I just like knowing things.

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JetFueledCar

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Like, I'm sure, many of you, my to-read list is long and expanding. But that's my fiction to-read list. I don't actually have a nonfiction one... But every time someone mentions a topic I'm not super familiar with, the first thing I do is go to my library's website and try to find books on it.

So please, help me build up a nonfiction to-read list. Please reply to this with your favorite nonfiction books, regardless of topic. Please tell me what it's about, what you learned (they're not always the same), and why you enjoyed reading it.

My personal favorite nonfiction is probably Freakonomics. It just teaches so much, and it teaches how to figure things out. Also The Duck That Won The Lottery, which is a book entirely about bad arguments that once you read you will never be able to stop seeing, especially on the internet. The third is The Haitian Vodou Handbook by Kenaz Filan, because I love learning about other cultures and religions, especially when religion is all tied up with culture. This one in particular is fascinating, because it's so similar and related to things I was already familiar with, and still so distinct.
 

Myrealana

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I love Sarah Vowell's books on history like The Wordy Shipmates and Lafayette in the Somewhat United States. They give a far more entertaining view of American History than I ever learned in school, and they're funny. I especially like the audio versions.

I bought Michio Kaku's Physics of the Future and Physics of the Impossible for my dad, a retired physics teacher, and then I had to re-buy them because I couldn't resist reading them before I wrapped them. I also just finished Parallel Worlds. All of these get into some pretty intense physics, some of which, admittedly, goes over my head. However, they're full of fascinating theories and some cutting-edge ideas.

If you enjoy Freakonomics, you may already have read Malcolm Gladwell and/or Michael Lewis, both of whom are frequently mentioned in the blog and podcast, but if not, I'd recommend both of them. Gladwell's work is more general on the nature of society, achievement, observation and such. Michael Lewis takes on a single idea in each book and explores it from multiple angles, such as Moneyball, about an innovative approach to using predictive analytics in baseball, or The Big Short about the causes and predictors of the 2008 financial crisis.
 

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Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors
by Lizzie Collingham


I found it while looking to understand what "authentic" Indian food is. It starts at the Moghul invasion and details the effect that and subsequent invasions had on the culture and cuisine and which parts of India in particular were affected. It's really fascinating and well researched.
 

Marissa D

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I read a lot of non-fiction too. Here are a couple of good ones:

Between Silk and Cyanide: A Codemaker's War
- memoir by Leo Marks of his years (in his early twenties) when he was a codemaker of genius, doing his best to keep British and other agents dropping into occupied Europe as safe as possible. It kept me up all night; includes a lot about secret codes and the politics behind the scenes at SOE.

The Coming Plague - Laurie Garrett - Maybe getting a little out of date, but still fascinating look at epidemiology today and what we're not doing to get ready for the next time something like the plague comes down the pike.

Rebel Heart - Mary Lovell - Biography of Jane Digby, an early 19th century British debutante who went through four husbands and ended up as the wife of a sheik decades her junior in the middle east. What a wild ride she had!

Close To Shore - Michael Capuzzo - Shark attacks in New Jersey and New York, pre WWI. Wonderfully painted picture of a world about to change forever. Plus sharks. :)

The Soul of an Octopus - Sy Montgomery - Part memoir, part natural history, part meditation on life and death, and cephalopod consciousness: do octopi have minds?
 

Brightdreamer

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A few nonfiction titles I've enjoyed:

Animal Wise (Virginia Morell): The study of emotions, thoughts, and learning abilities in animals, from ants through chimpanzees. Until recently, these were questions one couldn't even ask in mainstream science without being scowled at as "anthropomorphizing" beasts. (It didn't help that the waters got muddied by well-meaning but misguided researchers in the past.) Now that legitimate research is being done, though, it's becoming clear that humans aren't alone in being able to think or feel.

On evolution, I'd suggest How to Build a Dinosaur (Jack Horner and James Gorman), Your Inner Fish (Neil Shubin), and Undeniable (Bill Nye), plus Last Ape Standing (Chip Walter) if you want to focus on hominins. The first book delves into "devo-evo", or developmental evolution, and the hypothetical-but-possibly-soon-actual process of waking saurian characteristics in modern birds. The second and third are about evolution in general, why it's important, and what we're risking by refusing to commit to it as a fact (or as near to fact as we can determine) in classrooms and official policy. The last focuses on the evolution of H. sapiens and the many upright-walking kin that rose and fell and sometimes mingled with our bloodlines.

I also found Unbound: How Eight Technologies Made Us Human, Transformed Society, and Brought Our World to the Brink (Richard L. Currier) interesting; it's a look at eight pivotal "technologies" that allowed us to rise from mere animal to the dominant shaper of the planet, everything from "digging sticks" and speech to the digital age. He has an optimistic view of the future.

Jeff Campbell's Last of the Giants explores extinct (or nearly-extinct) megafauna in an interesting, accessible way. As a warning, though, get the hard copy, not the eBook; the formatting of the eBook tries too hard to replicate the print copy, with the result being frustrating to read on anything but a tablet, where you can zoom in on the type.

And for a look at the importance of mangroves as everything from flood breaks to carbon sinks, and how the rise of the shrimp industry has imperiled the ecosystem, the people, and possibly the planet as a whole, look at Kennedy Warne's Let Them Eat Shrimp.

And if you want a book that delves into history and sports while telling a compellingly human true-life story, try The Boys in the Boat (Daniel James Brown), about the underdog college rowing crew that went to the 1936 Berlin Olympics. I'm not a fan of history or sports, but I couldn't put this one down.

ETA: I'll also add a recommendation for what I've read of Shawn Lawrence Otto's Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America, exploring the history of science in the country and the rise and empowerment of anti-science attitudes. As a caveat, I haven't finished reading it; the writing can be a bit dense, and I had to let my library hold lapse before I completed it due to Other Things in my life draining my energy and attention.
 
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Roxxsmom

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I read a lot of biology stuff. I strongly second Shubin's Your Inner Fish. Also, Sarah Blaffer Hrdy's Mother Nature is fascinating (and useful for people who enjoy writing fiction and want to get a feel for motherhood across different times and settings. Though they're somewhat dated now (depending on the issue discussed), Stephen Jay Gould's collections of his essays on evolution are still entertaining and informative reads.

Other nonfiction I've read recently includes, Sex Itself by Sarah S Richardson (a book that explores the history of our scientific understanding of sex differentiation and gender), Dark Money by Jane Meyer, Self Made Man by Norah Vincent (by a cisgendered, female reporter who spent a year of her life living as a man), For Your Own Good (a book about hidden cruelty in childrearing) by Alice Miller, and a memoir called Replacement Child, by Judy Mandel (who was conceived shortly after a plane crashed into her parents' home in New Jersey, killing one of her sisters and badly burning the other), and Holy Sh*t, a brief history of swearing by Melissa Mohr (I read it some time ago, but it's rather interesting, especially for writers who want a sense for the role and type of profanity in different historical settings).

I've got a book about Ida Wells, by Paula Giddings, and Men Explain Things to Me, by Rebecca Soint queued up on my ipad as well.

I haven't read anything related to travel or culture lately, something I should probably rectify, so I'll mine this thread for suggestions too :)
 
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ElaineA

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+1 to The Boys in the Boat. I cried at the end, which, when you already know the outcome, heh.

I love Devil in the White City about the Chicago World's Fair and an active serial killer operating near by at the time. Learned a ton of stuff about early Chicago and it's "little brother" syndrome about the big boys in NYC.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is fascinating. I recently went to a fundraiser for our local cancer research center. The doctor that spoke talked about "cancer cell lines" and I actually knew what he was talking about. Spoke to him after about the lines he was using for his research and the difficulties in getting cell samples now as compared to what happened with Mrs. Lacks. Suffice it to say, the rules are *extremely* stringent now, as they should be. Mrs. Lacks and her family were ill-used, but her cells have benefited millions of lives. Unfortunately, they've also greatly benefited the drug companies. >.<

My favorite NF rec is probably A Pirate of Exquisite Mind, about a pioneer you probably have never heard of. William Dampier, a man who simply had wanderlust in his veins. A small list of his accomplishments: First Englishman to explore parts of Australia, first person known to navigate the world 3 times, first person to collect data on currents, winds, and tides in areas he sailed, described several up-to-then unknown animal species and introduced the concept of "sub-species" (Darwin relied on his book on his excursions and built on Dampier's early speculations), he is the inspiration for both Gulliver's Travels AND Robinson Crusoe. He wrote extensively of his voyages (proper ones--he was given command of the HMS Roebuck at one point, but was court martialed for cruelty--and improper. He preferred the company of pirates and privateers.) On one expedition, he ordered a crewman put on an island off South America for complaining about the seaworthiness of the ship. He came back 5 years later and rescued the man, also capturing a Spanish Galleon and winding up with the equivalent of £20 million in plunder. And then there's this nugget: "He is cited over 80 times in the Oxford English Dictionary, notably on words such as "barbecue", "avocado", "chopsticks" and "sub-species". That is not to say he coined the words, but his use of them in his writings is the first known example in English."

On top of it all, he wrote of his trips when he came home and they were bestsellers!

I'm gushing. He is an absolutely fascinating character, and he left so much written material behind, it's kind of amazing he isn't the best known adventurer of the era. I highly recommend the book, by Diana Preston. It's an easy, compelling read.
 

JimmyB27

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Ben Goldacre's Bad Science. I think this book should be required reading for everyone. He's witty, and wise and he's impressively impartial. The book is a take down of bad practices in science (he uses the anti-vax example and rips into Andrew Wakefield in a big way). But he also mentions a lot of bad practices in the 'big pharma' industry and points out ways in which companies can make their drugs or treatments appear better than they really are.

Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything. Intelligent and witty science 101. I love Bryson, and this book is a great intro to, well, nearly everything.

Science of the Discworld Bit of an odd one, this. Not 100% non-fiction, in that it frames the sciencey stuff with a story about the wizards on the Discworld. It alternates chapters with Pratchett writing the wizards' story and Ian Stewart (mathematician) and Jack Cohen (biologist) writing about the science that the wizards encounter in their journey to 'Roundworld'. There are three sequels as well.

Brief History of Time. Barely understood a word of it, yet it managed to remain utterly fascinating regardless.


ETA: Can I recommend TV shows? Stephen Ambrose's book Band of Brothers was boring as heck to me - dry and clinical writing. But the TV series based on it was amazing. In my opinion, quite possibly the best television series ever made. The penultimate episode especially was completely heart-wrenching.
 
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WeaselFire

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My choices are a lot more specific and esoteric and I wouldn't recommend them unless you're genuinely interested in the topic.

The Cuckoo's Egg by Clifford Stoll
Shooter by David Hume Kennerly
Business at the Speed of Thought by Bill Gates
How to Lie With Statistics by Darrell Huff
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
Tap Dancing to Work by Carol Loomis
Managing for Results by Peter Drucker
The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money by John Maynard Keynes
Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith
The Federalist (The Federalist Papers) by Publius (Okay, it's a series of 85 papers and not really a single book...)
Common Sense by Thomas Paine
Understanding Media by Marshall McLuhan (And The Media is the Massage, a latter book he wrote)
Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman
Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell
Steal This Book by Abbie Hoffman
Why We Can't Wait by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Electric Kool Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
The Art of War by Sun Tzu
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli
The Republic by Plato (or The Complete Works of Plato)
Das Kapital by Karl Marx (or Communist Manifesto)
Also Sprach Zarathustra by Frederich Nietzsche (Or maybe Beyond Good and Evil)
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson (If you can get through it...)
Civl Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau
Institutes of Christian Religion by John Calvin - Actually, read all the major religion books, The Bible, The Torah, The Koran, etc.
The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels
The I Ching by, well, not sure it has an author
The Little Red Book (Quotations of Chairman Mao) by Mao Tse Tung/Mao Zedong
Words by Jean-Paul Sartre (One of any of dozen Sartre books that would work)

Writing Related:

Aspects of the Novel by EM Forster
Elements of Style by Strunk and White
On Writing by James Scott Bell (and most everything else he wrote)
On Writing by Stephen King
Stein on Writing by Sol Stein
Zen and the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury
A Moveable Feast by Earnest Hemingway
Save the Cat! by Blake Snyder (screenwriting)
Chicago Manual of Style
Characters and Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card
On Writing Well by Willam Zinsser

Wow, I have a weird collection on my shelves here! There are many others I've read over the years, these just happen to be where I can see them.

Jeff
 

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I'm a bit of a popular history and popular science nerd, so my list is heavy on those topics:

The Reason Why, Cedil Woodham-Smith; a critical account of the Charge of the Light Brigade
The White Nile and its sequel, The Blue Nile, by Alan Moorehead; the history of the early exploration of central Africa and the search for the source of the Nile
Cooper's Creek, also by Moorehad; a similar account of the early history of the exploration of central Australia, featuring the saddest and most memorable "lost expedition" tale I know of.
The River of Doubt, by Candice Millard; an account of Theodore Roosevelt's last great adventure in the deepest part of the Amazon jungle.
Destiny of the Republic, also by Millard; the brief Presidency and assassination of James A. Garfield, who could well have been one of the truly great American Presidents.
Darwin's Century, by Loren Eiseley; an account of the scientific revolution of the 19th century, by a paleontologist, poet and essay writer of consummate skill.
The Immense Journey, also by Eiseley; a collection of personal essays that have made their way into English literature textbooks.
The Map that Changed the World, by Simon Winchester; an account of the making of the world's first geologic map, an extraordinary masterpiece of both science and art, and hugely influential.
Krakatoa, also by Winchester; an account of the 1883 eruption of the volcano, and its effect on world history.
Life on the Mississippi and Roughing It, by Mark Twain. Just plain two of his most entertaining books.
Why England Slept, by John F. Kennedy; his college thesis, a brilliant analysis of England's near-fatal lethargy leading into World War II.
Longitude, by Dava Sobel; an account of the lone unschooled genius who created the first reliable sea-clock, which allowed England to become the pre-eminent naval power in the world for the next century.
The Guns of August, by Barbara Tuchman; an account of the complex events leading to the outbreak of World War I.
A Distant Mirror, also by Tuchman; a look at a portion of Europe in late medieval times, centering on one particular nobleman.
The Log from the Sea of Cortez, by John Steinbeck; an account of his voyage as a helper on a biological collection trip run by his great friend Ed Ricketts, the inspiration for this character Doc in the novel Cannery Row. Hilarious and poignant. Be sure to get the edition that contains his later essay on the life and tragic death of Ricketts, just about the best personal essay I've ever read.

That's a good start.

caw
 

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Favourite non-fiction read for me this year has to be Laura Spinney's Pale Rider, a study of the 1918-1919 global pandemic called Spanish Flu that is now believed to have killed between 50-million and 100-milion people in a matter of months, more than the Black Death killed in a century. The nature of the virus provoked an aggressive reaction from the immune system which is why the majority of those who died were young and healthy. The origins of the flu virus are sill unknown.
 

Anna Iguana

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+1 to Myrealana's suggestion of books by Malcolm Gladwell.
 

be frank

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I recommend Amanda Ripley's The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes and Why.

She looks into a range of natural and man-made disasters (including 9/11) and examines what happened, what went wrong, and what can influence whether you survive or not. (eg: never stay above the fourth floor in a hotel -- it's as high as firefighters' ladders go.) She focuses on individual survivors (or victims) as case studies. Fascinating read.
 

Chris P

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Yay! I could fill the page with all my favorite nonfics.

Guns Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond. It examines the differential development of human societies based on their access to natural resources.

The Third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond. If space aliens classified life on Earth, there would be three species of chimp: common chimp, pygmy chimp, and human beings. Diamond examines human behavior and societies based kn what we see in our congeneric cousins.

Annals of the Former World. Explore the geology of the United States by taking a trip along I-80 from east coast to west. Note to midwesterners: he totally jumls over us saying not much happened, completely ignoring the fascinating story of the ice age. That's the only weak part of the book.

1776 by David McCoullogh. General Washington's victories and defeats during the iconic year are laid out in what almost reads like a novel.

Bossypants by Tina Fey. One of the best celebrity memoirs I've read, particularly for her humility.

The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes. A perfect blend of high-end science, celebrity gossip, war thriller, and political expose.

1491 and 1493. These books together show the changes that took place in the western hemisphere and the world as the result of the European discovery of the Americas.

Voices from Chernobyl. Provides a couple dozen interviews of the people who survived the disaster.
 

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Relationship Strategies: The E & P Attraction by John Kappas.

I read this after I'd gone through a breakup from a serious relationship and my therapist recommended it. It talks about the two types of people in relationships (the Emotionals and the Physicals) and how they seem to attract the opposite. It goes into how each type views relationships, so you're seeing it from their point of view, and hopefully can understand your own relationships better then. It was enlightening and scary accurate.
 

JetFueledCar

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Yay! I could fill the page with all my favorite nonfics.

Annals of the Former World. Explore the geology of the United States by taking a trip along I-80 from east coast to west. Note to midwesterners: he totally jumls over us saying not much happened, completely ignoring the fascinating story of the ice age. That's the only weak part of the book.

Sidebar: Do you have a rec regarding the Ice Age?

Thanks for all the recs, everyone, and please keep them coming! I grabbed a few of them at the library yesterday and put a bunch more on hold. :D
 

MaeZe

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I second the following:
The Coming Plague - Laurie Garrett
Dark Money - Jane Mayer
Bad Science - Ben Goldacre

And I'll add:
Snake Oil Science: The Truth About Complementary and Alternative Medicine - R. Barker Bausell Ph.D.

Words That Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear - Frank Luntz

Monkey Girl: Evolution, Education, Religion, and the Battle for America's Soul - Edward Humes

A People's History of the United States - Howard Zinn

The Exception to the Rulers - Amy Goodman

Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture - Peggy Orenstein
 
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Brightdreamer

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Circling back with a few more...

Terry Jones and Alan Ereira did a few books on history that looks past common myths and misconceptions: Terry Jones' Barbarians explores the many cultures tarred with the "savage barbarian" brush by the Romans, and Terry Jones' Medieval Lives destroys the Renfaire/Hollywood stereotypes of the time period. I found them interesting and accessible.

Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational and David McRaney's You Are Not So Smart look at the human mind, specifically its inborn quirks and flaws that make rational thinking so difficult unless one learns to recognize them.

For an amusing, interesting take on several subjects, Randall Munroe's Thing Explainer talks about "complicated stuff in simple words." He uses the 1000 most common words in English language to discuss all manner of topics, from earth science and the periodic table to how a padlock work, with illustrations. (Munroe is the creator of the comic xkcd.)

You mentioned wanting to know a little more about the Ice Age, so you might take a look at Connie Barlow's The Ghosts of Evolution. It drags now and again, but it looks at many plants that have outlived their Ice Age partners (or, in the case of ginkgoes, their Dinosaur Age partners.) It also shows how animal/plant partnerships reshape ecosystems, and how everything suffers when that partnership is interrupted by megafauna extinction.
 

Laer Carroll

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I'd suggest A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle, an homage to a place and a people in the south of France. Also a movie loosely inspired by the book, A Good Year, starring Russell Crowe and Marion Cotillard, which showcases the area. Click on the Amazon links to read the first few chapters or a trailer for the movie.

Much of the movie takes place in a real place, the working vineyard La Chateaux Canorgue, located in the Luberon valley, a prime wine growing area. It is shielded on the south by a line of hills from the hot and dry winds out of Africa. On the north it's shielded by a line of Alpine mountains from cold and wet winds. At the far west end is the city of Avignon and a bit south is Marseille.

Avignon and several smaller cities in the valley can serve as a central location for exploring the valley. If like me you dance the Argentine tango there are several regular milongas in the area!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0679731148/?tag=absowrit-20
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003YTPS7O/?tag=absowrit-20

A similar book is Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes. It inspired a film by the same name starring Diane Lane.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0767900383/?tag=absowrit-20
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B006C59B84/?tag=absowrit-20
 

M Louise

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For those of us who like nature writing, I'm enthralled with the 'new nature writers' mostly based in Britain, including Robert Macfarlane, Richard Mabey, Roger Deakin, Mark Cocker, Kathleen Jamie, Helen MacDonald, Tim Robinson and the poet Alice Oswald. These are the new romantics of environmentalism and their work is passionate about wilderness, reclamation and walks of discovery in out of the way places.

Richard Mabey's Weeds is a history and celebration of the plants that we can't control and choose not to care about.

Robert Macfarlane's The Old Ways and Landmarks are books about walking through wild places and connecting with older myths and the language used to describe wilderness.
 

Helix

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For those of us who like nature writing, I'm enthralled with the 'new nature writers' mostly based in Britain, including Robert Macfarlane, Richard Mabey, Roger Deakin, Mark Cocker, Kathleen Jamie, Helen MacDonald, Tim Robinson and the poet Alice Oswald. These are the new romantics of environmentalism and their work is passionate about wilderness, reclamation and walks of discovery in out of the way places.

Richard Mabey's Weeds is a history and celebration of the plants that we can't control and choose not to care about.

Robert Macfarlane's The Old Ways and Landmarks are books about walking through wild places and connecting with older myths and the language used to describe wilderness.

omg, M Louise, you are me! I bloody love Macfarlane, Mabey, and the much missed Deakin. Roger Deakin's Wildwood is wonderful. I've got Cocker's book on crows, but haven't read it yet.
 

Chris P

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Sidebar: Do you have a rec regarding the Ice Age?

Unfortunately, I've not yet found one that really covers the topic in the detail I'd like. Mostly they've been the first chapter or two of North American history books or bits and pieces in other books. If anyone has suggestions I'd like to hear them too!
 

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HOW JESUS BECAME GOD by Bart Ehrman. Not necessary to be Christian in order to be fascinated by this history of the evolution of a religion. And I'll also second the above suggestion of Elaine Pagels's THE GNOSTIC GOSPELS.

PHYSICS AS METAPHOR by Roger S. Jones. An oldie, probably not in print any more but available used.

SETH SPEAKS by Jane Roberts. Conversations with a channeled personality. It helps to have a nodding acquaintance with the idea of parallel realities and many dimensions before you start, it makes much more sense to me now than it did 30 years ago.
 

Roxxsmom

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Favourite non-fiction read for me this year has to be Laura Spinney's Pale Rider, a study of the 1918-1919 global pandemic called Spanish Flu that is now believed to have killed between 50-million and 100-milion people in a matter of months, more than the Black Death killed in a century. The nature of the virus provoked an aggressive reaction from the immune system which is why the majority of those who died were young and healthy. The origins of the flu virus are sill unknown.

Another interesting book about this flu outbreak is called The Great Influenza, by John M. Barry. It also explores the history of the medical sciences in the US, which was lagging behind its European counterparts in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and was involved in a huge game of catch up when the epidemic hit.

One thing that surprised me (maybe surprised is a strong word, but it wasn't something I'd thought much about prior to reading the book) was that most people thought the flu was caused by a bacterial species/strain (still known as Hemophilus influenzae) that was frequently cultured from the lungs etc. of people who died of the "flu."The tobacco mosaic virus (first virus verified scientifically) had been "discovered in the 1890s), via experimental evidence, but it wasn't possible to visualize them yet.

Viruses are so tiny that almost nothing was known about them at the time, except that there was some kind of infectious agent that was able to infect experimental plants and animals infused with filtrates that contained no cellular material. The influenza virus wasn't actually discovered (or definitively confirmed, might be a better word) until 1931.
 
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