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Current Non-Fiction reads

I'm currently reading Fast Food Nation. So far it doesn't seem too sensationalist. The author actually has a lot of nice things to say about the creators of the major fast food restaurants. I'm not that far into, so the tone may change.

The last book I read was What is the What?, which was a novel, but it was biographic of a Sudanese refugee. I suggest it if you like heartbraking stories.
 
I'm reading The Complete Idiot's Guide to Knitting and Crochet by Gail Divien and Cindy Kitchel, and Stitch and Bitch Nation by Debbie Stoller..and have been studying the pamphlet that I got to go with the set if Knifty Knitters I got the other day-finished two children's hats! The first one looks pretty crappy, but the second looks much better:p
 
The Lost Continent by Bill Bryson (again). Wanted to get The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid from the library, but it had reserves on it, and it just sort of felt like a Bill Bryson time of the year.
Good luck with the knitting ABC ;)
 
Poppy1 said:
The Lost Continent by Bill Bryson (again). Wanted to get The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid from the library, but it had reserves on it, and it just sort of felt like a Bill Bryson time of the year.
Good luck with the knitting ABC ;)
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Thanks Poppy! I started a baby hat this morning..my excuse is the newest baby at church..she's the cutest scapegoat I've seen in awhile:p Since the mail won't be coming today, due to the national day of mourning for President Ford, I'll have to wait to get my two stick knitting books that are in route...:(
 
I started a biography of Michael Collins a couple of months ago.

It is interesting but it is a big book that isn't very handy, so it remains on the living-room table and I don't pick it up very often. I am now reading an essay in French on the Gulf Stream, its influence on the climate, the vegetation. It isn't bad at all and a pleasant change.
 
abecedarian said:
I'm reading The Complete Idiot's Guide to Knitting and Crochet by Gail Divien and Cindy Kitchel, and Stitch and Bitch Nation by Debbie Stoller..and have been studying the pamphlet that I got to go with the set if Knifty Knitters I got the other day-finished two children's hats! The first one looks pretty crappy, but the second looks much better:p
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I've not seen the Divien and Kitchel one, but I have SnB Nation and certainly vouch for the Hurry Up Spring Wristwarmers! As a book I've only really glanced through it, but some of the stories and pictures of the SnB groups are quite interesting. I'm a bit of a lone knitter myself.
 
Bovine_Belle said:
I've not seen the Divien and Kitchel one, but I have SnB Nation and certainly vouch for the Hurry Up Spring Wristwarmers! As a book I've only really glanced through it, but some of the stories and pictures of the SnB groups are quite interesting. I'm a bit of a lone knitter myself.
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I brought this book up at my deaconess meeting the other night... we were discussing ideas for excused to invite ladies to get toether. Of course the other ladies didn't like the term 'bitch' in connection with a church group, but it prompted some fun talk about a crochet group at the Hooker Oklahoma Baptist Church..they used to call themselves The Happy Hookers:D Anyway, there's a few ladies who knit, or want to learn, so we might try to get together on Wednesday evenings while our families are involved in other activities at the church..
 
Debbie Stoller's crochet book is called The Happy Hooker. I suppose it's the most obvious euphemism :)

I think knitting is a good social activity as (unless you are struggling counting repeats on a lace shawl *sigh*) you can do it almost automatically and it's always nice to have people to turn to for help!

Knit and Natter is a popular name for knitting groups, I think.
 
Practical Cheesemaking by Kathy Bliss

Don't laugh! I have too much time on my hands. The cheese I've made so far is quite good though:)
 
susiekatkin said:
Don't laugh! I have too much time on my hands. The cheese I've made so far is quite good though:)
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Who's laughing? Even if I didn't want to make cheese, reading about the process might be interesting! You might like Carla Emery's Encyclopedia of Country Living..she covers EVERYTHING to do with homesteading and self-sufficiency..everything from cheesemaking, to growing and harvesting all sorts of crops, to how to make peach butter, to emergency unassisted childbirth. She also includes resource information, including websites, in the latest edition, which is #8, I believe. I found myself reading about things I knew I'd never need, such as how to take care of pregnant goats...but her writing style is most engaging and it seemed rude to skip anything.
 
I'm reading a very interesting book on the murder of Patrice Lumumba.* I'm reading it for a class I'm taking, so it could be considered "work", but it's well-written and really does read like a crime novel. (The way most non-fiction books don't, even if the back cover says they do.)

It's also depressing as shit and makes me feel very frustrated, but I doubt any book on a topic like this wouldn't have the very same effect.

* Ludo de Witte: De moord op Lumumba.
 
I recently finished Night by Elie Wiesel, and went to a bookstore today hoping to get Dawn. I didn’t find it, but I became engrossed with all the other books in the Holocaust/WWII section. I already own several books on the Holocaust, but today found a book titled Legacies of Silence by Glenn Sujo. It “examines the contribution of artist-witnesses, victims and survivors of the Holocaust to post-war culture and the visual arts”, including photographs, sketches and paintings. Biographies for the artists are included in the back of the book, some of who did not survive the war.
 
Appolonia said:
I recently finished Night by Elie Wiesel, and went to a bookstore today hoping to get Dawn. I didn’t find it, but I became engrossed with all the other books in the Holocaust/WWII section. I already own several books on the Holocaust, but today found a book titled Legacies of Silence by Glenn Sujo. It “examines the contribution of artist-witnesses, victims and survivors of the Holocaust to post-war culture and the visual arts”, including photographs, sketches and paintings. Biographies for the artists are included in the back of the book, some of who did not survive the war.
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What is there to say about a great bok like Night that hasn't already been said? I read that one for a sociology class and it is one of the few that has stuck in my mind's eye for years. The forced march in the winter time was a very compelling section.

As for the topic, i'm still working on that old crab Richard Dawkins.:D
 
My non-fiction book at the moment is Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. Prior to that it was X-Ray (The Unauthorised Autobiography) by Ray Davies.
 
I'm currently reading and enjoying the hell out of The Dictators (Richard Overy) a dissection and comparison of Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia. Every angle of both dictatorships is touched on, from how Hitler and Stalin came to power, to the cult of personality, to the methods of repression (and popular support) that kept the regimes working, to the twisted utopian ideas at the core of them. It's fascinating!
 
I'm about to start The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama. Should be a good contemporary political read.
 
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