All the Top 20 Favorite Books lists chatter has made me realize how many non fiction books would make that list. Understand I've read about twelve non-fiction books in my life. But approximately tenof them would make the lists; five biographies; one book about a president's cabinet; one book of letters; two baseball books; one physics book.

(Poses a slight question about my discerning eye. Ten of the tweny books are nonfiction, but you've only read twelve? What the heck was wrong with the other two books, right?)

I haven't really worked it out -- I can barely get it together recently to put together a Top 20 fiction list, but I think like four of them would be in my Top Ten.

Anyone else have this problem?

Hey. Wait a minute. I've read five biographies???

Hi Nathaniel - There are a lot of different kinds of non-fiction that I have loved -- and lots are dry and boring. But I could easily come up with a Top 20 list. I think people hear the word "non-fiction" and think it has to be bad, but that's definitely not true. There are great non-fiction reads out there. I had a hard time not putting some on my top 20 favorites, because several would easily top those on the fiction list.

I haven't read much non fiction. Two i read i didn't like but i read one that i liked. The Bell Jar. Even though it is slightly fictional but i think would still be classed as non fiction.

Being super-curious, and an information junkie, I love non-fiction. I think I could easily make a top twenty list of NF books that I have loved and that have had an impact.

For me, personally, I couldn't mix fiction and non-fiction on the same list ~ the emotional responses are different for each category and I couldn't quantify them on the same scale. WOW! Does that sound geeky!!

What are some of your favourite NF books?

I think maybe 20% of the books I read are non-fiction. Generally they have to be NF that reads like a novel for me to pick them up. Since they make up such a small proportion of my reading, though, they tend to be better quality -- books I KNOW I'll enjoy. I'm more likely to take chances on Fiction.

Hello!

Here are a few links I found for nonfiction lists:

The Modern Library 100 Best Nonfiction
National Review 100 Best
San Francisco Chronicle's 100 Best Books of the 20th Century

Three very interesting lists, no?

I didn't realize the Ayn Rand enthusiasts were so....enthusiastic. The MLA Readers List had, what three Ayn Rand books in the Top Ten??

Longitude by Dava Sobel is great. Very short. Great story. That would make my top 15.

Everest Impossible Victory.
Readit about 25 years ago and it still stays with me.

I've read a bit of nonfiction and I have to say that some of those books are the ones that have really haunted me for years - like Philip Gourevitch's book, We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families or James Scott's Seeing Like A State. But I will always choose fiction over non.

Hi Nathaniel! I go through phases where all I read are nonfiction books and then there are times they seem too much like reading college textbooks!! I finished 2 a couple of weeks ago... The Return of Depression Economics by Paul Krugman and True Compass by Ted Kennedy. I really enjoyed reading both of them. Perhaps we should do a Top 100 Nonfiction List! That would be interesting.

Hi Nathaniel,

I read anything... I do have a preference for fiction, including The Bell Jar, which is fiction. Many authors use their life experiences and persons they know to build up a plot and characters, and that is just what Sylvia Plath did.
I love biographies written by Antonia Frazier, they read just like novels, I love poetry. I also read history books, or books about the history of culture (Natasha's Dance, about the cultural history of Russia is a page-turner), or about contemporary issues (Planet of Slums and also The World Without Us are big eye-openers and mind-bogglers).
I am pretty sure I could come up with a list of top 20 non fiction favorite books.
Would you care to start one?

I think that would be a great idea Nathaniel,I might even find some old friends that I`ve forgotten to read in my sourcing!

I've read parts of Fraser's Wives of Henry the VIII while watching The Tudors. And my mother absconded with my copy of her Marie Antoinette book, and really dug it. Love Fraser. When I think about historians I love to read, she always gets short shrift in my mind despite the fact I really like her. I'd totally love to find a nonfiction side read, if there is an interest (The Marie Antoinette by Fraser perhaps??)

I seem to get into trouble on the list thing, plus like I said I've read only about 12.


Side story: A billion years ago my best friend and I did the "travel Europe by train after college" cliche. It was like 28 cities in 21 days covering Italy, Germany, Spain, Switzerland and Paris. We stayed with friends of his in Spain (Murcia the southwest corner of the country). I was reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X on the train ride, having finished my fiction. It was so hot in Murcia that we sort of stayed in one day, to keep cool. I basically finished Malcolm X that day, I didn't know enough Spanish to ask, so my friend asked if they would be interested in the book -- I had every intention of leaving it behind in the train station otherwise -- they took it. It seemed the oddest place in the world to leave the story of Malcolm X.

Nathaniel, I liked your "travel Europe by train" story. And I really enjoyed The Autobiography of Malcolm X. I read it in a Black-American literature class in college. I still think you should start us off on a nonfiction list!!!

No particular order:
*Letters of E.B. White
*Autobiography of Malcolm X (with Alex Haley)
*The Complete Maus by Art Spiegelman
*E.M Forster by P.N. Furbank
*Virginia Woolf by Hermoine Lee
*Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin
*Living to Tell the Tale by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
*Baseball Between the Numbers by Steve Goldman
*Late Innings by Roger Angell
*Summer of '49 by David Halberstam
*Eight Men Out by Eliot Asinof
*Galileo's Daughter by Dava Sobel
*Longitude by Dava Sobel
*Pilgrim at Tinkers Creek by Annie Dillard
*Walden by HDT
*An Army At Dawn by Rick Atkinson
*The First World War by Sir John Keegan
*Frederick Douglas's Narrative...(not the right name).


(Does Walden count??)

I like outdoor NF books, like:

Into Thin Air A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster
Annapurna A Woman's Place
A Walk in the Woods Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail
Halfway to Heaven My White-knuckled--and Knuckleheaded--Quest for the Rocky Mountain High

I also enjoyed
Darwin's Armada Four Voyages and the Battle for the Theory of Evolution
The River of Doubt Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey

I love non-fiction. I have read a ton of books on religion, human sexuality, terrorism, and politics. I have probably read other stuff that I can't think of right now, but these are the topics I have read a lot on.

Thanks Nathaniel! I enjoyed your list! Here is mine:
1.The Demon in the Freezer... Richard Preston
2. The Undertaking: Life Studies From the Dismal Trade...Thomas Lynch
3. A Team of Rivals.... Doris Kearns Goodwin
4.The Working Poor.... Davd Shipler
5.Many Lives, Many Masters... Dr. Brian Weiss
6. Panic in Level 4..... Richard Preston
7.The Pursuit of Happyness... Chris Gardner
8.The Opposite of Fate ..... Amy Tan
9. John Adams..... David McCullough
10.American Theocracy.... Kevin Phillips
11. Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches.... Marvin Harris

Those are some nonfiction I have really liked ( off the top of my head). I'm sure there are more I am forgetting.

Oh, and I really enjoyed Reefer Madness Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market by Eric Schlosser.

Oh Shoot!! John Adams!! David McCullough!!! Shoot. Darn. Rats.

1776 by David McCullough was good too. Also, I thought of a couple more... Hot, Flat and Crowded by Thomas Friedman and The Post- American World by Fareed Zakaria.

There are a lot of books on my list I wouldn't recommend to just anyone, but Dava Sobel is one author I think would have wide appeal in this group. Longitude is short, a great story. Even the slowest reader can probably read it in a couple of hours.

Galileo's Daughter is also really good. It's about how Galileo after being imprisoned for contradicting Copernicus (Sun revolves around Earth), he keeps in touch with his daughter. Sobel reprints (again) some of the letters between them.

And Antonia Fraser is probably another. Sarah's right her books do read like novels.

Darlene --

I remember being disappointed by "1776" after reading "John Adams". Probably unfiar.

Nathaniel, I know what you're saying. John Adams was definitely a better book. I think that I read 1776 first. There are a lot more books I can think of but I'm like you... I would only recommend them to certain people. People that I know well. Many of them are political in nature, for example, and I don't like to offend anyone or cause a controversy.

Darlene wrote: " 1776 by David McCullough was good too. Also, I thought of a couple more... Hot, Flat and Crowded by Thomas Friedman and The Post- American World by Fareed Zakaria."

I HATE Thomas Friedman. I have read three of his books (took a class on globalization), and I agree with him for the most part, but the way he writes... ugh. He's a sorry excuse for a journalist, always using anecdotal evidence; he's arrogant as can be; and he rambles and repeats himself constantly.

I don't hate Mr. Friedman, but I can only take him in small doses. I skip about every third column he writes, and I'm currently making my way through the audio edition of The World is Flat. And I get what your saying about repetition.

So, in no particular order:

Marie-Antoinette, by Antonia Fraser
Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, by the same author
Natasha 's Dance (A cultural history of Russia), by Orlando Figes
In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote
The Executioner's Song, by Norman Mailer
Endpoint and other poems, by John Updike
Perfect Madness - Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety, by Judith Warnerr
Unhooked, by Laura Sessions Stepp
Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together In The Cafeteria, by Beverly Daniel Tatum
The Complete Maus, by Art Spiegelman
Pilgrim at Tinker's Creek, by Annie Dillard
America and the Americans, by John Steinbeck
Ciao America, by Beppe Severgnigni (totally hilarious BTW!)
Domestic Manners of the Americans, by Fanny Trollope
The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell
Planet of Slums, by Mike Davis
The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman
Where The Girls Are, by Susan J. Douglas
Roughing It, by Mark Twain
The Innocents Abroad, by Mark Twain

I would have a huge list of NF that I like, so I'll keep it to some more or less recent books (in alpha order only). Note that these are not necessarily "favorites" but ones that I found very interesting:

--Bold Spirit Helga Estby's Forgotten Walk Across Victorian America by Linda Lawrence Hunt
--Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight An African Childhood by Alexandra Fuller
--Empire of Blue Water Captain Morgan's Great Pirate Army, the Epic Battle for the Americas, and the Catastrophe That Ended the Outlaws' Bloody Reign by Stephan Talty
--In the Heart of the Sea The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick (the basis for the fictional Moby Dick)
--My Life in Orange by Tim Guest
--The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid A Memoir by Bill Bryson
--Nine Parts of Desire The Hidden World of Islamic Women by Geraldine Brooks
--Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
--River Town Two Years on the Yangtze by Peter Hessler
--The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman
--Teacher Man A Memoir by Frank McCourt
--Three Cups of Tea One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson
--Tschiffely's Ride by A. F. Tschiffely
--Undaunted Courage by Stephen E. Ambrose
--The Verb To Bird by Peter Cashwell
--We Die Alone A WWII Epic of Escape and Endurance by David Howarth
--The Worst Hard Time The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan
--

Some of my favorite nonfictions books include:
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose
Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

and although I am sure it is in the fiction category I would include:
Abundance by Sena Jeter Naslund (biographical story of Marie Antoinette - very good, but has to be a fictionalized account of her life)

You know, when you say "non-fiction" a lot of people think "oh boy, here comes a long, boring biography or some scientific dissection of mathmatics." But I actually find a lot of NF to be quite funny and interesting.

A.J. Jacobs is one of my favorite newer authors. He wrote The Year of Living Biblically One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible and The Know-It-All One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World. He recently just published a new one, called The Guinea Pig Diaries My Life as an Experiment. He puts a lot of humor in his "experiments" and I actually learn a few things.

I like statistics, so Freakonomics A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything is a favorite. But it's co-written by an economist and a journalist. So the subject matter is written for the layman but the information is still highly educated. Blink is its counterpart (and competitor) and told more like little stories.

Salt A World History by Mark Kurlansky is amazing. It's fascinating to see how the only edible rock has effected mankind since the earliest of days.

Zhou Enlai The Last Perfect Revolutionary by Gao Wenqian is a great way to understand what China went through (during the Cultural Revolution) and how it got to where it is today and the man who helped make it all possible.

Lastly, The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer is one of the most powerful stories I've read this year and an intense look at America's legal system and man's right to die.

I go through phases, and here recently, I've been on a big non-fic kick. Here are some of the highlights:
The Triumph of Music - Tim Blanning
Rock, Paper, Scissors - Len Fisher (about game theory)
Cheer - Kate Torgovnick (about cheerleading)
Frankly, My Dear - Molly Haskell (about Gone with the Wind)
Free - Chris Anderson (about Free stuff!)
I also really like Malcolm Gladwell and Sarah Vowell.

Oh yeah, Reading Lolita in Tehran A Memoir in Books is fantastic. And Persepolis 1 The Story of a Childhood is an amazing story done as a graphic novel.

Meghan - The Zhou Enlai book looks really intersting. Thanks for listing that one. I'll put it on my TBR right away! Have you read Brothers? It's fiction, but a good account of the changes during the cultural revolution and its aftermath.

I love nonfiction! My favorite is biographies. Autobiographies, not so much. I also like nonfiction books about events, for example some of my all-time favorites are:
What Is the What--Dave Eggers;
Into Thin Air A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster, Into the Wild, and Under the Banner of Heaven A Story of Violent Faith, all by Jonathan Krakauer;

Better A Surgeon's Notes on Performance and Complications A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science by Atul Gawande

Mary - My employer just sponsored a lecture by Atul Gawande. Our work book club just read Complications, although since I couldn't make it to the meeting I haven't read my copy yet. I've heard very good things about him, and am eager to get to his books.

I've also got The What of the What at home -- and have had it for over a year -- but haven't read it yet. I didn't realize it was NF.

Mary is right about the Krakauer's books. They are all great.
And I also agree with Meghan about Nafisi' Reading Lolita in Tehran and Satrapi's Persepolis.

You know, I didn't care for Under the Banner of Heaven. I thought the book was rather one-sided. It amazed me that he was surprised that the Momon church panned it. I didn't think it painted a very flattering (or accurate) picture of the denomination in general.

I don't think it was meant to show a positive side of the Mormon Church. If you have read The Executioner's Song by NOrman Mailer, also NF, you may have a hint that it is not all kosher in Utah... And Norman Mailer wrote his book way before Krakauer.

The book concentrated on one sect of Mormanism, one which the Church of Latter Day Saints has denounced. I think their opinion -- and I agree -- was that Krakauer didn't make enough distinction between the current mainstream religion and this sect, and between the current church and its rather unsavory past. (Just about any religious denomination has its share of doing bad things in the name of its diety, if you go back far enough.)

Mary wrote: "I love nonfiction! My favorite is biographies. Autobiographies, not so much. I also like nonfiction books about events, for example some of my all-time favorites are:
What Is the What-..."

Oh, I've been wanting to get to Gawande's books for a while now. This is great having a recommendation to prompt me to do so. Thanks!

Meghan - The 12 folks in my book group all really liked Complications, and it's rare for us to all agree on a book.

Miss GP wrote: "Mary - My employer just sponsored a lecture by Atul Gawande. Our work book club just read Complications, although since I couldn't make it to the meeting I haven't read my copy yet. I've heard ve..."


I didn't realize that What Is the What was nonfiction, either, until I read
Zeitoun, same author. I think it was mentioned in the "About the Author" bit.

Hello!

These ten books are my contemporary selections for nonfiction:

The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World by A.J. Jacobs
The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester
The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester
Uncommon Arrangements: Seven Marriages by Katie Roiphe
The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters by Charlotte Mosley
To Close to the Falls by Catherine Gildiner
Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner
Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood by Alexandra Fuller
The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory by Brian Greene

I am really enjoying this thread ~ thank you for starting in Nathaniel.

I just won on Goodreads: Half Moon Henry Hudson and the Voyage that Redrew the Map of the New World by Douglas Hunter. It sounds interesting!

Jennifer wrote: "
Hello!

These ten books are my contemporary selections for nonfiction:

The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World by A.J. Jacobs
[book:The Pro..."

Delighted to see you`ve put down
THE MITFORDS: LETTERS BETWEEN SIX SISTERS...I was beginning to feel a bit lonely!!! ha ha

DJ wrote: "Jennifer wrote: "Delighted to see you`ve put down THE MITFORDS: LETTERS BETWEEN SIX SISTERS...I was beginning to feel a bit lonely!!! ha ha"

Hi DJ ~ Happy to keep you company. I really loved the letters. What a view to a slice of society! Hey, you'll have to post your list.

:)

Jennifer wrote: "
Hello!

These ten books are my contemporary selections for nonfiction:

The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World by A.J. Jacobs
[book:The Pro..."

You're my kind of non-fiction reader! I've had to add a couple of your picks to my ever-growing TBR list. Thanks?! heh

Meghan wrote: "You're my kind of non-fiction reader! I've had to add a couple of your picks to my ever-growing TBR list. Thanks?! heh"

Hi Meghan! I noticed you had also noted A.J. Jacobs and Freakonomics on your list. I am really looking forward to The Guinea Pig Diaries. I am glad you got some ideas from my list ~ I got a couple from your list too. Dang that ever-expanding TBR pile!!!

Jennifer wrote: "Meghan wrote: "You're my kind of non-fiction reader! I've had to add a couple of your picks to my ever-growing TBR list. Thanks?! heh"

Hi Meghan! I noticed you had also noted A.J. Jacobs and Freak..."

Yeah, GPD sounds like another winner. Did you catch him on The Colbert Report? His voice was nothing like what I expected!

Jennifer wrote: "DJ wrote: "Jennifer wrote: "Delighted to see you`ve put down THE MITFORDS: LETTERS BETWEEN SIX SISTERS...I was beginning to feel a bit lonely!!! ha ha"

Hi DJ ~ Happy to keep you company. I really ..."

I will raid shelves over weekend and provide list at start of the week!!!!