Non Fiction Book Recommendations

So I don’t read much fiction, it always seems a bit made up to me.

Apart from the Top 10s in bookshops, Amazon etc. I think good non-fiction books are a bit harder to find. So I have started this thread for non-fiction recommendations. I will start:

Infiltrator – Robert Mazur
…about an undercover US Customs Agent in deep with the big drug cartels…. balls of steel.

Life on the Edge – quantum biology. Really interesting and Jim Al-Khalili is a great story teller. The Audible version is read by him and well worth a listen.

“With The Old Breed”

by Eugene Sledge. One of the best WW2 autobiographies I’ve read. In the marines – survived two island campaigns against the Japanese fighting at the front line in a foxhole every night. Horrendous casualty rates.

Incidentally the scene in Full Metal Jacket where the recruit is made to chant “this is my rifle, this is my gun” is lifted almost word for word from an incident in Sledge’s account of marine basic training in WW2.

Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science and What the Ocean Tells Us About Ourselves

That all sounds worthy but boring.

Everyone should read ‘The Dirt’, Motley Cru’s biography. You don’t have to like their music – they don’t seem that bothered with it themselves – but as a benchmark in drug fuelled debauchery it has no equal.

It really is brilliant! 😀

Winter is Coming by Garry Kasparov, a shakedown of current Russian politics and critique of Putin and what to do about him. Not finished yet but very good

Wide eyed and Legless by Jeff Connor, entertaining book about a disorganised British team that enters the 1984 tdf

The Nazi Hunters – Damien Lewis.
The real story behind those you don’t see…

This is a really good read…

The transformation from Mickey Mouse making-up-the-numbers, to today’s dominance, from the mouthes of the people who did it

Natural Born Heroes by Christopher McDougall. Tells the story of Crete and some of Churchill’s Special Operations Directive agents whilst also discussing natural movement. Great, uplifting read.

Anything by Bill Bryson is normally good.

I thought Natural Born Heroes was dreadful. Read like a few different mag articles incoherently weaved together.

A short history of nearly everything by Bill Bryson.

I’m half way through. It’s great, and I’m not normally a big Bryson fan.

A Million Little Pieces – some controversy over how true the account is, but it’s a grim account of addiction and rehab. By James Frey.
Complete Maus – Art Speigelman. Graphic novel account of life in nazi Germany, living in the concentration camps, and surviving. True story – it’s his dad’s account of the war.
Any of the Joe Simpson climbing books.
The White Spider – Heinrich Harrer. Another climbing book, gripping stuff.
The Right Stuff – Tom Wolf. Astronauts, what it takes to be one (haven’t read this but my husband raves about it).
Spitting in the Soup – my review is on STW. Doping, how it became a thing.

The Dirt is indeed worth a read.

Some more suggestions of fascinatingly brilliant things from me;

Reads like a thriller, but is very real. See also Agent Zig Zag from the same author.

A stunning work, encompassing history, anthropology, geology, vulcanology, colonial politics and more. Stunning.

A harrowing read, and not the easiest, I have to admit. Heavy going, but a brilliant history of the early Western settling of Australia.

At times very deep in to the theoretical stuff about code breaking, but also a very good read about the whole thing.

Written by my beautiful friend Cathy. This book broke my heart, but somehow managed to lift my spirits higher still. Life affirming, as the Observer review put it. Truly life affirming. Be sure to read the bit where she’s in France….

Stanley Hooker – Not Much of an Engineer
Ben R Rich – Skunkworks
WA Waterton – The Quick and the Dead
James Hamilton-Paterson – Empire of the Clouds
Robert Mason – Chickenhawk
Prof Sid Watkins – Life at the Limit

Guy Martins’. Short and sweet and will make you smile.

Maus is brilliant. I’d forgotten about it but it makes me remember Primo Levi’s books. Uplifting but I still can’t reread then.

A Shepard life, James Rebanks. Wonderful book on farming and the Lake District, brilliant read.
Faster, Michael Hutchinson. Semi-geeky sports science look at performance, very good indeed.
The Grade Cricketer, Dave Edwards. Very Aussie take on amateur cricket, a bit tongue in cheek and oddly dark in places.

The Year – written by me 😉

Hurly Burly

http://www.pinkbike.com/news/hurly-burly-the-dh-world-cup-yearbook-2016.html

If you like disaster-soaked mountaineering writing, The Bond by Simon McCartney is very good. More of a ‘climber’s book’ than something like Touching The Void, but a cracking read.

Jagged Red Line by Nick Williams is also good on the climbing side of things and oddly has a similar feel to the McCartney book, though I don’t think it’s particularly well known. Both written by climbers involved in harrowing incidents and recounted years later.

Also, Prisoners of Geography is fascinating on how geography massively influences how nations behave.

Jon Ronson – The Psychopath Test.

Interesting and somewhat worrying.

Oh I’ve read The Last Act of Love. Shed a few tears, I did!

wallop – Member
Oh I’ve read The Last Act of Love. Shed a few tears, I did!

This makes me feel all warm and fuzzy, oddly.

I seem to recall I identified with her massively – possibly her early childhood.

It’s the France piece that resonates most with me……

A great read, though. Always love to hear when someone else has found it.

The Bible?

The France bit reminded me of when I moved to Bristol and split up with my arsehole boyfriend and all of a sudden didn’t know anybody.

Did you meet a nice chap who took you bungee jumping? 8)

It’s about all the expeditions sent out by the Admiralty to find the NW passage in the 1800s. Great read.

This one turned my brain into a puddle.
Amazon link to superintelligence by Nick Bostrom

But rather entertaining

Barbarian days by William Finnegan. Won a pulitzer. great book!

Shackleton – South. The ultimate MTFU guide

Do No Harm by Henry Marsh, memories of a Brian surgeon, very very interesting read.

on the cycling theme, Secret Race; Tyler Hamilton’s memoir of his time in the Blue Train. Fascinating and well written

Another vote for ‘Chickenhawk’ by Robert Mason.
Almost makes you feel like you are flying his helicopter.

‘The Industries of the Future’ by Alec Ross.
Good for any stock market speculators… and also reveals that the biggest driver for robot development is not weapons/ autonomous vehicles but actually company for old people!

Shackleton – South. The ultimate MTFU guide

Also read “The Worst Journey in the World” if you haven’t already.

I can’t believe no one’s mentioned Chickenhawk yet, it usually appears on these threads within 5 posts.

Double post!

Freakonomics is a really interesting read
all of Jon Ronson’s books are well worth your time

I’m halfway through ‘Nothing to Envy’ – various personal accounts of life in North Korea with a fair bit of Korean history thrown in to put it all into context. It’s absolutely fascinating.

I’ve just discovered the books by George Mahood. They are travelogue style or documenting events in his life, he has a witty and inspirational writing style.

I started off with Free Country; he attempts to cycle LEJOG with a mate, starting with just a pair of boxer shorts (no bikes!) each at Lands End and a plan to reach John O Groats without spending any money.

Then Not Tonight Josephine (driving around USA)

Finally, Operation Ironman, where he goes into hospital with a tumor in his spine, and from his hospital bed, hatches a plan to complete an Ironman within a few months as part of his recovery.

(loads more books, that’s just what I’ve read) If you sign up to his mailing list, you get a free short story documenting his attempt to complete a an Ultramarathon)