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Recommend me some non fiction if these are some of my favourites?

106 replies

EineReiseDurchDieZeit · 05/05/2026 20:30

I am particularly looking for something that works as audio

So I liked

Bad Blood by John Carreyou
Say Nothing and London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe
The Only Plane In The Sky by Garrett Graff
A Woman Of No Importance by Sonia Purnell
Mrs. Jordan’s Profession by Clare Tomalin
Letters Between Six Sisters ed. Charlotte Mosley

among others!

OP posts:
EineReiseDurchDieZeit · 05/05/2026 22:09

SorrelForbes · 05/05/2026 22:08

Have you read her latest about Dr Crippen? Worth a read/listen.

I haven’t !!

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PacificState · 05/05/2026 22:11

How are you on Michael Lewis? Going Infinite is very interesting on crypto and Sam Bankman Fried. The Undoing Project, about the Israeli co-originators of behavioural economics, is absolutely brilliant. The Big Short is about the financial crash. The classic of his is Moneyball (about baseball statistics). He can make literally anything interesting, he’s a genius.

EineReiseDurchDieZeit · 05/05/2026 22:11

ChickensAndEggs · 05/05/2026 21:44

The Mitford Girls by Mary S Lovell - fascinating account of the Mitford sisters.

Good Pop, Bad Pop by Jarvis Cocker (read by the author on Audible) - Jarvis sorts through his attic and muses on music and his life.

Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing (on Audible superbly narrated by Simon Prebble) - fantastic book, adventure, heroism, wonderful descriptions, great characters.

Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest by Wade Davis (on Audible but I read the book so can’t comment on the narration) - very good on the historical context for the Everest attempts in the 1920s.

Wasn’t gone on the Lovell, and I’ve also read Food Pop, Bad Pop.

The others are a shout though

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EineReiseDurchDieZeit · 05/05/2026 22:12

ChickensAndEggs · 05/05/2026 21:55

Also

Precious: The History and Mystery of Gems Across Time by Helen Molesworth (on Audible read by the author) - a delightful book if you are interested in jewels/jewellery.

This sounds good

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EineReiseDurchDieZeit · 05/05/2026 22:13

I wonder why you got hidden @PacificState?

if there’s anyone who I’ve yet to reply to shout at me !

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Sidebeforeself · 05/05/2026 22:14

@ChickensAndEggs I think we have exactly the same taste in books! Loved Endurance, Into the Silence and have just bought Precious

PacificState · 05/05/2026 22:15

Oooh I got hidden (perhaps because I mentioned a form of algorithmic token trading?) Anyway, TL;DR — Michael Lewis, if you haven’t already.

EineReiseDurchDieZeit · 05/05/2026 22:15

PacificState · 05/05/2026 22:11

How are you on Michael Lewis? Going Infinite is very interesting on crypto and Sam Bankman Fried. The Undoing Project, about the Israeli co-originators of behavioural economics, is absolutely brilliant. The Big Short is about the financial crash. The classic of his is Moneyball (about baseball statistics). He can make literally anything interesting, he’s a genius.

Ive seen the films of Moneyball and Big Short but never read anything by either of them

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PacificState · 05/05/2026 22:17

Would definitely recommend. The Big Short if you like financial dramas, The Undoing Project if you’re up for something a bit more emotional.

EineReiseDurchDieZeit · 05/05/2026 22:25

I don’t like the voice artist on Indifferent Stars. Pity.

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ChickensAndEggs · 05/05/2026 22:29

Sidebeforeself · 05/05/2026 22:14

@ChickensAndEggs I think we have exactly the same taste in books! Loved Endurance, Into the Silence and have just bought Precious

I hope you enjoy Precious. Do you have any other exploration favourites to recommend? I enjoyed Ranulph Fiennes’ Shackleton, not as much as Endurance though.

Terpsichore · 05/05/2026 22:29

I got deleted as well when I reviewed the Michael Lewis book over on the other thread, @EineReiseDurchDieZeit ! It's good, though.

Have you read Tunnel 29, Helena Merriman's Berlin Wall non-fiction? That’s really good too.

EineReiseDurchDieZeit · 05/05/2026 22:36

@ChickensAndEggs Have a look at Madhouse at the End of the World by Julian Sancton

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EineReiseDurchDieZeit · 05/05/2026 22:37

I actually haven’t @Terpsichore I’ll make a proper list of all these tomorrow

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SheilaFentiman · 05/05/2026 22:40

I also enjoyed Tunnel 29

The WeWork book is called Billion Dollar Loser

Tootingbec · 05/05/2026 22:41

Definitely The Curious Case of Mike Lynch

Also second the suggestion re: Jon Kraknau (sp?) - I have only read Into the Void (I think that’s the title!) about the 1994 Everest disaster, but it was gripping.

You might like “Nothing to Envy” by Barbara someone (can’t remember!) Tells individual stories about life in North Korea. Dark subject matter but very good

FancyKeyboard · 05/05/2026 22:50

I recently listened to
everything is tuberculosis by John Green
Ultra-processed people by Chris van Tulleken

both very listenable

also currently in the middle of Famesick by Lena Dunham which is prob only worthwhile if you were familiar with Girls

Careless People by a woman who worked at Facebook is ok but she annoyed me by the end

MegBusset · 05/05/2026 22:56

This is my very favourite kind of book! Many already mentioned but these are also all fab:

Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad by Daniel Finkelstein
Experience by Martin Amis
Careless People by Sarah Wynn Williams
Re:Sisters by Cosey Fanni Tutti
Politics On The Edge by Rory Stewart
Challenger by Adam Higginbotham
The Pigeon Tunnel by John le Carre
Fall by John Preston
Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain
Nomadland by Jessica Bruder

ChickensAndEggs · 05/05/2026 22:59

Tootingbec · 05/05/2026 22:41

Definitely The Curious Case of Mike Lynch

Also second the suggestion re: Jon Kraknau (sp?) - I have only read Into the Void (I think that’s the title!) about the 1994 Everest disaster, but it was gripping.

You might like “Nothing to Envy” by Barbara someone (can’t remember!) Tells individual stories about life in North Korea. Dark subject matter but very good

The Jon Krakauer Everest book is Into Thin Air. It’s a fabulous book.

ChickensAndEggs · 05/05/2026 23:01

Thank you @EineReiseDurchDieZeitthat looks right up my street.

MyM8Marmite · 05/05/2026 23:03

Against The Machine by Paul Kingsnorth is an excellent read.

MamaNewtNewt · 05/05/2026 23:11

This is a list of some non-fiction I’ve most enjoyed over the last few years that I think you might like:

And The Band Played On by Randy Shilts (early AIDS epidemic in US)
How to Survive a Plague by David France (AIDS activism e.g. Act Up)
Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About The World - And Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling
Dear Reader by Cathy Retzenbrink (bit like Lucy Mangan books, but better)
The Blood of Emmett Till by Timothy B Tyson
Nuclear War: A Scenario by Annie Jacobsen (terrifying but brilliant, imagines min by min how a nuclear war would play out)
Reaching Down the Rabbit Hole: Extraordinary Journeys into the Human Brain by Allan H Ropper and BD Burrell (this was fascinating and accessible)
On Bloody Sunday: A New History of the Day and its Aftermath By the People Who Were There by Julieann Campbell (what happened in the words of those who lived through it. Shocking but so good)
Infinity in the Palm of a your Hand: Fifty Wonders That a reveal an Extraordinary Universe by Marcus Chown
Killers of the Flower Moon: Oil, Money, Murder and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann
Fall and Rise: The Story of 9/11 by Mitchell Zuckoff (as good as The Only Plane in the Sky)
Becoming Unbecoming by Una (graphic novel but one of my favorite books. Amazing)
Another Day in the Death of America by Gary Younge (gun crime)

TattiePants · 06/05/2026 00:24

EineReiseDurchDieZeit · 05/05/2026 21:59

Read them both! Brilliant! But the Rebecca Skloot isn’t fiction!

Edited

It’s in my TBR so can’t personally recommend but The Black Angels by Maria Smilios was recommended reading at the end of Take my Hand about the black nurses that helped cure TB.

Other non-fiction that I rated (but you may have read many of them):

A woman in Berlin: 8 weeks in the concurred city, Anonymous
Testament of Youth, Vera Britton
I know why the caged bird sings, Maya Angelou
The glass castle, Jeanette Walls
House of Glass, Hadley Freeman
84 Charing Cross Road, Helene Hanff
A Mother’s Reckoning, Sue Klebold
Pale Rider, Laura Spinney
War Doctor, David Nott
Airhead, Emily Matlis
All the young men, Ruth Coker Burks
A village in the third Reich,Julia Boyd

elkiedee · 06/05/2026 00:52

I enjoy listening to audio when I get to it but am hopeless at doing so, or at concentrating. Radio 4's Book of the Week serials can be found on their Sounds app for a bit after broadcast, and also get repeated on 4 Extra, and I've read a lot of books in print copies after hearing the very extracted versions on this serial.

I did listen to and really enjoy Laura Lippman's My Life as a Villainess a few years ago, a collection of memoir essays and articles. She's an American journalist turned crime fiction writer, and is married to a journalist turned TV writer David Simon. A lot of the pieces are about her life as a writer and her family, and there are some very funny pieces about meeting fans of her husband's work and having the shows mansplained to her. (Lippman was also a contributing writer to The Wire). She has a very dry sense of humour.

I also liked Lea Ypi's memoir about growing up in Albania before and after the end of the communist regime, Free. I don't know whether you would or not.

Piggywaspushed · 06/05/2026 06:38

Hi eine. I like Sophy Roberts' two books - just read Training School For Elephants. I have forgotten the name of the book about the facial reconstructions surgery after WWI but that was amazing as is David Nott''s War Doctor. I think you have read Story of a Heart which is incredible. I also loved the book about Brian Clough bringing up those two boys. Not very good at titles!