So we have the books feed, but it seems to be centered around fiction (unsurprisingly). This one is for your favorite non-fiction books. Biographies, political books, self-help books, hell, even eye-opening textbooks. What blew your mind? What do you read over and over again? What do you consider to be your bible?
Mine are as following:

What the Dog Saw: and Other Adventures by Malcolm Gladwell (a collection of articles by him)

I Am America (and So Can You!) by Stephen Colbert

&

Oxymoronica: Paradoxical Wit & Wisdom From History's Greatest Wordsmiths by Mardy Grothe

 

this

& America: the Book

To be fair, they are the only two non fiction books that I can think of right now because they are on my bookshelf. I used to read a lot of war books that had stats of various weaponry and tanks that were very interesting, but I cannot remember the names :/

-edit- War, Technology, and Experience aboard the USS Monitor by David Mindell I read it last year and it was interesting enough for me to read through without coaxing.

 

Is that any good? Funny, I mean? I usually prefer Colbert over Stewart, so I'm hesitant to read it.

 

For non fiction, if anyone has any interest in theatre, the great director Peter Brook wrote an absolutely fantastic autobiography entitled Threads of Time that is simply a must read. And on that vein, any artist type should be interested in the writings of Anne Bogart, her work is simply inspirational. And then there's Artaud's collected writings - again, for anyone with any artistic interest, there's so much fascinating going on that each time I read something by him I glean something new from the experience.

And I'll stop there, even though I could list plenty more theatre books. I get the strangest feeling that not many people will care, but ah well.

 

Almost anything by Michael Crichton. He's not the best author, but I absolutely love his ideas.

Jan Guillou's Arn Magnusson trilogy.

Ken Follett's Pillars of the Earth.

Christian Jacq's Ramses series. Like Crichton he's a abysmal writer, but the setting in ancient Egypt is well done.

EDIT: Looks like I misunderstood the thread title. Whoops.

 

Crichton is about the furthest you can get from non-fiction, but I have enjoyed a couple of his books.

As far as non-fiction goes, though, I love Colbert's book a lot. Since that has already been listed, however, another one that I really like is this one:

Due to Circumstances Beyond Our Control... by Fred Friendly

Its a memoir of Friendly's early work in CBS as a producer during the '60s. It shows the inner workings of the broadcast companies and how they react internally to many of the most controversial news events of the '60s. Not everyones' cup of tea, but I enjoyed it.

 

I hear you. It's doubtful anyone will care about my list (this isn't the greatest thread topic, since we're all so varied in interests), but nonfiction/references I use all the time:

• Jackson, Classical Electrodynamics. Red cover, in CGS units, as God intended, the book everyone's bled through. I've had my copy rebound twice. I can say to another professional physicist, "That's just a Jackson chapter 6 problem," and they know exactly what I'm talking about.
• Zel'dovich and Raizer, Physics of Shock Waves and High Temperature Hydrodynamic Phenomena. Timeless classic, now published by Dover (win).
• Bender and Orszag, Advanced Mathematical Methods for Scientists and Engineers. The best reference in existence on asymptotic analysis, hands-down the most useful mathematics subfield for a physicist.
• Abramowitz and Stegun, Handbook of Mathematical Functions. I own three copies--one for myself at work, one for home, and one continually being borrowed by colleagues.
• The NRL Plasma Formulary. Absolute must-have for a plasma physicist; between my wife (also a plasma physicist) and me, we own a dozen copies.
• The complete series by Landau and Lifshitz. Bobby Fischer famously commented that he'd probably play God to a draw in chess ("He has his dominion; I have mine.") Landau could have given God pointers on how to make the universe.

 

Awesome book, haven't read it in a while.

Review:

 

Favorite non-fiction? Well, I guess that eliminates all of the philosophy I've read over the past few years.

I suppose that I should give a couple that I find myself returning to.

The Professional Thief by Edwin H. Sutherland - A truly epic case study of thieving in Philadelphia in the early 20th century that was conducted by the author in a way that would almost certainly violate every single code of professional ethics written in the years since.

A Secular Age by Charles Taylor - A hideous monstrosity of a book. Long, dense, and boring. The arguments are fun to pick apart though, and I have found that this is often sufficient cause to reread it.

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson - Here's where I start to out myself as just a bit of an ecofascist. I love this book. I lost my first copy of it, and so I was forced to buy a second one.

The Tyranny of Guilt: An Essay on Western Masochism by Bruckner - This is a book that any serious Westerner or proponent of the West cannot ignore. As many of you may have guessed, I am both. It is a joy to read, and more so to argue with.

 

Some of my favorites in Theatre, Art and Fashion.

The Theater and Its Double by Antonin Artaud - Simply amazing, you can feel Artaud intensity while reading his work.

Performance Art: From Futurism to the Present by Roselee Goldberg - A essential reference in the study of performance art.

Both of the next ones are from Brazilian authors and I don’t think they have translations.

The Daily Life of a Legend - Letters from Moscow Art theater by Cristiane Layher Takeda - This book is just so good, it is a collection of letters exchanged between, Stanislávski, Nemiróvitch-Dântchenko, Tchékhov, Meierhold, Górki and others. It shows the backstage of the creation of the MAT, the making of the plays, and let me say this, Tchékhov is so funny.

Italian Baroque Opera by Lauro Machado Coelho - This is the first book of his series Opera History, it is detailed without letting the subject get boring (and yes I’m talking about Kobbé’s Complete Opera Book).

Art and Visual Perception by Rudolf Arnheim - A Must Read for anyone studying visual art.

From Giulio Carlo Argan:
History of Italian Art 1 - from Antiquity to Duccio
History of Italian Art 2 - from Giotto to Leonardo
History of Italian Art 3 - from Michelangelo to futurism
Modern Art
In my opinion Argan is simply the best history of art scholar out there.

A History of Costume by Carl Köhler
Costume and Fashion: a concise history by James Laver
20th Century Fashion by Valerie Mendes and Amy de la Haye
Chanel: her style and her life by Janet Wallach
All of them splendid reference books.

 

Can't remember the last time I read non-fiction. Must have been a psychology textbook in college - probably Freud or that other guy, Piaget. How lame is that?

I do remember enjoying this article a few days back. It's not very lengthy but ze lulz iz ze lulz.

Edit: Yeah, the article was recommended by someone in another thread. Thank them for the laughs.

 

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I'll be the first to say that I read very little non-fiction.

However, off the top of my head it'd have to be: Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom.

 

Asimov's New Guide to Science-Isaac Asimov-A popular Science book that I read in 7th grade that really turned me on to science. Awesome book.

A Short History of Nearly Everything-Bill Bryson-Another Popular Science book-It has a few technical errors(There's a list online somewhere) but it's very informative and extremely funny.

The Universe in a Nutshell-Stephen Hawking-First read it when I was 11 and didn't understand a word beyond "brane". Picked up about a year and a half ago and finally understood some of it. Pretty funny and interesting.

 

My favorite non-fiction works are generally sports-related, baseball in particular. Three Nights in August. Moneyball. Friday Night Lights. Seven Seconds or Less.

Three Nights in August is a look into the game of baseball from a unique behind-the-scenes perspective. The writer works with Tony La Russa, and covers a three game series, against the Cubs, in the middle of summer. Beyond that, it's sort of the perfect snapshot of baseball - every team's fans can relate, and appreciate the anecdotes and decisions faced.

Moneyball was actually what first triggered my love of numbers. It's again a baseball book, but takes a more in depth look behind the game, through the actions of Oakland Athletics general manager, Billy Beane. Eschewing traditional scouting, it transformed how people looked at the game, with advanced statistics beyond 'Good arm? Yup. Swings hard? Yup. Plays the game the right way? Yup. He's worth a shot.' scouting of the past. Past that, it's a pretty well written, captivating read.

Friday Night Lights is by the same author as Three Nights in August, and instead covers competitive High School Football. The teams, the town, and the community that churns out state championship after state championship, with many NFL players coming from these football factories. What it's like dealing with the expectations and whatnot that comes with it.

Seven Seconds or Less, I haven't read in a while, but I remember it being a highly entertaining account of the Phoenix Suns at their peak, and their philosophy of, obviously, getting rid of the ball in seven seconds or less from inbounding.

 

Non-fiction? Hmm.

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Succeed or Fail by Jared Diamond.

The Great Influenza by John M. Barry

On Writing by Stephen King

Nothing's Sacred by Lewis Black

 

I have a fondness for reading history books, and this one's a must read.




also, Michael Lewis' The Big Short and The Blind Side.

 

Anything by Antony Beevor is worth reading.

 

Scar Tissue - the biography of Anthony Kiedis (Red Hot Chili Peppers singer.) http://www.amazon.com/Scar-Tissue-A...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1279590773&sr=8-1

Marley and Me - The book about the adventures of Marley the dog, absolutely hilarious though sad at the end. If you have only seen the movie, I recommend reading the book as well. http://www.amazon.com/Marley-Me-Joh...=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1279590968&sr=1-2