Non-fiction Books
 

Recommend some non-fiction books that you like.

Here are some from me:

Paul Griffiths - Modern Music and After

Alasdair MacIntyre - After Virtue

Donald Kroodsma - The Singing Life of Birds

Roger Scruton - The Aesthetics of Music

Douglas R. Hofstadter - Godel, Escher, Bach

Daniel C. Dennett - Consciousness Explained

Thucydides - History of the Peloponnesian War

Any Greek or Roman historical accounts. Extremely entertaining.

Just finished reading A Million Little Pieces by James Frey

loved it

actually any Oprah book of the month is good reading.

You can't go wrong with Hitler's Mein Kampf either.:)

haha
my girlfriend actually bought a million little pieces... and i actually read about a third of it... it's not completely terrible... pretty trite but strangely enjoyable... like watching bad TV whilst mindnumbingly bored....

i'm reading a philosophy of boredom just now which isn't bad but not great... some interesting stuff but some irrevelevant waffle as well....

has anyone read guns, germs and steel? i got it a little while ago, haven't got round to it yet... it seems quite interesting....

I will say, you can actually get some entertaining novels from Oprah's Book Club. She has Joyce Carol Oates in there a lot, who I tend to like (but sometimes hate).

Another fantastic book (these are probably of only the remotest interest to people who give a shit about Roman history): Livy's The Early History of Rome. (I decided to observe the formal rules of book titles for once, instead of just putting them in quotes.)

I almost bought that History of the Peloponnesian War book not so long ago. But damned if I can recall which book shop I saw it in.

Jerry Manders 'Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television' is a good one. It's not as angry and confrontational as the title suggests. He writes in a pretty level headed and balanced way.

I liked Ray Kurzweils 'The Age of Spiritual Machines' a lot. Although I'm not really sure I totally agree with his stance. (That it's inevitable that machines will one day exceed human intelligence).

death be not proud.
A journalist wrote it about his sons life after he died of some disease.

Didn't that book turn out to be not all that non-fiction...

David Foster Wallace's Consider The Lobster is a good read.

Anything by Chuck Klosterman is good, too.

i've read guns germs and steel. it's fucking fantastic

One of my prized possessions is a copy of Oliver Cromwell; A History by Samuel HArden Church, Litt. D, A.M. It's the 1899 edition, celebrating the 300th anniversary of Cromwell's birth, and was limited to 600 copies, each hand-signed and numbered. Mine is number 487. So I have to say that as one.

Other non-fiction books I'm most fond of include:

Synchronicity by C G Jung,

Wally Hammond: The Reasons Why by David Foot,

A Mirrror of Witchcraft by Christina Hole,

The Golden Bough by Sir James George Frazer,

and two books about my local area, both late 19th century, by Hilda Gamlin; namely 'Twixt Mersey and Dee and Chronicles or Memories of Birkenhead

Whaaaaa? 1899 edition. Ltd to 600? That must be worth a shitload. There must also be a good story as to how a book such as that came into your posession. And there I was salivating over a 1st edition of Philip K Dicks Ubik in a bookshop window just the other day.

Not much of a story; I'm a Cromwell fan, and I love antiquarian books. I spend so much time in antiquarian bookshops that occaisionally something special comes my way (that's exactly why I spend quite so much time there). And the dealers know me, thyey'll keep stuff for me to see, and give me a discount. That's how the book world works, it's nice.

I never buy valuable editions of books, because there's no hope of me keeping them in good condition.

I'm one of those people who dog-ear books, drop them in the tub, spill tea on them, bend the covers, etc.

Same with vinyl - I could NEVER leave an album unopened in its original packaging. I could never resist the satanic pull to play it.

Rotton-The John Lydon autobiography was pretty good.

I liked that, LifeD. In sort of the same vein, Please Kill Me by Legs McNeil is a good read too.

pretty funny how oprah went horseshit on frey, i wasnt really interested in it at all previously. now that everyone hates him and its not all the non-fiction its sparked my interest and im gonna be reading that.

right now im reading a heartbreaking work of staggering genius by dave eggers and its pretty good.

bob dylans book was good

i cant really think, but ill post more as they come to me...

OH YEAH

i night by elie wiesel was really good, my mom bought it for me after she saw it on oprah

bruce chatwin- what am i doing here?
(travels the world, meets amazing people, one of the best writers i've ever read)

I am exactly the same way - I coonsume books and shit them out.

But in my experience, people who are interested in Greek and Roman history keep their books in pristine condition....

I just had a weird respect (and deep love) for books ever since I was a small child.

One of the most pleasing things in the world is when I buy an old book and inside I find an old, relevant newspaper cutting that a previous owner has left there - it's something I do myself regularly.

A couple more, if I may be so bold:

Full Circle: Shakespeare and Moral Development by Alan Hobson

The Progress of the Soul by Richard E Hughes (a biography of JOhn Donne)

I like buying old books that obviously were given to someone as a gift, but they sold them or someone was studying it. At this second-hand bookstore I go to, I bought a copy of The Iliad and inside is all of these notes scrawled about. It's really interesting.

I find nothing more irritating than people who've used a book to study and have underlined sections in pen, as with my recently acquired second-hand copy of Kierkegaards 'concluding unscientific postscript' which is very good. Thanks for your query.

It's only really annoying to me if the writing gets in the way of the text. I just liked that this guy's notes simplified it a bit.

I have a used copy of Thomas Pynchon's V and it is full of somebody's notes, underlined passages, comments, it's interesting.

Yep....peoples notes are pretty interesting for the most part but they can annoy in equal measures as well. I would be interested to read anyones notes on V though.

I was going to buy a copy of Ulysses by James Joyce with notes in it, and decided not to. Now I wish I had.

I've got a couple of Shakespeare's plays with old observations in. I find them quite interesting, all in all.

i have the last days of pompei, 1887 edition

I read/have that....horrible title though.

Oh and read Alive! It's a good book and insane.

my friend's dad has a copy of Rules for Radicals and lots of stuff is underlined... he was clearly a budding activist in his day... i study publishing and our tutor has a deep respect for books... he actually finds spine bending in paperbacks contemptible... he once told us that books are sacred items... he's quite a cool guy although i find him slightly intimidating for reasons beyond my ken

Maybe because he finds spine bending contemptible.....that's scary. He might whack you one if yr textbook is a bit dogeared.

maybe he is perfectionist. as much as i like to keep, my books and records in as good condition as possible they always end up getting tattered and old before their time looking.

i do bend spines.

Yeah...you can't really help it can you? I won't crack a spine for fun but y'know, somtimes you need to open it up to read the words and stuff.

This book is unfortunately fiction (or is it?)

but it's damn good

 

Get In The Van by Henry Rollins - journaled his tours with black flag, great reading and some nice poetry as well.

Air Conditoned Nightmare by Henry Miller - Miller returns to USA after being expatriated to france and travels the country dissecting out culture in mid 40's, MUST READ!!!

I like Boy and Going Solo by Roald Dahl.

And, lets see how many people I can piss off with this one, the Bible is a great nonfiction too.

Before things get too heavy, this "nonfiction book" is a laugh.



I'm a proud owner.

To echo the sentiments of several of you, I like when people make notations in texts - it somehow personalizes them.

While I can appreciate the value of a book as a collector's item, to me, books are tools, meant to be handled and used. If I buy a book secondhand, I correlate the owner's love of the book with the severity of the book's wear. As long as it's still legible, I don't care.

Noumenal, just because I'm a geek, doesn't mean I'm a fastidious geek :p

Stargirl's one of my favorites