Can singletrack please recommend a book please?
I'd quite like a book that is very informative about an area that I've never really thought about before.
Something like prisoners of geography, Jared diamonds books, secret barrister.
Thanks!
Sapiens if you haven't read it.
Yes sapiens is exactly the thing. I have read it however.
Also I recommend feral by George monbiot
I've not read it yet as I tend to stick to fiction, but "money the true story of a made-up thing" is only my list to read soon and might be the sort of thing you are after.
I found this incredibly easy to read. Despite being 1040 pages
more about european politics at the fin de siecle than the war.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dreadnought-Britain-Germany-Coming-Great/dp/0099524023/
The perfect predator, about Bactiophages fighting bacterial infections where antibiotics can't.
Very interesting.
Iain Banks - Raw Spirit - though if whisky isn't your thing you might not like it. Anything by Bill Bryson as well.
Homo Deus, the follow-up to Sapiens. Now read it yet as halfway through Sapiens atm.
Natures Numbers by Ian Stewart
Blood River and Chasing the Devil, both by Tim Butcher
Carrying the Fire - Michael Collins
Red Moon Rising (Brzezinski) & Space Race D Cadbury) - both about the 60s space race
The Bomber War Trilogy by Kevin Wilson is riveting if you've any interest in the Bomber Command story during WW2, and just how heartbreakingly tragic and massive a loss of lives it was, on all sides.
No Moon Tonight by Don Charlwood, as above
Anything by Bill Bryson as well.
+1 for this
All writing is fictive ultimately.
I'd recommend Pierre Clastres' The Archeology of Violence, that being the first book my eye fell on turning to view the nearest bookcase.
Ha was about to recommend Guns, Germs and Steel before I read the OP.
Malcolm Gladwell but I'm guessing you might have tried that already. Outliers is quite interesting.
Anything by Jon Ronson but same applies.
Anything by James Rebanks. Unless of course you’ve thought a lot about sheep farming in the past.
Wilding by Isobella Tree
‘H is for Hawk’- Helen MacDonald
I've just read All The President's Men. Dear god what what would we give to have journalists and a newspapers that actually researched stories and could bring down a corrupt and arrogant government!
Quick Edit just to say H is for Hawk is outstanding
Nearly finished Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire, by Akala. Very informative, with quite a bit about his own life.
Not long read The Reason I Jump, by Naoki Higashida. He is an autistic man, who wrote this when he was 13. He is a nonverbal communicator. It's fascinating. Written in a q&a style he writes about his experience of autism. He's written another book as a young adult.
Anything by Gladwell. His latest, The Bomber Mafia is excellent.
First light by Geoff Wellum, his story as the youngest spitfire pilot at the start of ww2,
Genuinely laugh out load one page, close to tears the next, brilliant!
Road to Valour about Gino Batali is a cracking read, bikes, history and heroic acts.
Waterlog by Roger Deakin is an absolute classic in my mind. I’m a poor reader at the best of times but I’ve read it twice now and loved it both times.
Also found Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer a very good read and an eye opener to Mormon fundamentalism (not something you say all that often).
The body, a guide for occupants by Bill Bryson
Quite liked Adam Rutherford's books
Most Secret War can be a bit dry at the start but is a really interesting memoir about the technology/intelligence war in the Second World War. If you like that sort of thing!
"I didn't do it for you" by Michaela Wrong.
Probably the best book I have read.
Probably a bit outdated, but The End of Oil was an eye opener for me, about big oil companies, climate and politics.
Also Empire by Jeremy Paxman is on my perennial list.
Can I recommend that instead of Sapiens, perhaps read A Brief History of Everybody Who's Ever Lived (Adam Rutherford), and please for the love of god, toss Guns Germs and Steel in the Bin and perhaps read something that actually has some research behind it? They Came Before Columbus (Ivan van Sertima) for instance, or Kindred. (Rebecca Wragg)
I thought The Rational Optimist was an interesting one to read alongside Sapiens- two takes on a similar thing, as it were
I'd recommend "Empire Of The Summer Moon" for something a bit different. The extraordinary conceit of Manifest Destiny collides with the most powerful and warlike of the horse tribes.
Anything by Gladwell. His latest, The Bomber Mafia is excellent.
There was a sequence of (3 iirc) his Revisionist History podcast covering that, I'd recommend that highly. Probably heavily condensed compared to the book but nonetheless very worthwhile.
Command and Control - Eric Schlosser
The Emperor of all Maladies - Siddartha Mukherjee
Why we Sleep - Matthew Collins
Going Clear - Lawrence Wright
I Contain Multitudes - Ed Yong
Erebus, by Michael Palin.
That Krakauer Mormon book is a bit of an eye opener for anyone who, like me, assumed the religion was even vaguely Christian!
Love thy neighbour by Peter Maas and My war gone by I miss it so by Anthony Lloyd are both excellent books about 90s Balkans.
Bad Science, Ben Goldacre
Oh man, what a thread! 🙂 I love non-fiction - strong +1s for Sapiens, H Is For Hawk and Natives. I would add...
The Dambusters, by Paul Brickhill - still, I think, the best war story I've ever read
Carrying The Fire, by Michael Collins - the best astronaut autobiography I've read
We Were Eight Years In Power, by Ta-Nihisi Coates - read a few books on race in the last year, what's startling about this guy is the beauty and lyricism of his prose - outstanding
The Hour, by Michael Hutchinson - insightful, self-deprecating and funniest book about cycling, the sense of pressure ratcheting up is palpable!
The Tyrannosaur Chronicles, by Dave Hone - not read anything about dinosaurs since I was a kid, the science has moved on a bit!
Black And British, by David Olusoga - meticulous, sobering, vitally important
E=MC2 , by David Bodanis - accessible and fun on a topic that's way beyond me 🙂
Will add more as they occur.... 🙂
The Reality Bubble - Ziya Tong
Engrossing from the off. Was given as a gift, and what a great gift.
Great recommendations thank you. I am enjoying the ecology books at the moment.
Some others of mine:
On the map (how maps and atlases have changed and developed)
Precision (how precision engineering created the modern world)
The Volunteer by Jack Fairweather
2nd vote for Erebus... fascinating book 🙂
Ancestors Tale or Greatest Show on Earth, both by Richard Dawkins. Two books which I can't, or rather don't want to put down once I've started.
The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare by Giles Milton is a great read about how Churchill let a group of .... I'd probably say outsiders invent and out think the Germans during WW2. I usually ready fiction but sounding like a crappy advert for the book I couldn't put it down!
Most Secret War can be a bit dry at the start but is a really interesting memoir about the technology/intelligence war in the Second World War. If you like that sort of thing!
I've been reading 'War of Shadows' which is about the spies and code breaking in WW2 and the war in the Middle East. I've been enjoying it so far.
Duel Under the Stars by Wilhelm Johnen
It's the memoir of a Luftwaffe night fighter pilot. Well written and worth a read imo.
I am partway through Michael Cohen's Disloyal about his life and working for Trump. The best book ever, the greatest.
Wherever you think you know about Trump this is a real eye opener but also the personal and moving story of Cohen.
Just a post to allow we to come back to this thread
The British: A Genetic Journey
by Alistair Moffat
Very well written, accessible to the non-scientist, one of the best books I've read in a decade.
The Forest Unseen - David George Haskell
Ten Million Aliens - Simon Barnes
Our Mathematical Universe - Max Tegmark
Thinking Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman
Riding Rockets by Mike Mullane
another astronaut autobiography up to and including the shuttle.
Chickenhawk - Robert Mason
Helicopter pilot in the Vietnam war.
