jurble Posted January 31, 2016 Share Posted January 31, 2016 The non-scifi catch-all recommendation thread linked in the sticky is like 20 years old and full mostly of literature recommendations, blagh. I'm in a mood for political analysis and history, but digest-able for someone without an academic background in either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth Richard II Posted January 31, 2016 Share Posted January 31, 2016 Eh, that's kind of vague. I mean. I could recommend some good programming books, that's technically non fiction. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Banana Beyond the Wall Posted January 31, 2016 Share Posted January 31, 2016 Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers. Both are war books, but not Helmet For my pillow or American sniper type of war books. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterbound Posted February 1, 2016 Share Posted February 1, 2016 The non-scifi catch-all recommendation thread linked in the sticky is like 20 years old and full mostly of literature recommendations, blagh. I'm in a mood for political analysis and history, but digest-able for someone without an academic background in either. It's about 2 years old. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sologdin Posted February 1, 2016 Share Posted February 1, 2016 jurbs-- for recent non-fiction, i liked yang jisheng's tombstone: the great chinese famine and cordelia fine's delusions of gender well enough. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bora_Horza Posted February 1, 2016 Share Posted February 1, 2016 I'm enjoying reading 'The Almost Nearly Perfect People - the truth about the Nordic miracle' by Michael Booth - quite witty, and an informative current account of the scandanavian countries. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric Cartman Posted February 1, 2016 Share Posted February 1, 2016 Doesn't meet the recent (5yrs) criteria, but I can recommend: About WW2: # The Rise and Fall of Third Reich (engrossing read which delves mostly into why Hitler made those decisions he made) # Is Paris Burning? - Vivid picture on last days before Paris was liberated. Or more recently Michael Lewis and his books about the Financial Crisis of 2007-10: # Liars Poker - Authors experience in the cut throat world of Investment Banking. Funny and engrossing. His other books, Moneyball (about Baseball), Big Short (about Credit market crisis) etc have also gotten great reviews and made into recent movies as well. The books are fairly simple and explained in way that is perfect for general public. Despite the technical subjects, they are easy to read and understand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antipodea Posted February 2, 2016 Share Posted February 2, 2016 Maybe a bit older than 5 years but I loved De Waal's 'The Hare With Amber Eyes' a story of a family's rise and dispossession under the Nazis - and I've just finished his 'The White Road' about the history of white porcelain. (He's a potter, quite famous, in the UK) Quote: 'History is only the pattern of silken slippers descending the stairs to the thunder of hobnailed boots climbing upward from below' -Voltaire Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brendan Moody Posted February 3, 2016 Share Posted February 3, 2016 Adam Hochschild's To End All Wars is a nice general history of World War I, with an emphasis on peace activists and war opposition. Margaret Macmillan's The War That Ended Peace is a dense but accessible account of everything that led up to the war; possibly a little biased in favor of the British but generally very astute. Karen Armstrong's Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence is a sweeping riposte to the familiar suggestion that religion causes violence. Inevitably her thumb is on the scale in some ways, but the book makes for a nice way to approach history of religion as a general topic. Jill Lepore had two interesting books about gender and history: Book of Ages is a sort-of-biography of Benjamin Franklin's sister, and The Secret History of Wonder Woman is a neat look at how the idiosyncrasies of the character's creator were reflected in the early comics. Sheri Fink's Five Days at Memorial is powerful if you're into recent history; it looks at the life-and-death decisions made in a New Orleans hospital during Hurricane Katrina. Helen Castor's She-Wolves is just a bit over five years old, but it's a compelling narrative history about female rulers of England prior to Mary I and Elizabeth I. Sadakat Kadri's Heaven on Earth looks at both historical and contemporary uses of sharia law. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sheep the Evicted Posted February 3, 2016 Share Posted February 3, 2016 On 31/01/2016 at 5:21 AM, Claustrophobic Jurble said: The non-scifi catch-all recommendation thread linked in the sticky is like 20 years old and full mostly of literature recommendations, blagh. I'm in a mood for political analysis and history, but digest-able for someone without an academic background in either. The Royal Society Book Prize is my go to list whenever i want to read excellent and accessible science-backed non-fiction. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jurble Posted March 13, 2016 Author Share Posted March 13, 2016 Does anyone know any book that covers the decline of organized labor in the US, whether overarching narrative or case study? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xray the Enforcer Posted March 13, 2016 Share Posted March 13, 2016 http://www.amazon.com/Spy-Among-Friends-Philby-Betrayal/dp/0804136653 I just finished A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal (2014) Entertaining read all around. Especially so if you're into spy novels or Tim Powers' Declare. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gasp of Many Reeds Posted March 13, 2016 Share Posted March 13, 2016 Le Roy Ladurie - Montaillou Stephen Jay Gould - any of his collected essays. Alfred Crosby - Ecological Imperialism Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeanF Posted March 15, 2016 Share Posted March 15, 2016 Recent works of history I've especially enjoyed have been The Tigress of Forli, by Prof. Elizabeth Lev, The Fall of Berlin, by Anthony Beevor, The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England, and The Greatest Traitor, both by Ian Mortimer, The Unconventional King, by Kathryn Warner, Rubicon, by Tom Holland, and Armageddon by Max Hastings (well, enjoyed is hardly the word for that last one, but it's gripping, if horrible). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HexMachina Posted March 15, 2016 Share Posted March 15, 2016 Has anyone here read The Romanovs by Simon Montefiore? I tried the preview on Amazon which seemed pretty good, written in a way that almost made me forget it was non-fiction. I was tempted to buy the full book but thought I would check first as to how reliable it is and so on. The various reviews online seem decent too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Arryn Posted March 15, 2016 Share Posted March 15, 2016 Dan Jones is reasonably pablumized history. I like him for his anachronistic romantic/ individual-centric view, which is also my cup of tea. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
white wolfpack Posted April 3, 2016 Share Posted April 3, 2016 I recently read "The boys in the boat" by Daniel James Brown and LOVED it. It's about the men's 8-man crew team in the 1936 Olympics. I'm not particularly into rowing, sports in general, boat building, or Nazi stuff, but I still loved it so I feel like that's the sign of a pretty good book. (I have no idea what possessed me to pick it up.) The author does a nice job of weaving the story of the team and their early depression-era lives with the concurrent rise of Hitler, broken up with fascinating description of how the boats are/were constructed and how that was changing at the time in the US. It's kind of Erik Larson-ish. Which if you haven't read his stuff is also a good NF recommendation. I've liked all of his books except the most recent one (The Lusitania). I thought the history part of it was boring, and unlike his other books, there wasn't a compelling human storyline to keep me going. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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