Netla, if you haven't already, check out Mary Roach's other books: Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife, and Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void. She also has a new book coming out in April titled, Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal. Of all of them, I thought Stiff and Packing for Mars were the best of the bunch.

Mark Kurlansky has also written several books like this, including Salt: A World History, Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World, and The Big Oyster: History on the Half-Shell. I found Salt very interesting, but I haven't read the others.

Thanks. I have read Stiff, Salt and Cod (wouldn't that combination make an interesting title for a book?), but will check if my library has the rest.

Netla -

You might get a title or two from this link at Good Reads...

Here is a link that might be useful: Micro-history books

Some I can think of:
"Annals of the Former World" by John McPhee
"A History of the World in Six Glasses" by Tom Standage
"Measuring America" by Andro Linklater
"A Natural History of the Senses" by Diane Ackerman (and probably a few more by her)

A favorite of mine is Why We Get Fat and What To Do About It by Gary Taubes. Very interesting take on a subject that is of interest to many.

Although I find I don't care much myself for science books that waste (my opinion) the reader's time on mini-bio's of the scientists, I know that type is usually highly acclaimed, such as McPhee's Annals of the Former World. I liked the geology but got tired of hearing about how each scientist became one! I also get incredibly annoyed by science writers who think a thousand words can make up for one simple diagram. That said, here are some of the most readable science books for my taste:

Celestial Mechanics: The Waltz of the Planets by Celletti & Perozzi. Celestial mechanics without equations! Here's the write up from Amazon: "The aim of this book is to demonstrate to a wider audience, as well as to a more skilled audience, the many fascinating aspects of modern celestial mechanics. It sets out to do this without the use of mathematics. After giving the reader the technical tools needed for a basic understanding of the underlying physical phenomena (using only elementary mathematics), facts and figures are provided on historical events, modern discoveries and future applications. Contents are divided into major topics where the three "souls" of modern celestial mechanics (dynamical systems, Solar System and stellar systems, spaceflight dynamics) play a major role."

The Number Devil: A mathematical adventure by Hans Enzensberger. Again, Amazon's blurb: "In twelve dreams, Robert, a boy who hates math, meets a Number Devil, who leads him to discover the amazing world of numbers: infinite numbers, prime numbers, Fibonacci numbers, numbers that magically appear in triangles, and numbers that expand without"

The Two-Mile Time Machine, by Richard Alley, geologist who specializes in cryosphere & climate . Climate change discerned through ice cores. Amazingly readable, although my cryosphere co-worker down the hall said it was a bit dated, and sent me off to Broecker's Fixing Climate instead. Alley can explain things in a most engaging and understandable way - his lecture at AGU a couple years ago was just plain enjoyable. I could understand every point without straining, and I'm not a scientist.

After the Ice Age: The Return of Life to Glaciated North America by E.C. Pielou. My all-time favorite non-fiction - the subtitle says it all! Here's Amazon's blurb again: "The fascinating story of how a harsh terrain that resembled modern Antarctica has been transformed gradually into the forests, grasslands, and wetlands we know today."

Cheryl

How about "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks?"

These are some of the titles that I have personally tried:

* The Power of Habit: Why We do What we do in Life and Business - Charles Duhigg
* Anything by Malcolm Gladwell is fun to read (sociology type stuff)
* Sin in the Second City (history of brothel in Chicago) - Karen Abbott
* Candyfreak: A Journey Through the Chocolate Underbelly of America - Steve Almond (just ok)
* Woman: An Intimate Geography - Natalie Angier
* Necropolis: London and its Dead - Catharine Arnold
* The Great Influenza - John M. Barry (history of 1918 flu pandemic)
* The City of Falling Angels - John Berendt
* A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail - Bill Bryson (HILARIOUS!)
* At Home - Bill Bryson
* The Mother Tongue: English and how it got that way - Bill Bryson - just ok
* Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America - Barbara Ehrenreich (controversial and interesting)
* The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dustbowl - Timothy Egan (fascinating and of regional interest). Fabbo. Anything by Egan will be good, I think.
* The Wal-Mart Effect - Charles Fishman (examination of how Wal-mart has changed things)
* Watching the English - sociology of UK - Kate Fox (interesting)
* Color: A History of the Palette - Victoria Finlay - just purchased this oneâ¦
* Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things - Randy O. Frost
* The Dead Beat: History of obit writing - Marilyn Johnson
* The Ghost Map - Steven Johnson (Victorian cholera epidemic and public health)
* The Great Mortality (history of Black Death) - John Kelley
* The Devil in the White City - Erik Larson
* Thunderstruck - Erik Larson (he also has a new release out about US diplomat in HitlerâÂÂs Berlin)
* IsaacâÂÂs Storm: deadly hurricane down south Texas - Erik Larson
* The ChildrenâÂÂs Blizzard - David Laskin
* Women of the Raj - Margaret MacMillan (specialist but interesting if you like British history in India - otherwise probably not!)
* No Idle Hands: A Social History of American Knitting - Anne McDonald. (I donâÂÂt knit, but surprisingly this was one of the best books I have read this year. Very entertaining and interesting.)
* The Library at Night - Alberto Manguel (good and intellectually challenging)
* The Emperor of Maladies (history of cancer) - Siddartha Mukherjee - high up the TBR pile
* The Orchid Thief - Susan Orlean (good)
* Rabbit-Proof Fence - Doris Pilkington (Australian classic about Aboriginal tribes - very moving)
* Blood and Guts: A Short History of Medicine - Roy Porter
* Stiff - Mary Roach
* Bonk - Mary Roach
* Spook: Science Tackles the After life - Mary Roach
* Packing for Mars - Mary Roach
* Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All American Meal - Eric Schlosser
* And the Band Played On - Randy Shilts (upfront history of AIDS epidemic) - there is a new documentary about...

Lots of interesting suggestions. Thanks, everyone (especially Lemonhead - that's quite a list!).

This should give me something to read for the next several months, but by all means keep them coming - I'm sure there are others besides myself who can find something interesting in here.

I would suggest Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier.

Remarkable Creatures is a stunning historical novel that follows the story of two extraordinary 19th century fossil hunters who changed the scientific world forever.

On the windswept, fossil-strewn beaches of the English coast, poor and uneducated Mary Anning learns that she has a unique gift: "the eye" to spot fossils no one else can see. When she uncovers an unusual fossilized skeleton in the cliffs near her home, she sets the religious community on edge, the townspeople to gossip, and the scientific world alight. After enduring bitter cold, thunderstorms, and landslips, her challenges only grow when she falls in love with an impossible man.

Mary soon finds an unlikely champion in prickly Elizabeth Philpot, a middle-class spinster who shares her passion for scouring the beaches. Their relationship strikes a delicate balance between fierce loyalty, mutual appreciation, and barely suppressed envy, but ultimately turns out to be their greatest asset.

Some more, these taken from a bibliography of a women's history book I finished the other day:

Never Done: A History of American Housework -- Susan Strasser (1982)
Devices and Desires (history of contraception) -- Andrea Tone
WomenâÂÂs Work is Never Done: History of Housework (UK) 1650-1950 -- Caroline Davidson (1982)
Mistress of the House: Great Ladies and Grand Houses - Rosemary Baird (2004)
Chasing Dirt: The American Pursuit of Cleanliness -- Suellen Hoy (1995)
The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain: Talents of Middle-aged Mindset -- Barbara Straunch
Good Wives - Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
The MidwifeâÂÂs Tale -- Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
The Sexual Revolution - David Allyn (2001)
Marriage: A History -- Stephanie Coontz (2005)
Uplift: The Bra in America -- Jane Farrell-Beck and Colleen Gail (2002)
Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture -- Ariel Levy (2005)
Forever Barbie -- M. G. Lord (2004)
Domestic Revolutions: A Social History of American Family Life -- Steven Mintz and Susan Kellogg (1989)

Found this link on a site called the Electric Typewriter... a list of 100 titles of non-fiction that the editors recommend...

Here is a link that might be useful: Top 100 Non-Fiction books

A few I didn't see mentioned above:

The Violinist's Thumb: And Other Lost Tales of Love, War, and Genius, as Written by Our Genetic Code by Sam Kean--about the "history" of DNA.

The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry by Jon Ronson.... and

The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout.

Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer.

Good ones, Bookmom.... (Adds titles carefully to my TBR list which now rivals War and Peace in length)