Reading suggestions?

[saxikath]

Having finally gotten around to replacing my Boston Public Library card, I'm in the mood to read. Any recommendations? In general, I prefer nonfiction to fiction; in fiction, I gravitate toward mysteries. (Not fantasy or SF. Yeah, I know, I'm weird.) In nonfiction, history, history of science, stuff about evolution, stuff about language. And I'm open to other ideas. (I've read The Devil in Dover, which I recommend, BTW.)

Comments

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

Check out the mysteries of William G. Tapply and Lawrence Block. Block also has a new memoir out, about walking, called Step by Step.

In nonfiction, I enjoyed The Unthinkable by Amanda Ripley.

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

I also recently discovered Gary Braver's books.

[aphrabehn.livejournal.com]

Anything by Mary Roach, provided you aren't squeamish ;-) She's a non-fiction, non-technical science writer and her books are fantastic. Interesting, informative and laugh out loud funny, all while giving you info on some of the big questions in life.

Stiff is what happens to the body after death - not in a gory way, but what if you decide to donate your body to science? Or want the most natural burial going? Stiff is about the sex research field. This one made me most ooked out but it was also the most fascinating. Spook is about research into the afterlife, told from a pretty non-secular, skeptics point of view. Loved them all.

And I also highly recommend Malcolm Gladwell's books, primarily focused on sociology. Tipping Point is famous, but I just finished Outliers, which has forced me to totally reevaluate my world view. His books are *that* good.

[ertchin.livejournal.com]

Since the only books I had to promote that fit the category were going to be by Mary Roach, I will just mention that the book about sex research is titled Bonk. (Although it certainly could be titled, uh, ahem.)

[cnoocy]

Have you read any Carol Goodman? Excellent brainy thrillers.

[doctorhook.livejournal.com]

I haven't had a chance to read non-work material much at all lately, and even less non-fiction. But some of the things on my (virtual) pile are "The First Word: The Search for the Origins of Language" by Christine Kenneally (browsed it at the bookstore, looks good), "Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain", by Oliver Sacks (great reviews), and "Sea of Glory: The Epic South Seas Expedition 1838-42", by Nathaniel Philbrick (good reviews, and the only one of the three currently in my possession!).

[ericberlin.livejournal.com]

I second Lawrence Block, especially his Matthew Scudder series. Best of the lot is "A Walk Among the Tombstones" and "When the Sacred Ginmill Closes."

One of my fave non-fiction books is "The Emperors of Chocolate," about Hershey and Mars and the companies they created. But probably my favorite non-fiction author is Michael Lewis -- you don't have to be a sports fan to awed and moved by his book, "The Blind Side."

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

"A Walk Among the Tombstones" is very good, but my favorite Scudder novel is "A Ticket to the Boneyard." I'd have to recommend starting with "Eight Million Ways to Die," however.

[uncanny-npl.livejournal.com]

I'm a maniacal proselytizer for the short stories of Alice Munro. Plus, a non-fiction book I loved this year: "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell. Also good: his "The Tipping Point" and "Outliers" (which for a while I was giving a weird quasi-French pronunciation to).

[deva-fagan.livejournal.com]

What kind of mysteries do you like?

I love the Brother Cadfael series by Ellis Peters (starting with A Morbid Taste for Bones, I believe).

[stormsdotter.livejournal.com]

Those are books!? I must track them down; the TV show was decent.

[deva-fagan.livejournal.com]

Yes, and there are about 20 of them! They can be a trifle dense to get into at first, but the characters are wonderful and there is much to love. I hope you enjoy them!

[saxikath]

IMHO, the books are better than the TV adaptation!

[lehser.livejournal.com]

We recently read a bunch of the Margaret Frazer mysteries (had to start in the middle 'cause that's what our library had. _The Reeve's Tale_ (I think that's the one we started with) was wonderful, and we liked most if not all of the ones that followed it. (They're set in the decade or 2 leading up to the Wars of the Roses, FWIW.) Decidedly recommended.

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

"The Devil In The White City" by Erik Larson

[ophymirage.livejournal.com]

seconded on this one (though I had to skip through some parts as they were too entirely creepy.)

Also, I know it was an Oprah-recommended book and most of those are complete pap, but I recently read "No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" and actually really enjoyed it.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

If you look back through my journal you can find reviews of several non-fiction books I've read this past year. They tend toward biographies of interesting people who lived in the 19th century.

[leighjen.livejournal.com]

I just finished reading Sarah Vowell's "The Wordy Shipmates". It was a fast, interesting read about the Puritans, perfect for travel reading.

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

Vowell's "Assassination Vacation" is also a nice read.

[stormsdotter.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed the Sano Ichiro Series by Laura Joh Rowland. They're set in feudal Japan, which I love studying.

[bookishfellow.livejournal.com]

If you haven't caught up on Aaron Elkins' Gideon Oliver mystery series (there are maybe 20 titles now) you might enjoy that. And have I recommended Lindsey Davis' Marcus Didius Falco mystery series? My other staple; these are set in Rome under Vespasian, more or less alternating one book in the city itself, the next in some far-flung corner of the Empire.

Right now I'm also reading PPZ, but frankly it's not all that great IMO.

[lehser.livejournal.com]

Yeah, these are fun. I've (mostly) kept following these in the 10 years (!) since bookishfellow got me to hunt up the then-latest one in a Scottish bookstore.

[cazique.livejournal.com]

Michener? I LOVED Hawaii and also read Alaska, and would read others. Sort of non-fiction, sort of fiction :D

[lemurtanis.livejournal.com]

On the nonfiction front, everything by Steven Berlin Johnson (The Ghost Map, Everything Bad is Good for You). Not super-rigorous, but well-written and fun.

[lemurtanis.livejournal.com]

I also want to thank you for this post, since it generates all sort of good data :)

[aphrabehn.livejournal.com]

Ruth Rendell writes some really good mysteries, too. British I think.

[lunacow]

Far from the Madding Gerund and Other Dispatches from Language Log by Mark Liberman and Geoffrey K. Pullum

The New Kings of Nonfiction edited by Ira Glass

[sylvanstargazer.livejournal.com]

I can't imagine you won't have read Umberto Eco, but if not you should. I enjoyed his nonfiction works as well (On Literature in particular, though I keep meaning to get around to On Beauty and On Ugliness).

I tend to like biographies, and have been enjoying Malory: The Knight Who Became King Arthur's Chronicler, by Christina Hardyment. Her evidence isn't necessarily convincing, but she tells a good story. In the more academic side, there's a collection of essays called Gendering The Crusades, which is entertaining. In current affairs, I enjoyed Women in the Line of Fire: What You Should Know About Women in the Military by Erin Solaro, though it was short. I wouldn't normally agree with her politics, but her logic on this issue was very persuasive.

[42itous.livejournal.com]

I've recently discovered books-on-tape (CD, really), which I can listen to while working. This raises my rate of book consumption from approximately one per month to approximately three per week. Yay!

I recently listened to Traffic, by Tom Vanderbilt. I found it fascinating. I'm also enjoying the one I started listening to today, The Baby Factory by David Plotz (editor of Slate).

Other nonfiction I recommend: The Johnstown Flood by David McCullough, and Do Cats Think? by Paul Corey.

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

I've been meaning to read Traffic. And I think you may recall when I first read The Baby Factory, which I agree is worth reading.

[pernishus.livejournal.com]

Naming Infinity
A True Story of Religious Mysticism and Mathematical Creativity
Loren Graham
Jean-Michel Kantor


It's from Harvard UP, and fascinating...

[lilithschilde.livejournal.com]

If you've never read them, I recommend the Deryni series by Katherine Kurtz. :-) She's a big history buff, and it shows in her writing.

[fizzixrat.livejournal.com]

Recently, I read a nice book about and titled The Little Ice Age. Climate change + Vikings - how can you go wrong with that combination? :)

[kelkyag]

I have not been reading so much as I'd like, but firstfrost has lots of interesting book reviews.

[moria923.livejournal.com]

thorbol and I are currently enjoying WHY PEOPLE BELIEVE WEIRD THINGS by Michael Shermer. I like the lucid way he writes about the scientific method. He explores things like creationism, Holocaust denial, and false memory syndrome, from a skeptic's point of view.

[reynaud.livejournal.com]

Inventing the Middle Ages, by Norman Cantor: a medieval historian (Cantor) talks about who he thinks were the 20 most influential medievalists of the first 2/3rds of the 20th century. Neat bios and synopses of theories.

Also, for an interesting and better take on the controversial subject in The Da Vinci Code, Holy Blood, Holy Grail by Baigent, etc.

[crossfire.livejournal.com]

Calling your attention to this, it sounds like a good one.