What NON-FICTION Are You Reading?

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April seemed to be SF book month on Whatnots.

For May I thought it might be interesting to have a conversation about some favorite non-fiction books or authors. (Hoping that our literacy extends beyond the SF section of the bookstore!)

The non-fiction categories could be endless: Politics, Philosophy, Physical education or beyond.

I'll start:

A couple Non-Fiction books I would highly recommend;

1) Desiring God by John Piper. It is basically a primer on how to be a hedonist.

2) Into the Storm by Tom Clancy. A book about the rebuilding of the American Army from the disaster in Vietnam up to the Gulf War.

I'm looking forward to seeing what else you all are reading!

 

HA! Great idea Mathetais! I've usually got two or three books going at one time, but I rarely delve into non-fiction. The closest I can come is straight from the How - To section:

1. Great Outdoor 2x4 Furniture. I've actually built a planter and a wishing well, and this week I've been reading to decide what to build next.

2. The New Sensual Massage by Gordon Inkeles. It's actually written like a course book for massage therapy, with detailed techniques and musculature graphics. Very good reading. (The rest of the pics are pretty nice too! )

 

It sounds a bit weird but I used to like Shakespeare a lot. I've read most of the plays from the original english text and they were great. Well, for four-hundred-year-old books they were good... I'm not into that now, though.

I forgot to mention I love William Blake, one of the greatest poets the world has ever known.


[This message has been edited by Stargazer rb-rjd (edited May 01, 2001).]

 

The 900 Days...A story of the Siege of Leningrad in WWII. I've been reading it on and off all semester! It's really good!

 

whoah, NON - fiction?????? there are actuall facts??? where do they come from? is there actually a world beyond the door into my room?

seriously, the closest I ever came to reading non-fiction was Shogun by James Clavell, It was based on truth (remotely). If anyone hasnt read it then go and read it. It is the best book in the world with the possible exception of LOTR.

 

FenixStrife! You read Shogun!?! I'm impressed!

A couple of my friends have raved about that one. Thanks for the reminder. I'll have to remember to borrow it one of these days...

 

I've been reading a couple of books by Oliver Sacks. Namely "Awakenings" and "The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat, and Other Clinical Tales".

In case you don't know who Oliver Sacks is, he's a famous psychologist and he wrote books about the people he treated, or in some cases attempted to treat.

 

I love to read the books of Umberto Eco especially Foucault's Pendulum (one of my all time favourites).
I also like to name a very fictional book (but not in a D&D way) that impressed me much:
The Cambridge Quintet by John L. Casti.
It's about a fictional meeting of Haldone, Schroedinger, Turing and Wittgenstein in Cambridge in the late 40's discussing the possibility of artificial intelligence.

 

The last non-fiction books I read were about Jeanne d'Arc. Well, one of them was actually a "based-on-a-true-story" version that really wasn't too accurate. The other was a "pure facts" version.

I really don't read all that many books about the real world. I live there, you know...

[This message has been edited by Seric Exz (edited May 02, 2001).]

 

Allthough non-fiction really sucks ass, I have read the four books about Elling by Ingvar Ambjørnsen.

 

Like most on here I rarely delve into the depths of the real world and read non-fiction. I do quite like Biographies though.

Last one I read was about Bob Paisley - the Liverpool FC Manager in the late 70's, early eighties. Probably only interest those of you who like football, but there you go.

 

I've been reading a few things recently:

1. Leonardo Da'Vinci: one of the Penguin Lives Series. I am reading them all.

2. James Joyce: also of the series

3. Fast Food Nation. Actually finished it recently.

That's about it right now. I prefer non-fiction to lit, frankly.

 

"Gates of Fire" by Steven Pressfield is about the Thermopylae where 300 Spartans faced the Persian army rumorred to be over a million. An epic battle.

Allmost all writings of Clavel are good - "Shogun" and "King Rat" are the best IMHO. The latter is about Am. prisoners of 2WW kept in Japonese camp.
Srephen Leather's "The Tunel Rats" about the war in 'Nam made a good reading also.

 

Bringing this up for the new booktalk forum (I love these bords!)

Recently, I've read:

Every Man's Battle by Fred Stokes (how to deal with the lusts and temptations our culture throws at you and ways to keep yourself pure. It was very helpful for me over the past year!)

Power Evangelism by John Wimber (this will blow your socks off!)

Soul Survivor by Philip Yancey. (This is a great book of biographies. Yancey tells the storys of people like Martin Luther King Jr & Dostoyeski, and how they have impacted his life!)

More to come soon!

!!!Bibliophiles Unite!!!

 

I am reading Gene VII by Benjamin Lewin. But then I have to cos it is nearly my finals, and I have to do some revision

 

Most recent non-fiction I read was "the Universe in a Nutshell" by Stephen Hawking, although most of this modern physics is so theoretical and hypothetical some may disagree with the non-fiction part And no, I didn't understand it all that well.

 

Well I have read alot of student literature. Some of the best ones I have read are People, States and Fear and drats I cant remember the author but its an indepht analysis of how international politics work. Pretty good.
About the only non-fiction books I have read have been history books about Caesar, I even read his his own chronicle of the Gaelic war. Very interesting stuff but the copy I read was translated 1919 so the swedish in it was a little hard to follow.

 

Commandos - a book of mainly first hand accounts by members of the commonwealth special forces durting WWII - the commandos, SAS, LRDG and Paras. Stuff like this brings a tear to my eyes when I see hear about the bravery and self sacrifice made during such hard and frigtening times. What a debt we all owe.

Next up is Something about the strategy and tactics used and developed during Admiral Nelson's time.

I've also recently bought a book called 'How to Draw Anything'. I think I'm a frustrated creative person and decided I'd use all this free time to see if I can manage to learn to draw at all.

 

These days I don't actually read all that much from the SF/F section of the bookstore. For fictional works, I mostly read mysteries. However, the topic here is non fiction.

Recently, I read "The Great Game", which is an interesting book on the Russo-British struggle for dominion in Central Asia during the 19th century. Its by Peter Hopkirk.

I've also been perusing Robert Kann' "History of the Habsburg Empire" and Lord Kinross' "The Ottoman Centuries. The first is rather academic and somewhat technical, so I wouldn't really recommend it to the general reader. "The Ottoman Centuries" is much more readable by the general populace.

Aloha
Vormaerin