WHAT NONFICTION ARE YOU READING NOW?

I thought the non-fiction reading could use more attention. Interested?

You can find appropriate definitions for this online if you need one, otherwise think:

History, Biography, Autobiography, Memoir, Journalism, Religion, Philosophy, Sciences, Politics, Social Sciences, Essays, Speeches....

I'm reading A Message From Ukraine (speeches) by Volodymyr Zelensky. As far as reading goes, the speeches are 5-6 small pages.

Just finished Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present by Ruth Ben-Ghiat. Review soon.

Great idea!

I most recently finished River of the Gods: Genius, Courage, and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile by Candice Millard and was disappointed by it.

Excellent idea! I am currently reading Montaigne’s Essays, which will certainly take me some time to finish even though I am enjoying them. I am also supposed to be reading Making sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud, but this one seems to be on pause for now.

Another here who thinks this is a great idea.

I usually have a nonfiction book or two on the go. I tend to wander in and out of them depending on how gripping my current fiction reads are:

Right now I'm reading:

Odessa by Charles King, a book about the city which others here were reading a few years ago. I was surprised to discover how relatively new it is as a city.

Mao's War against Nature by Judith Shapiro, a fascinating look at the belief that nature can be conquered.

I'm almost always reading nonfiction alongside a fiction selection. Right now for nonfiction I'm reading one slow read and one quicker one.

The long book I'm dipping in and out of is My Faraway One which is a collection of letters between Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz. I've already written impressions of it thus far on my thread. I'm about halfway through and expect I'll be reading it for a couple more months.

The other nonfiction I'm reading is a gripping story of the escape of an enslaved couple from Macon, GA in 1848. They were apparently quite a sensation once they made it to the North (I haven't gotten that far yet). The woman was light-skinned enough that she could pass for white and they escaped by pretending she was a white man and he was her (his) slave traveling with as valet. It's called Master Slave Husband Wife by Ilyon Woo and it just came out recently.

I raided my library for books on William Faulkner and now there are four I want to read. (But they’re upstairs and I’m warming a cat on my lap, so unable to move. I’ll have to come back and post titles.)

>dchaikin Let sleeping cats lie, indeed!

I just started reading Frantumaglia by Elena Ferrante, translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein. It's a collection of two decades' worth of letters, essays, reviews, and other nonfiction, covering her writing career. I was completely absorbed by Ferrante's Neapolitan novels, so enjoying this look behind the curtain.

I also have a copy of Elaine M. Hayes' biography of the jazz and blues singer, Sarah Vaughan, lined up: Queen of Bebop: The Musical Lives of Sarah Vaughan.

here's what I'm eyeing about Faulkner, from my library:

Hemingway and Faulkner in Their Time edited by Earl H. Rovit & Arthur Waldhorn
The Saddest Words: William Faulkner's Civil War by Michael Edward Gorra
William Faulkner by Carolyn Porter (Lives and Legacies series)
Every Day by the Sun: A Memoir of the Faulkners of Mississippi by Dean Faulkner Wells (William's niece)

>9 rv1988: indeed, I didn't move until my 6-lb cat gave me permission to.

>10 dchaikin: I would wait with The Saddest Words: William Faulkner's Civil War until you've read Faulkner's most popular works. There are lots of references in the book that assume you're familiar with his novels.

>12 japaul22: thanks. I’m glad to know that. Was it good?

>13 dchaikin: Yes, I really enjoyed it! My review is on the book page and it's the only one, so it's easy to find. :-)

Good idea!

I’m busy, on and off, with A history of pictures by David Hockney & Martin Gayford. Gombrich 2.0, I suppose — quite fun, anyway, I like the way they do it as a dialogue.

When I finish that, the next obvious non-fiction on the TBR shelf is Beyond the wall by Katja Hoyer, feeding my DDR obsession…

I think I’ve started Hemingway and Faulkner in Their Time edited by Earl H. Rovit & Arthur Waldhorn. It’s a 2005 collection on contemporary commentary on the writers (starting with Edith Wharton’s criticism, discarding the whole era. 🙂)

To chime in, I read non-fiction pretty regularly. Maybe not one a month - I counted 8 from last year.

This year, so far, I have read
Destiny of the Republic - a fascinating account of the assassination of James Garfield and his botched medical treatment.
The Romance of Tristan - by Beroul. Not sure if this is strictly non-fiction, but it would be in the 800s at the library, not in the general fiction section. Medieval literature, poetry, translated into English prose...

Currently reading
The Princes in the Tower by Philippa Langley. She presents her evidence as to the survival of the sons of Edward IV, supposedly murdered by Richard III. Historians have been trying to solve this mystery for centuries.
Blue Mountains, and Other Gaelic Stories - this would probably also fall under literature rather than fiction. Presents collected folk tales from Cape Breton in a bilingual edition.

Next up
Coming up in March, both of my real life book clubs are reading non-fiction books...
This Land is Their Land - on the Wampanoag Indians, Plymouth Colony and the History of Thanksgiving for my Perspectives book club (church book group focusing on diversity, and non-white points of view)
The Woman They Could Not Silence for my library book club

As if that weren't enough I just purchased with an Audible credit
Beethoven by Jan Swafford - a 1,077 p. biography... what was I thinking?

>15 thorold: I’m a Hockney fan.

My only nonfiction so far was 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die: A Listener's Life List (1,000... Before You Die Books). I found it disappointing. I was hoping to find some new to me albums and I found a few. But generally when it came to music that I am very familiar with - I totally disagreed with his best album choices. He missed the mark on Ry Cooder, Aaron Neville and the Meters for example.

Currently reading Claire Carlisle's The Marriage Question, her study of George Eliot's life during her relationship with George Lewes. It's a follow-up for me to reading Daniel Deronda in January. Very interesting read, although some of her discussions of the books themselves go rather over my head.

>15 thorold: When I finish that, the next obvious non-fiction on the TBR shelf is Beyond the Wall by Katja Hoyer, feeding my DDR obsession
On my to read shelves too! I enjoyed her earlier book Blood and Iron, and have been listening to her appearance on various history podcasts, and to episodes in her own series, Geschichte ist Gegenwart (some episodes are in English). My obsession is more with Germany as a whole rather than just the DDR. However, if the DDR is your thing, have you read Thomas Harding's The House By The Lake? If not, it's the story of one house built in the 1920s in the outskirts of Berlin whose history is a reflection of the history of Germany as a whole since then - it found itself just inside the Iron Curtain, which ran along the bottom of the garden, so a good proportion of the book centres on that period! We visited it mid-cycling tour whilst it was lying derelict a few years ago, but it's now been restored as a community museum. One of my favourite 'German' books.

>19 Willoyd: have you read Thomas Harding's The House By The Lake? — no, I didn't know about that, thanks for flagging it up. I'm generally more interested in reading actual DDR authors, so I hadn't noticed it — I've found a lot of stuff I've read about Germany by English-language writers rather unsatisfactory (big exception: Christopher Clark).

I am reading The secret diaries of Miss Anne Lister. Very interesting personal diaries of a lady who owned land and had relations with women.
Her diaries were only transcribed over COVID so very recent uncovering.

>21 Stephanie2024: I'm sure I read them thirty years ago ... (checking) ... Yes, there was a collection of excerpts from the diaries edited by Helena Whitbread in 1992, published as I know my own heart. I think what happened more recently is that someone made a TV series about Anne Lister and she suddenly became interesting enough that there was funding to publish the rest of the diaries in full.

>21 Stephanie2024: >22 thorold: Interesting! I had never heard of Anne Lister, but I'm currently reading a novel by Emma Donoghue about Anne Lister and her relationship with a girl named Eliza Raine at a boarding school. I'm enjoying it. I'll have to look into some nonfiction about Lister.

Taking up William E. Glassley's A Wilder Time: Notes
from a Geologist at the Edge of the Greenland Ice (2018)

>24 avaland: that's been on my list since it came out. I'll be interested to see what you think.

>25 japaul22: Same for me! I'm going to make a good effort...

>24 avaland: well, I’m curious

>27 dchaikin: I'm surprised you haven't come across it before. I just checked and it gets great reviews.

Never been good at posting these kinds of updates so behind as usual. So far this year I've read:

A book on the History of Halloween: Trick or Treat: A History of Halloween by Lisa Morton

Three books on the history of reading/books: Reading: A Very Short Introduction by Belinda Jack
Big Fiction: How Conglomeration Changed the Publishing Industry and American Literature by Dan Sinykin
Book Wars: The Digital Revolution in Publishing by John B. Thompson

A book on pencils: Pencils You Should Know: A History of the Ultimate Writing Utensil in 75 Anecdotes by Caroline Weaver

And a terrible take on the evolution/creation debate: Fake Evidence by Ron Milliner

Couldn't be more firmly established in my wheelhouse if set out to do this dilberately.

>24 avaland: Looking forward to your thoughts on that one. Greenland seems to be in a sad state indeed. Every time I fly over it, there's less and less ice cap, and more and more land. It will be interesting to find out what it is.

I've started an interesting dual memoir by a father/daughter team called My Vietnam, Your Vietnam.

>29 stretch: I’d like to hear more about Fake Evidence.

I recently read Master Slave Husband Wife. which is the (temporarily) exciting story of two enslaved people who escaped from Macon, GA in 1848. The first third tells of their escape, and the rest turns into a real slog. I wouldn't have finished it had it not been for a book club.

Just read Bom Sono, Boa Vida, literally translated would be "Good (night's) sleep, good life".

"Teresa Paiva achieved the Medical Degree in 1969. She is Neurologist and Neurophysiologist, by the Portuguese Medical Association since 1975, with the title of European Somnologist since 2012 and the Competence in Sleep Medicine since 2013."

It's a decent reference book for anyone wondering why they can't sleep, mostly when they hit the last straw and are really desperate to know the "why?!". Each chapter/situation starts with a (humorous) dialogue from the patients that illustrates their problem. It's followed by an explanation from the author to the possible cause and whether they should seek more specific medical treatment or not.

Such interesting and varied nonfiction... !

>32 dianeham: Fake Evidence is a creationist work whose intent was to investigate the evidence of evolution put forward in the landmark cases that removed creationism from school classrooms. Milliner postions the court as the arbitarer of the evidence, therefore the theory of evolution should be judged on the basis of evidence presented in court. This both miscarcharetizes science and the what was at question with each of these cases. In this effort Millinger setups straw men to knock over with the same tired creationist evidence that has long been debunked. For the Scopes trail where no scientific evidence is presented for evolution he brings up Piltdown Man, which was never put forth in the trial and by the which scientific community remained doubtful of since 1912, 13 years prior to the trial. Epperson v. Arkansas is brought up with court cases removing state-initiated prayers in the classroom and a case that ruled against a daily Bible reading in school from that same decade. cLean v. Arkansas Board of Education and Edwards v. Aguillard. McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education dealt with an Arkansas law and was decided in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas and was limited to that region. Edwards v. Aquillard was a similar law passed in Louisiana which was appealed all the way to the United States Supreme Court. The justices declared the teaching of scientific creationism was religious teaching and thus unconstitutional. While these legal battles touched on the intersection of science and religion, their outcomes were influenced by constitutional considerations rather than exhaustive scientific evidence.

The lone exception being the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District. The school board in Dover, Pennsylvania wanted to see its students become aware of intelligent design. While it was decided largely on constitutional grounds, based on the actions and motives of the school board, it did actually include a great deal of scientific evidence from both the plaintiffs and defense. Here Milliner is out of his depth when trying to weigh the evidence. He mostly sides with the IDers and declares them more intellectual rigorous since they don't have materialistic view and that Judge was clearly an idiot. As whole this was an agenda driven attempt at a hatchet job that wasn't even a good attempt.

I take no issue with an opposing view, I seek them out hence why I read this book. I respect the hell out of someone like the late Phillip E Johnson, he may have been agenda driven, but he was honest even to the detriment of himself and his cause. There are very few like him in the ID and creationist movement, that are as upfront and apply the same rigor to their side of the debate as they hold the scientific community.

>36 stretch: OMG! A bit of a mixup there. The touchstone for Fake Evidence in >29 stretch: went to F Is For Phony: Fake Documentary And Truth'S Undoing (Visible Evidence). I didn’t notice the discrepancy in the titles at all. I studied documentary film making in college and found the topic of the wrong "fake" book interesting. "The essays in F Is for Phony discuss a broad scope of works and explore issues raised by "fake docs" such as the fiction/documentary divide and the ethics of reality-based manipulation." Imagine my surprise when you started talking about evolution and creationism. However, I truly appreciate your explanation and found it very interesting.

None because I HATE nonfiction

Well, I love nonfiction, so I'll share two that I picked up yesterday. The later has been on my radar for a while.


The Great Escape: Nine Jews Who Fled Hitler and Changed the World by Kati Marton


Operation Columba—The Secret Pigeon Service: The Untold Story of World War II Resistance in Europe by Gordon Corera

I started on Paganism in the Roman Empire. But not sure whether I’ll continue.

Moved on from The Marriage Question (excellent, recommended) to a reread of Annie Enaux's absorbing The Years for one of my book groups. Picking up so much more detail second time around. Jamful with it!

from the Women's Prize Nonfiction longlist, I started How to Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair, a memoir on growing up in Jamaica. Using audio.

>42 dchaikin: that sounds interesting.

>43 dianeham: terrific 1st 30 minutes. 🙂 She’s also a poet.

>44 dchaikin: even better!

>42 dchaikin: I may add that to my wishlist, Dan. Waiting to see your final comments.

>45 dianeham: >46 labfs39: i’m an hour in and kind of in love with it. But it’s 16 hours long. So, yeah, I’m curious how it will evolve

>42 dchaikin: I've been wanting to read this since I saw a review in the Washington Post a few months ago. Eager to find out what you think.

Hoping to get back to A Wilder Time....

wow just found this thread! there is also a Nonfiction Challenge around here too

my review of wifedom is here, https://www.librarything.com/topic/356174#n8449214 post 175

Popping in here belatedly (which, really, what else is new for me?). But I'll mention that I've just started The Everglades: River of Grass by Marjory Stoneman Douglas, which I picked up on a visit to the Everglades a year and a half ago. It was published in 1947 and I gather it was very influential in terms of environmentalism. I have to say, so far it's just been some very purple descriptions of the place, but I'm hoping for something more interesting as I go on.

The Years was, as intimated, even better 2nd time around. Now moved on to The Burgundians by Bart van Loos.

the four lost cities for the non fiction challenge: archaeologuc forensic. Enjoying it thus far

>51 bragan: i love that book so much. She captured this at time the area was in better shape, there was less development, but was accessible. She hit that window. And she’s the goddess of any remnant environmentalism in south Florida.

>54 dchaikin: Good to know! I think the first chapter hasn't really been what I was expecting so far, but that sounds very much worth hanging in there for. (Not that I wasn't going to, anyway.)

I've just started Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 million years of evolution by Cat Bohannon.

The nf challenge that @cindydavis4 is referring to is in 75. The topic is any kind of forensics. I said I would read Before the Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe and What Lies Beyond.

I'm reading memoirs of the Cultural Revolution. Finished Red Scarf Girl and am now on Feather in the Storm. Both authors were young girls when the revolution began.

I’ve found myself reading The Brave Escape of Edith Wharton by Connie Nordhielm Woolridge. I’m not yet sure what the escape refers to yet.

>59 dchaikin: Escape from New York with Snake Plissken! 😎

Well, perhaps something like that…

just finished Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America! amazing history book that is less a nixon biography and more a cutting analysis of the socio-cultural-political maelstrom of 1960s america. and essential reading for anyone interested in the current state of american politics--the parallels between then and now grow by the day.

>62 blueshorts: i read the opening on a plane once, and it was a great opening. But i never got back to it.

>62 blueshorts: Such a good book. Have you read the other books in Perlstein's series on the history of American conservative politics?

>59 dchaikin: reading the reviews, it looks to very interesting. curious to hear what you think

>65 cindydavid4: it’s just a very simple short biography. Practical and efficient. Wharton makes a great subject.

>65 cindydavid4: i read today in 4 hours. I think it was well done.

I've started The Woman They Could Not Silence for my library book club. It's good so far.

>67 dchaikin: thanks

I've recently finished Curse on This Country: The Rebellious Army of Imperial Japan by Danny Orbach a comprehensive history of the Japanese military tendency to rebel and disobey the government from the 1860s until to the outbreak of WWII. Wish there were more translated Japanese histories but it is thought provoking to read and will influence how read books about and from that time period.

Seems to be a nonfiction kind of year for me, finished the short The Visible Unseen: Essays by Andera Chapela, a really interesting exploration of properties and poetics of glass, mirrors, light and a personal take on the interaction of the two cultures.

I keep discovering new nooks in LibraryThing that appeal to me, and I know I'm going to enjoy reading what other non-fiction books people are reading here. I own more non-fiction books than fiction and always try to have a non-fiction book going at the same time as a fiction book. Right now, I'm between non-fiction books, having just finished one The Warburgs: The Twentieth-Century Odyssey of a Remarkable Jewish Family by Ron Chernow. Next up on my list is Space and Dimensionality by Thomas K. Simpson from The Great Ideas Today: 1993 annual yearbook. It is a philosophical discussion of "Space" and the Greek philosopher Parminides' question of the "One." Very much in the realm of the philosophy of science, so even though the entry is only 47 pages long, it will take me a few days to get through it.

Other non-fiction books I've read so far this year are: The Library Book by Susan Orlean, and Intelligence-Driven Incident Response by Scott J. Roberts. I also read On Being an American, an essay by H. L. Mencken from his 1922 collection of essays Prejudices: Third Series.

Short descriptions are on my Club Reads page: https://www.librarything.com/topic/357549#n8486067

I just finished Hungry Ghosts: Mao's Secret Famine and have started Mao's Great Famine. The two histories are complementing each other well and are providing the bigger picture behind the three memoirs of this time period that I read earlier this year.

I'm reading David Grann's new book, The Wager, about a 1700s disastrous sailing expedition around Cape Horn.

Reading Simon Winder's Germania in short bursts, usually last thing at night (so sometimes very short!).

I just finished The Wager, David Grann's new book about a 18th century disastrous British voyage to try to capture a Spanish ship. Fun to read.

I think next is The Dress Diary - I don't know much about it, but I think it looks at a Victorian era diary that a woman put together with snippets of fabric that she used in her life. I think it's going to be interesting.

I’m about to finish Susan Hill’s enjoyable little book-about-reading, Howard’s End is on the landing; a couple of days ago I read a quirky survivor from 1967, Cleveland: the best-kept secret, and I’ve also just finished Holy Sh*t, which was much better than I expected. Scholarly and funny at once.

>77 thorold: The Cleveland book, interesting. I went to college in Cleveland, so I'm tempted-but this would've been a bit out of date even while I was there, and more so since (the river stopped burning, for one thing).

>72 janoorani24: how is that Chernow book going, the Warburgs?

I've been working my way through Robert A Caro's massive biography of Robert Moses, The Power Broker. I'm reading along with an online book club, and they had the author in to talk about his painstaking research process. So far it's been fascinating. I knew a bit about New York's history, but this account explaining the establishment of major parks, the development of Long Island, and the inner workings of municipal government has been a real ride.

I'm close to finishing The Prodigal Tongue, which I'm pleased to see other users here have read, while trying to get further through a compilation of Swift's writings that include his classic satire, "A Modest Proposal." By the way, Swift's prose makes me think of where Pynchon could have gotten inspiration to write Mason & Dixon, which employs a similar terminology and syntax suggesting pre-Revolution America. The Prodigal Tongue rekindled my interest in Ostler's monograph, Empires of the Word, which I hope to learn more about English from (though Abley's book is interesting in its own way).

>80 rv1988: Robert Caro joined your online book club? That sounds special.

>81 icepatton: interesting about Mason and Dixon and Swift - although Pynchon’s M&D syntax was rough.

>82 dchaikin: I should say, it's not my book club - it's open to anyone. There's a wonderful podcast on design, architecture and urban planning called 99% Invisible, hosted by Roman Mars. Mars is the one running the book club, and he got Robert Caro in to talk about the book. Many people who listen to the podcast are reading along - and I am, too.

For anyone who is interested, you can listen to the podcast here. https://99percentinvisible.org/club/

>83 rv1988: that does make more sense. Thanks for the link

>79 dchaikin: I'm sorry not to have replied sooner - I've been out of town. I finished the Warburgs on March 27th. Here is the link to my very short review: The_Warburgs

Coming late to this neat thread! I read a fair amount of nonfiction—more in the last few years than ever, I think, and a good number of books about art. Two recent reads: Women Artists in Midcentury America: A History in Ten Exhibitions by Daniel Belasco, a little scholarly but well worth the time put in if this intersects with any of your interests; and Touching the Art by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, a very quirky, bittersweet combination of memoir (the author) and biography (their artist grandmother), with a lot of reminiscences about the Baltimore arts scene.

now reading divine mightthe latest by Natalie Haynes. Ive very much enjoyed her tales on mythology from a womens perspective; her other non fiction was pandoras jar a retelling of greek women in myths that isacademic but by no means dry or dull; She knows her stuff and brings her women subjects front and center within the context of the orginal myths and greek culture. Lots of humor and interesting findings made it a gr at read. Hoping this next will be similar

I have two non-fiction books going right now: Organizing Information: Principles of Data Base and Retrieval Systems by Dagobert Soergel and Spice: The History of a Temptation by Jack Turner. I imagine the Organizing Information one will take me a while, since I can't seem to keep myself from taking notes and reading back over passages. It is a re-read, and I'm sure it sounds dry and boring to most, but it's one of my favorite information science books. The Spice book is very engrossing. I really enjoy this type of popular history, which concentrates on one topic so thoroughly.

Finally finished Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud (which I read in French: La fabrique du sexe, translated by Michel Gautier - or is it Pierre-Emmmanuel Dauzat? The book is not clear but whoever he is, he did a pretty good job I think).

I found it a very interesting if slow read, but the second part was much less enjoyable than the first, and I found it confusing at times.

Laqueur's main thesis is that sex is just as socially constructed as gender (that part was not a complete shock to me). And that the view of sex underwent a major reversal, from the idea that sexual differences were fluid and females were just an inferior version of males (not hot enough, basically), to the conviction that the sexes are essentially different. In the first view, sex differences are on a continuum, and it’s not particularly shocking to see a girl turning into a boy. In the second view, sex is binary and the differences between genders are grounded in biology and the male and female essence. The first view was prevalent in antiquity and the middle ages, and the second view is the one that still shapes our prejudices (remember Mars and Venus?).

The first part, about the era of the one-sex model (roughly from Greek antiquity to the Renaissance), felt interesting albeit a bit too long. On the other hand the part about the two-sex model felt too short and rather confusing. It started well by explaining how the old model became unsustainable due to the new imperative of explaining social facts scientifically. Something similar happened with race.

Aristotle and the others did not need to justify the inferior social status of women. It was self-evident and ordained by God or Nature. It didn't matter much whether the vagina really looked like an inverted penis or the uterus like an internal scrotum. The similarity was necessary to the higher order of things. The inferiority of women was a given, and the explanation was that they were too cold and humid to be proper males. But when a girl suddenly grew testicles as a result of jumping over a fire, it was notable but not that unexpected.

However, things changed when enlightenment came along and it was decided that all men were created equal. And women? If they were just like men with a vagina instead of a penis, how to explain that they did not have the same rights or the same place in society? They had to be essentially different, of course. And so, just like men before them had ignored obvious anatomical differences because they didn't fit into their model, modern men constructed another model of sex and then found "facts" to suit it. Something similar happened with race.

All in all, a very interesting read, and I fully agree with the author's conclusion that "the discourse on sex differences ignores the burden of facts and remains as free as a pure mind game" (probably not quite what the author wrote, as this is my own clumsy translation from the French translation).

>89 FlorenceArt: Thanks for these detailed comments. It sounds like a very interesting book.

I finished reading Hilary Mantel's collection of essays, Mantel Pieces which I liked very much (reviewed here). Quite a few of the essays are book reviews, and I ended up with a list of books to read as a consequence. The list is here.

I'm now reading An English Made in India: How a Foreign Language Became Local by Kalpana Mohan - a collection on the evolution of Indian English, and Susan Casey's The Underworld: Journeys to the Depths of the Ocean, a book about the exploration of the ocean. It reminds me a lot of Underland: A Deep Time Journey by Robert Macfarlane.