Henry Marsh - Do No Harm
Ammonites and Leaping Fish - Penelope Lively
Touching the Void - Joe Simpson
Airhead- Emily Maitlis
I Remember Nothing- Nora Ephron
Death in the Afternoon -Ernest Hemingway

BertieBotts · 28/06/2025 22:27

Neurotribes is amazing too. Sort of a history and portrait of autism.

I like things where people tell the stories of their life or job too. There was one about an airport doctor at Heathrow which I enjoyed. Didn't even know that was a job! I love that kind of behind the scenes stuff.

Oh and In the Heat of the Moment, that's absolutely brilliant. It's the story of a firefighter, she writes partially about her experience as a woman in this very male dominated career, and then she went on to study neuroscience and what happens in the brain when people are under great stress such as an emergency scenario. She used that knowledge to create training for emergency services personnel and she explains it both in the context of high stress scenarios but also in everyday life. If you like psychology as well as behind the scenes info this one manages to tick both boxes.

Ineffable23 · 28/06/2025 22:29

Another recommendation for Stolen Focus. I say, while failing to exercise its recommendations.

Why we sleep was also great.

I also enjoyed a book by a previous UK ambassador to the USA - Kim Darroch.

Currently reading Broken Republik which is about Germany's decline and is very interesting.

CrystalSingerFan · 28/06/2025 22:29

powershowerforanhour · 28/06/2025 22:24

Primo Levi - If This Is A Man + The Truce
Henry Marsh - Do No Harm
Ammonites and Leaping Fish - Penelope Lively
Touching the Void - Joe Simpson
Airhead- Emily Maitlis
I Remember Nothing- Nora Ephron
Death in the Afternoon -Ernest Hemingway

Yep to Touching the Void!

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