Reading non-fiction is often a completely different experience than reading fiction. Non-fiction usually just takes longer. No, it's not harder, maybe we just try to read more slowly for maximum understanding and fact/idea/thought absorption. And maybe I am completely off-base with this paragraph and it should truly read, "Reading non-fiction takes PAM longer." At any rate, a few of us thought it may be a great idea to start a non-fiction thread.

This is it.

We are all readers, we all love books. And often when reading fiction, I am struck by a thought or a phrase or a time period that piques my curiosity. This leads to wanting to learn more. Curiosity knows no bounds. Some of these not-too-heavily publicized non-fiction works are hidden gems that may never be discovered by one of us without reading the comments of others here who have discovered that book. And, let's face it, the non-fiction bestseller list usually never mentions the really great non-fiction books.

There are many types of non-fiction from the scholarly tomes to the more readable social histories. But all of it IS non-fiction. Personally, I like the social histories like No Idle Hands, Close to Shore, The Perfect Storm because while I like to know the BIG facts of the BIG people running things, I also like to know the smaller stuff about normal people, the stuff that usually gets swept under the carpet. This is the place to share all of them.

Because non-fiction books cover so many varied topics, we ask that as you mention a book, also list a category where YOU would place it in the library, or the category in the library where you found the title. It may be a great help to perennial list-makers when we are jotting down titles and authors for future reference.

My own examples:
No Idle Hands, Anne MacDonald, social history, knitting, America.

Close to Shore, Michael Capuzzo, social history, shark attacks, New Jersey in 1916.

Then add your thoughts on the book.

The initial idea is to simply start a non-fiction thread. This may cause extra work and/or confusion with the regular "what are you reading" thread because so many of us read both types of books constantly. But we must try the experiment! And this is not just a place to put the non-fiction you are currently reading, but a place to list any non-fiction that you really enjoyed or to ask for books on a topic that you are interested in exploring.

Thanks for reading this far! Let the experiment commence!
PAM

P.S. Another idea floated was a quarterly thread of knowledge on a chosen topic. We pick a topic and explore it through our reading and then share what we have learned on the thread. Just a thought. We made a feeble attempt at this years ago. If memory serves, we chose something very broad like The Middle Ages. As you find facts and tidbits that fascinated you, type them into the thread. It's almost like a trivia list of facts and ideas. Anyone interested?

This has not been a big non-fiction year for me so far, but over the past year I've enjoyed The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century by George Friedman, which I think could be classified as futurist non-fiction (is there such a thing?).

I also read Nella Last's War and Nella Last's Peace, heavily edited diaries that had been kept during WWII by Mrs. Last as part of an ongoing social experiment. Would memoirs of this type be classified as social history?

I really like the idea of a quarterly thread on a topic. I vaguely remember posts on the Crusades as part of the Middle Ages thread, and that was very interesting. I'd definitely be interested in participating.

Great ideas here!

Nonfiction or non-fiction (whichever's your pleasure, NF for short) is my favorite reading material. On the contrary, I find NF much easier to read: I can start and stop and then pick up again without getting lost and trying to remember the narrative threads as you have to in fiction. Fiction takes patience, which I have short supply of.

What I am currently reading:
The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World by David W. Anthony -- Social history: anthropology: archaeology, linguistics

I love this sort of thing, especially the linguistics part of determining just where and when the Proto-Indo-European dialect started. But something that I never really paid much attention to is the role the horse had in spreading the language. The author, Anthony, delves into how to tell when horses were first ridden or used to draw vehicles (wagons, ploughs, and such) by examining their molars where bit wear shows up, a sure sign that the animal was being controlled from behind. Oh, the fascinating things to learn!

For the past couple of years I've been particularly interested in anything to do with the Black Sea, but its geology especially. That's why I've read and reread Noah's Flood: The New Scientific Discoveries about the Event that Changed History by William Ryan & Walter Pitman [Science: geology; Ancient History: archaeology]. The "Noah's Flood" part of the title was probably chosen to draw attention but it's just as likely to put off readers who might think it's about the biblical story. Not so -- well, not directly anyway -- it's about how the depression of land scoured out by the Last Glacial Maximum was filled with meltwater, thus it was a freshwater lake until a cataclysm occurred about 7600 years ago (5600 BCE) when the saltwater of the Aegean broke through the Bosporus bottleneck. There were people living around the lake who witnessed the drowning of their homeland (underwater archaeology proves it), thus perhaps the flood horror stories they told have lived in folk memory for all the millennia since.

Does anyone have other books about underwater archaeology to recommend?

My first suggestions for the non-fiction are social history/biography:

Royal Feud Michael Thorton side-by-side biographies of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and Wallis Simpson and the Abdication crisis.

Rose: My Life In Service Rosina Harrison Memoir of lady's maid to Nancy, Lady Astor, American who became the first woman to take a seat in the House of Commons. (not the first elected-first to actually serve.)

Winston and Clementine: The Personal Letters of the Churchills edited by their daughter, Mary Soames. Fascinating look at the backstage of world history.

My favorite non-fiction author is David McCullough. His John Adams and 1776 are two of my top ten books ever.

I enjoy biographies the most (one on Thomas More took me almost 2 years to read). American history, especially the revolutionary era, and religious books like Lewis and L'Engle are also all over my book shelves.

I think there are two reasons that I take so long to read these books. First, I can. There isn't the danger of forgetting the plot, you can read them in sections and enjoy them, let them settle, take a break and pick them up again without losing the flow and the aura of the story.

And secondly, there is no hurry or pressure to find out the "whodunit" aspect of the book. Also, with a good author and a great subject there is a feeling of not wanting to break up the relationship too quickly - they are hard to find, and deserve to be savored.

I also love the idea of a quarterly thread on a specific topic.

Another NF genre I love is history, but not the sweeping politics, kings and battles kind you learn at school, but rather the narrow, specific histories. I have a special love of history books connected with food.
Some titles I have enjoyed were:
The Raj at Table: A Culinary History of the British in India by David Burton - history, the British in India, the Raj, culinary history, cookbooks;
Spice: The History of a Temptation by Jack Turner (it's a bit uneven, but very informative): food, culinary history, social history, spices.
Salt: A world history by Mark Kurlansky (also a bit uneven - the last several chapters read like they were written on a deadline, but it's interesting nonetheless): food, culinary history.

I also like historical biographies. Some I have enjoyed were:
Aristocrats by Stella Tillyard, about four English sisters who lived varied and interesting lives;
Jonathan Swift: a portrait by Victoria Glendinning;
A Scandalous Life by Mary S Lovell, about the life and loves of Jane Digby, a 19th century English lady who was famous for her amorous exploits in her time, and ended up married to a Syrian Arab chieftain much younger than herself.
All three biographies have in common that they not only discuss the subjects of the biography, but also the wider society of the times, so that one learns about their social conventions and contexts.

I just finished Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes by Tamim Ansary and was fascinated. He points out that Westerners and Islamics mostly talk past each other, that our ideas of democracy (individual freedom - one man one vote) sound disruptive to a culture that is so family-community oriented, and how certain historical events play out in our differing perspectives. I'm sympathetic to a point. That point being that I am a woman and can only see Islam as The Enemy.

My non-fiction I currently reading is the "Three Cups of Tea" book - I know - late to the party - but still pretty good. After that, I would like to pick up the animal/vet book called "Tell me Where it Hurts: A Day of Humor, Healing and Hope in my Life as an Animal Surgeon" by Nick Trout.

I find that as I get older, I am more interested in a wider range of different things, and although it would be nice to be an expert in all these different topic areas, time just doesn't allow it. So I tend to jump from one place to another, sometimes having a logical link, sometimes not.

Like Netla, I also enjoy travel books. Old or new doesn't matter - they are interesting all the same....

Good thread - looking forward to reading about you guys' other NF choices....

My theory about this is that fiction requires a kind of suspension of disbelief, an immersion into another world, and therefore a kind of letting go. When my daughter was ill, I could not afford to lose myself in another world. I found myself reading non-fiction exclusively for about 2 years. I even had to temporarily remove myself from my book group, because I could not read the (fiction) titles that were assigned. As my daughter's health improved, I was able to return to fiction reading.

I recently read "Team of Rivals" (Doris Kearns Goodwin) and "Confederates in the Attic" (Tony Horowitz). I usually have at least one non-fiction book in the works while I read a fiction book.

Currently, I'm reading "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil". It's a great combination of true crime and travelogue. I especially like all the eccentric characters the author meets in Savannah.

I'm also interested in "non-fiction that reads like fiction" for my 12-year old son. He mainly reads fiction, and the only NF he reads is usually sports oriented. Since I'm wanting him to broaden his interests, I'm hoping to find other non-sports books that will keep his interest to the end.

Has anyone read Ron Chernow's ALEXANDER HAMILTON? I LOVE that book.

And if anyone is interested in Jon Meacham's Pulitzer prize winning bio of Andrew Jackson, AMERICAN LION, I have two free copies to give away between now and August 4. Pop on over to my blog and enter, if so. Jackson's life makes for some interesting reading even if he isn't the most likeable of fellas.

Susan

PAM

I'm likewise fascinated by the remains of early civilizations, logically by waterways for easy transportation, that we may never find because of flooding. Was it you who pointed out that current thinking is that the melting from the latest ice age raised the sea levels and obliterated the evidence of the migration of Asian peoples down the western coast of North America?

A quarterly thread of knowledge on a specific topic would certainly interest me - I don't know if I would be able to add anything of import but I would enjoy reading your posts. From the items above, I wonder if anyone would like to focus on archeology (underwater archeology - that's a new one for me!-, evidence of migration, and so on).

In terms of non-fiction, one of my favourite titles is Michael E. Bell's Food for the Dead: On the Trail of New England's Vampires. This book sounds macabre, but Bell discusses a wide range of topics which are of interest to me: folklore, genealogy, social history, medicine, and the supernatural. It's a good book to read for Hallowe'en.

2. Musashi's Book of Five Rings, Stephen Kauffman (martial arts, philosophy): this book is a slow-go for me but it is absolutely fascinating. If you enjoyed the character of Mr. Miyagi in the Karate Kid movies, this book will remind you of him - it is full of wonderful thoughts to contemplate. Be forewarned, however, that Musashi was one of Japan's best double sword fighters, so while this book is a thoughtful read, it was essentially written for fighters and samurais by a fighter and samurai. It is not for the faint of heart.

3. America: The Last Best Hope, William J. Bennett (American History, vol. 1) I am embarassed to list this book yet again. The pages are wall-to-wall with small print. It is fascinating, but I can only read about 20 pages at a time before my eyes need a break. A good overview or refresher on the history of the USA with interesting little tidbits tossed in that continue to pique my interest.
PAM

Still, a good book, but could have done with some editing. (Too long in places.)

PAM, the subject of Shadow Divers is certainly a form of archaeology. It sounds really good -- I'll get on it right away.

Chris, I used to read several archaeology magazines, but I cancelled my subscriptions a couple of years ago when I leased out my house and went on the road (to the air) again. The Native American migration sounds like something I might have mentioned since I've read a number of books about the different theories. I think the one that really spurred my interest was:

The Real Eve: Modern Man's Journey Out of Africa by Stephen Oppenheimer (Science: Genetics; Anthropology; Ancient History: Archaeology) Oppenheimer posits that the successful migration -- the one that produced all us humans now living on the planet -- was a southern migration, crossing the narrow strait of the Red Sea from Africa to what is now the southern Arabian Peninsula. This was naturally during a time when the sea levels were substantially lower. These folk were beachcombers so they followed the beachline all the way around into southern Mesopotamia to the Indus valley (when the Indus was most impressive), then down along the west coast of the Indian peninsula (land that is now submerged), around to southeast Asia, perhaps island-jumped eventually to Sahul (the continental-shelf extension of Australia/New Guinea).

I mentioned all of the above because it does have something to the do with the Native Americans. The descendants of the beachcombers kept up the family business and eventually spread up the coasts of what are now The Philippines, Taiwan, and Japan. Most of the physical (archaeological) evidence of these people is now underwater, presumably, with a few notable exceptions (the Jomon and Ainu of Japan). Anyway, the beachcombers, joined by migrations of later continental Asians, continued across the land bridge of Beringia into the Americas, all the way down to Tierra del Fuego.

DNA evidence has proven that everyone is kin to everyone else, but there are still plenty of puzzles. One for instance: The South American 'Indians' belong to an older archaeological and genetic migrant-group than the North American ones. Now, how did that happen? It makes sense when you consider that the Last Glacial Maximum destroyed most of the evidence in North America and people couldn't live there for many generations (the ancestors holed up in Beringia, apparently, which was ice free). Then the ice melted; Beringia was flooded; and the newest migrants filled in a scoured-clean landscape.

Frieda, by the way, one day this week I could not post at all on this site nor any of the other Gardenweb sites, reason unknown. I know the management has been having some issues with the back button.

I most love biographies of women who are/were artists, writers and adventuresses. Three favorites are Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert, by Georgina Howell. Bell was an in-depth explorer of Arabia at a time when Englishwomen stayed home and raised families. One of the most important women of the 20th century, it would take paragraphs to describe her unbelievable life, which included setting the borders of modern Iraq. Also loved O'Keeffe & Stieglitz, by Benita Eisler, about the sassy and stubborn artist. All-time favorite is Simone de Beauvoir, by Deirdre Bair. Simone was much more interesting than her famous lover, Jean-Paul Sartre, a mama's boy and a weak philosopher, who didn't have nearly the zest for life that SDB did.

De Beauvoir wrote, inter alia, my favorite travel book, America Day By Day. The intrepid Simone spent three months traveling all over the USA by train, bus and car, and her observations are fascinating (wrong sometimes, but fascinating), and she is a powerful writer.

Recently finished Among the Believers, by V.S. Naipaul, who spent nearly a year in 1980-81 in Iran, Pakistan, Malaysia and Indonesia, and unwittingly predicted much that has gone wrong in those areas. And he's a wonderful writer.

Have also read a lot about FDR and Eleanor, my fave being No Ordinary Time, by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Truman and TR presidential biographies are in my TBR pile.

Having worked in the field of Middle East, I've read much history, etc., about the area, and quite a bit about 9-11. A very unusual and gripping book is Touching History, by Lynn Spencer. She tells the stories of the planes that were in the air on that day - the passenger flights, the military planes, especially the Air National Guard fighter jets, the cargo planes, etc. It's a short and exciting book, and reveals much about that day that we generally don't know.

grelobe

To balance that out, I have picked up "The Devious Book for Cats", a parody of those books for girls and boys. This is quite funny and if any of you have experience with cats, you can see where the authors are coming from. We have a new half-kitten half-cat who has adopted us and he is the perfect cat. Does everything right (so far) but could be because he is an indoor/outdoor critter. He is absolutely hilarious and has obviously read this cat parody book.

The Riddle and the Knight: In Search of Sir John Mandeville, the World's Greatest Traveller by Giles Milton - Sir John is suspected of being one of the biggest travelogue-writing frauds of all time; but was he really? The author attempts to find out by going himself to the places Mandeville claimed to have journeyed through.

I just read a bit about Milton going to visit the Patriarchate of the Greek Orthodox Church in Istanbul (Constantinople in Mandeville's time) but he found himself in a seedy part of town and needed directions. Passing an Orthodox Church he stepped inside its door to find a woman in the vestibule. He asked her and after she told him which way to go, Milton asked her if she was a Romioi (a direct descendant of the Roman founders of Constantinople):

"No," she said. "I'm Italian. From Bologna."

She didn't look Italian, and I asked when she had moved to Istanbul. She paused for a moment, then said: "I think we moved here four centuries ago."

The Degaev Affair by Richard Pipes (History, Biography)
I'm not well-informed about Russian history, so this bio of an obscure-to-me political terrorist who witnessed the assassination of Tsar Alexander II and then directly helped plot the assassination of the chief of Russia's security organization ordinarily would not have attracted me. But I read the back cover anyway, for some reason, and was instantly intrigued because this terrorist, Sergei Degaev, eventually wound up at -- of all places! -- the University of South Dakota as an avuncular mathematics professor known as Alexander Pell. "Jolly little Pell" and his pleasant wife were evidently great favorites of his students, the faculty, and the townspeople. This guy was a terrorist?

Huck's Raft: A History of American Childhood by Steven Mintz
The romanticized notions and nostalgia for the halycon days of childhood can be dispensed with quite quickly when we realize that the whole idea of childhood as we think of it only goes back to around the first part of the twentieth century. Even Samuel Clemens who did more than any other American writer of his day to capture the essence of nineteenth-century boyhood was under no illusions that childhood, for the most part, was about one-tenth bliss and nine-tenths pure hell. This overview of the history of American childhood from the 17th century to the beginning of the 21st century looks to be fascinating -- I sure hope so.

Also recently bought The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science by Richard Holmes. I like books that make connections and this one looked interesting. Not sure when I will read it, though. Too many books, too little time.

Sable, Among the Believers was my introduction to V.S. Naipaul. I love that book.

PAM

Today I received another nice deal from Amazon, a new first edition of The Last Lion: Winston Churchill: Alone, 1932-1940 (by William Manchester), at a used price. Those were the years that he was out of power and was a voice in the wilderness decrying the onrushing events in Europe, and was mocked and scorned for his views. Then, after Germany invaded Poland, the Brits rushed to get him into power. The book is beautifully produced, with wonderful little details on its front pages. It's a huge book and densely written, and it just may break my J.A. Jance streak!

If I can't travel right now in real life, at least I can travel in my head. :-)

Yes, Manchester's bio of Churchill was a VERY good read. I'd highly recommend vol. 1 as well -- The Last Lion: Visions of Glory. Unfortunately, I don't think Manchester finished the series. I think he was planning a multi-volume set covering Churchill's WWII years when time and age overtook him. (I usually fight with my dad over these books. He steals them from me and I steal them back!)

Another good Manchester read is American Caesar: Douglas McArthur. McArthur, for all his faults (and he had a LOT of them) was a good general. Well, when he wasn't blinded by his own ego....

Also starting "Eat Pray Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert. A friend has lent it to me and wants to know what i think of it. I have heard very mixed reviews so we'll see.

Am now reading Nature in Downland by the out-of-fashion naturalist W H Hudson. The 'Downs' are those in the Sussex countryside overlooking the English Channel, then an area of rough land, grazing sheep and shepherds, endless wild flowers and birds. Today much of this land has gone 'under the plough' and it would be difficult to hear a skylark for the roar of traffic.
For those of you interested in S America, he wrote Far Away and Long Ago about his late nineteenth century childhood in Argentina; considered to be a classic of its kind.

As we head into winter, I am thinking of re-reading (for the umpteenth time) Roland Huntford's "Last Place on Earth" (original title was "Scott and Amundsen") about their race to the South Pole.

It is fiction, but it is a powerful story. The book is where I found out that the use of Australia for the transporting of convicts came after the U.S. won the Revolutionary War and England could no longer use Georgia as a dumping ground.

Carolyn, over here we used to learn a great deal about the early settlement of Australia but less about the convicts in Georgia. I know it has become 'fashionable' in Aus. to trace ones ancestry back to those early days and wonder if the same is true in modern Georgia. I know John Wesley spent some time as a missionary 'preaching' in those early settlements . . . with little success. Are there are books on the subject, does anyone know?

He said that he was the first of his family to graduate from high school, much less go on to college and seminary. He came from a family of hard drinking, quick-to-fight men; and his dad and his brother got into a fist fight on the Seminary campus the day they brought him up to enroll. I have always wondered about his ancestry, but he is a super guy and his gorgeous daughter was Miss Tennessee and a runner up in the Miss America contest one year.

mylab, I have just been reading in a UK paper, that quite a bit of Angela's Ashes are less 'mis mem' and more flights of fancy. Various members of his family and locals from his home town of Limerick have come forward to say he didn't live in the extreme poverty he portrayed, nor were his eyes running with pus or his mother selling her charms to buy booze.
Still, I expect there were families in similar situations and it is a wonderful read and despite the horrors he relates parts of it are very funny.

As for Georgia, particularly south Georgia, my late grandfather was a Methodist minister in various small towns in that state from around 1896 on til his death in 1928. He wrote a book about his ministry in Georgia and kept journals. In the book, he mentions how rough and hard-drinking many of the men in south Georgia were, keeping a sort of "vigilante justice." From my readings on the Jim Crow era in the deep South, I can well believe he was not exaggerating. However, he gradually made inroads in that culture and was itinerant minister of a good many country churches, in the days just after the Methodist "circuit riders." My grandfather got around the towns by horse and buggy. I regret that he died before I was born, as I wish I had known of his adventures in establishing his ministry.

I've always wanted to go there since a friend of mine at school lived there (diplomat kid) but apparently it's not the African paradise I had imagined.

Frieda, just wondering... did you get a chance to read Shadow Divers yet?

PAM