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Any have recommendations for good, recent (past 5 years) non-fiction books?


jurble

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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.

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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.

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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. 

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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

 

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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.

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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.

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  • 1 month later...

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).

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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.

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  • 3 weeks later...

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. 

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