Current Non-Fiction reads

[Champagne]

Might take a while, because I've got work deadlines. But I'm persevering. I've read the first 100 pages so it shouldn't take more than about six months...

 

[Peder]

Make that two of us champagne, at least for the 6 months part. I have, incidentally, also read Collapse and it is definitely worth sticking to, through to the end.

I have started

The Fate of Africa by Martin Meredith, and

A Continent for the Taking: The Tragedy and Hope of Africa by Howard W. French

but fiction by my favorite authors keeps diverting me. (Blame it on the authors! ). So it may take a while.

 

[gwcarver]

I'm reading Down and Out in London by Orwell and Paris and Fugitive Days by Bill Ayers, who is currently being used by the media to discredit Obama. It's an excellent book about discovering one's political voice and feeling unable to be complacent.

 

[Wells83]

The Last Lecture, Randy Pausch

 

[Proofreader]

Anne Fadiman's "At Large and At Small" - brilliant stuff.

 

[Writer44]

Just started Patriot Pirates, The Privateer War for Freedom and Fortune in the American Revolution by Robert H. Patton. Excellent so far.

 

[silverseason]

The Consolations of Philosophy by Alain de Botton. He describes the views of six philosophers (Socrates, Epicurus, Seneca, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Montaigne) in terms of how their views can console you for various problems, such as unpopularity (Socrates) or lack of money (Epircurus). I haven't read the Montaigne section yet, so I don't know why he is included. I thought he was primarily an essayist.

 

[Wells83]

Victorian London: The Tale of a City from 1840-1870, by Liza Picard

The premise is basically all the interesting facts of daily life in London that Picard could find. She chose to focus on thirty years of the Victorian era just to narrow it down.

So far, I've read about the smells (too horrific to be believed), the water sources, most importantly the River Thames, the roadways, and the houses of the period, including the bathrooms.

For years before a flushing toilet was invented, they used what is known as an earth closet, where you would do your business in a hole in the bathroom and shovel fresh dirt over it in order to make fertilizer. Quite interesting.

 

[sparkchaser]

Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood by Taras Grescoe.

A self-professed lover of all things seafood, Grescoe eats his way around the world examining the commercial fishing industry and how it is affecting seafood populations.

 

[arnuld]

TAKEDOWN by Tsutomu Shimomura and John Markoff.

I will post a long review of this book when I will finish. I am reading, reviewing and extracting the authors mentality in every chapter on a piece of paper and I think I am getting an insight into their thinking and the reality that happened.

 

[Peder]

Blackwater - The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army by Jeremy Scahill.

The Great Transformation - The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions by Karen Armstrong

 

[Writer44]

The Republic's Private Navy, The American Privateering Business as Practiced by Baltimore during the War of 1812.

Interesting stuff about people willing to risk it all in war.

 

[text_maniac]

DNA studies show that we are more closely related to chimpanzees than gorillas.

What's more, Chimps are more closely related to us than they are to Gorillas!

 

[Peder]

Touching History - The Untold Story of the Drama That Unfolded in the Skies Over America on 9/11 by Lynn Spencer.

Bought on irresistible impulse and I haven''t been sorry one second! Gripping throughout, and deeply affecting in parts. Excellent and informative.

 

[Anamnesis]

I recently finished High School Confidential by Jeremy Iversen. A 24-year old decides to go back to high school as part of a social experiment. I found the book to be very addictive and fun, but I feel like the author could have provided more information about certain "characters".

 

[arnuld]

Encountering HIV/AIDS published by :: Welcome to Centre for World Solidarity :: . Not a book but a collection of 11 AIDS real-life case studies, impacted me a lot and it literally changed the way i think about sex.

 

[arnuld]

I am living with with Non-Fiction these days "The Death of Air India Flight 182" by Salim Jiwa

 

[goatgoatgoat]

I have just read Raising Milk Goats the Modern Way by Jerome D. Belanger

 

[Choc]

'Almanac of the uncanny'

 

[Wells83]

Just finished The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as literally as Possible, by A.J. Jacobs and have now started Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War, by Nathaniel Philbrick.