PAM, what a great idea for a thread! I enjoy non-fiction, as well, and I also find that it definitely takes longer to read and digest. I can fly through descriptions and dialogue with most fiction, but I really have to focus and take my time when reading non-fiction.

This has not been a big non-fiction year for me so far, but over the past year I've enjoyed The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century by George Friedman, which I think could be classified as futurist non-fiction (is there such a thing?).

I also read Nella Last's War and Nella Last's Peace, heavily edited diaries that had been kept during WWII by Mrs. Last as part of an ongoing social experiment. Would memoirs of this type be classified as social history?

I really like the idea of a quarterly thread on a topic. I vaguely remember posts on the Crusades as part of the Middle Ages thread, and that was very interesting. I'd definitely be interested in participating.

Great ideas here!

Great start, PAM! Thank you so much.

Nonfiction or non-fiction (whichever's your pleasure, NF for short) is my favorite reading material. On the contrary, I find NF much easier to read: I can start and stop and then pick up again without getting lost and trying to remember the narrative threads as you have to in fiction. Fiction takes patience, which I have short supply of.

What I am currently reading:
The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World by David W. Anthony -- Social history: anthropology: archaeology, linguistics

I love this sort of thing, especially the linguistics part of determining just where and when the Proto-Indo-European dialect started. But something that I never really paid much attention to is the role the horse had in spreading the language. The author, Anthony, delves into how to tell when horses were first ridden or used to draw vehicles (wagons, ploughs, and such) by examining their molars where bit wear shows up, a sure sign that the animal was being controlled from behind. Oh, the fascinating things to learn!

For the past couple of years I've been particularly interested in anything to do with the Black Sea, but its geology especially. That's why I've read and reread Noah's Flood: The New Scientific Discoveries about the Event that Changed History by William Ryan & Walter Pitman [Science: geology; Ancient History: archaeology]. The "Noah's Flood" part of the title was probably chosen to draw attention but it's just as likely to put off readers who might think it's about the biblical story. Not so -- well, not directly anyway -- it's about how the depression of land scoured out by the Last Glacial Maximum was filled with meltwater, thus it was a freshwater lake until a cataclysm occurred about 7600 years ago (5600 BCE) when the saltwater of the Aegean broke through the Bosporus bottleneck. There were people living around the lake who witnessed the drowning of their homeland (underwater archaeology proves it), thus perhaps the flood horror stories they told have lived in folk memory for all the millennia since.

Does anyone have other books about underwater archaeology to recommend?

Oddly enough, I am currently taking a grad class on "Reading and Writing in the Content Areas" and one of the things we have gone into in depth is how to teach students to read non-fiction. It is definitely a different skills set than that needed for reading fiction. And yes, it should take "longer."

My first suggestions for the non-fiction are social history/biography:

Royal Feud Michael Thorton side-by-side biographies of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and Wallis Simpson and the Abdication crisis.

Rose: My Life In Service Rosina Harrison Memoir of lady's maid to Nancy, Lady Astor, American who became the first woman to take a seat in the House of Commons. (not the first elected-first to actually serve.)

Winston and Clementine: The Personal Letters of the Churchills edited by their daughter, Mary Soames. Fascinating look at the backstage of world history.

agree that non-fiction takes a lot longer to read than fiction, except maybe a thick classic like Bleak House, which is taunting me as we "speak".

My favorite non-fiction author is David McCullough. His John Adams and 1776 are two of my top ten books ever.

I enjoy biographies the most (one on Thomas More took me almost 2 years to read). American history, especially the revolutionary era, and religious books like Lewis and L'Engle are also all over my book shelves.

I think there are two reasons that I take so long to read these books. First, I can. There isn't the danger of forgetting the plot, you can read them in sections and enjoy them, let them settle, take a break and pick them up again without losing the flow and the aura of the story.

And secondly, there is no hurry or pressure to find out the "whodunit" aspect of the book. Also, with a good author and a great subject there is a feeling of not wanting to break up the relationship too quickly - they are hard to find, and deserve to be savored.

I enjoy non-fiction, and I am looking forward to more suggestions on this thread. I have been reading mostly fiction lately, but one of my favorite recent non-fiction books is The Worst Hard Time [History, American]by Timothy Egan. It the story of those who lived through the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.

I also love the idea of a quarterly thread on a specific topic.

My favourite non-fiction genre is travelogues. I especially like stories about travel to far-flung places that I am unlikely ever to visit, and historical travelogues that describe what places I have been to were like once upon a time. Right now I am enjoying A Thousand Miles up the Nile by Amelia B. Edwards. She was a 19th century British writer, journalist and Egyptologist, and I suspect that Amelia Peabody may have been partly based on her. Would probably be found under the headings: Egypt, travel and exploration, women travelers.

Another NF genre I love is history, but not the sweeping politics, kings and battles kind you learn at school, but rather the narrow, specific histories. I have a special love of history books connected with food.
Some titles I have enjoyed were:
The Raj at Table: A Culinary History of the British in India by David Burton - history, the British in India, the Raj, culinary history, cookbooks;
Spice: The History of a Temptation by Jack Turner (it's a bit uneven, but very informative): food, culinary history, social history, spices.
Salt: A world history by Mark Kurlansky (also a bit uneven - the last several chapters read like they were written on a deadline, but it's interesting nonetheless): food, culinary history.

I also like historical biographies. Some I have enjoyed were:
Aristocrats by Stella Tillyard, about four English sisters who lived varied and interesting lives;
Jonathan Swift: a portrait by Victoria Glendinning;
A Scandalous Life by Mary S Lovell, about the life and loves of Jane Digby, a 19th century English lady who was famous for her amorous exploits in her time, and ended up married to a Syrian Arab chieftain much younger than herself.
All three biographies have in common that they not only discuss the subjects of the biography, but also the wider society of the times, so that one learns about their social conventions and contexts.

Netla, I loved A Scandalous Life by Mary S Lovell and had an odd thought when reading it. The Bedu were always raiding other camps with little bloodshed, just reallocation of property. To give her husbands people a leg up, Digby imported guns. Then, of course, other tribes had to escalate to guns. So Lady Jane Digby, an Englishwoman, was responsible for the first arms race in the Middle East. How odd.

I just finished Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes by Tamim Ansary and was fascinated. He points out that Westerners and Islamics mostly talk past each other, that our ideas of democracy (individual freedom - one man one vote) sound disruptive to a culture that is so family-community oriented, and how certain historical events play out in our differing perspectives. I'm sympathetic to a point. That point being that I am a woman and can only see Islam as The Enemy.

I tend to go through crazes of reading non-fiction although this summer, I have been experimenting with reading two books at once, one NF and the a fiction. It seems to be working pretty well so far so will continue with it as long it stays fun to do.

My non-fiction I currently reading is the "Three Cups of Tea" book - I know - late to the party - but still pretty good. After that, I would like to pick up the animal/vet book called "Tell me Where it Hurts: A Day of Humor, Healing and Hope in my Life as an Animal Surgeon" by Nick Trout.

I find that as I get older, I am more interested in a wider range of different things, and although it would be nice to be an expert in all these different topic areas, time just doesn't allow it. So I tend to jump from one place to another, sometimes having a logical link, sometimes not.

Like Netla, I also enjoy travel books. Old or new doesn't matter - they are interesting all the same....

Good thread - looking forward to reading about you guys' other NF choices....

Very interesting thread! I love non-fiction (history, armchair adventures, travel, biographies, etc.) and I find non-fiction much easier to read than fiction. In fact, when my daughter was seriously ill several years ago, I found I simply could not summon the energy to read fiction at all (and I'm a voracious fiction reader). Non-fiction may take longer, depending on the level of detail, but I still find it easier to read.

My theory about this is that fiction requires a kind of suspension of disbelief, an immersion into another world, and therefore a kind of letting go. When my daughter was ill, I could not afford to lose myself in another world. I found myself reading non-fiction exclusively for about 2 years. I even had to temporarily remove myself from my book group, because I could not read the (fiction) titles that were assigned. As my daughter's health improved, I was able to return to fiction reading.

I recently read "Team of Rivals" (Doris Kearns Goodwin) and "Confederates in the Attic" (Tony Horowitz). I usually have at least one non-fiction book in the works while I read a fiction book.

Often as not, I never mention non-fiction in the "What are you reading" thread. I've always figured it was of specialized interest. So thanks for this thread.

Last NF book I read was Neil Shubin's Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body (Science and Nature, Evolution, Human Physiology, Anatomy, Biology, Fossils). Found it very enjoyable, would recommend to anyone interested in evolution or fossil hunting stories. Shubin's enthusiasm for his subject shines through.

Glad to have this non-fiction thread. It seems like the older I get, the more I like to read NF. My interests include: history, travel, science, letters, and books-about-books.

Currently, I'm reading "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil". It's a great combination of true crime and travelogue. I especially like all the eccentric characters the author meets in Savannah.

I'm also interested in "non-fiction that reads like fiction" for my 12-year old son. He mainly reads fiction, and the only NF he reads is usually sports oriented. Since I'm wanting him to broaden his interests, I'm hoping to find other non-sports books that will keep his interest to the end.

I always tell myself to read more nonfiction. So far this year, though, out of 58 completed works, only eleven have been nonfiction--and I'd intended to focus on history and historical biographies this year. Story of my life how reading at whim takes the reins from any reading plans I lay out.

Has anyone read Ron Chernow's ALEXANDER HAMILTON? I LOVE that book.

And if anyone is interested in Jon Meacham's Pulitzer prize winning bio of Andrew Jackson, AMERICAN LION, I have two free copies to give away between now and August 4. Pop on over to my blog and enter, if so. Jackson's life makes for some interesting reading even if he isn't the most likeable of fellas.

Susan

Here is a link that might be useful: American Lion Giveaway

Frieda, You asked about underwater archaeology. The book I have to reccomend is probably more underwater history than archaeology, but I found it to be a very intriging page-turner. It is called Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson. The book is about a bunch of die-hard scuba divers who go out to a new wreck. It is over 200 feet down and the water is dark. It is so far down that they can only stay on the wreck for 30 minutes before beginning the long ascent to the surface that is needed to avoid the bends. Little by little, it gets pieced together. We follow them on their journey to identify the wreck, their research and diving expeditions and the dangers involved. These are experienced divers who like to take it to the limit. This all took place in the early 1990's, fifty or sixty miles off of the coast of New Jersey. And since it says it on the front cover of the book, I will not be giving anything away when I say that the wreck is a German U-boat and that Germany denied ever having a U-boat so close to our shores. Yet, there it was. The divers also researched the U-boat's journey and how it ended up in American waters off the coast of New Jersey. It was the basis of the PBS special, Hitler's Lost Sub.

PAM

Here is a link that might be useful: U-869

Pagesturned, my husband (not a big reader) just finished Chernow's book about Hamilton. He said he slogged through the first 200 pages that was more about Hamilton's family background (his father, etc.) but once it actually got to Alexander Hamilton it became very interesting. I've been compiling a list (still in the early stages) of presidential biographies (and related books, such as books about their spouses, key figures or events during their terms) that I'd like to collect. I'd like to make it a long-term (more of a lifetime) goal to read at least one book about each president. I've heard Remini's multi-volume work about Jackson is quite good, but I'm not sure I have the stamina for it; I might have to check out Meacham's book instead.

Frieda, Do you read Archaeology Magazine? Most of what I've learned about underwater archaeology comes from there. Not too long ago they had a big spread on the statues found off the coast of Alexandria in what was Cleopatra's palace. I confess that most of my non-fiction reading comes from magazines. I just bundled up several feet of various archaeology mags for recycling. Kills me, but what is a minimalist going to do?

I'm likewise fascinated by the remains of early civilizations, logically by waterways for easy transportation, that we may never find because of flooding. Was it you who pointed out that current thinking is that the melting from the latest ice age raised the sea levels and obliterated the evidence of the migration of Asian peoples down the western coast of North America?

Georgia Peach, I don't think I'm up to the multi-volume bios myself (although if I ever reach that point I'll go with Thomas Jefferson), but I think the Meacham is a good starting point for anyone interested in Jackson. I have Waking Giant: America in the Jackson on my wishlist; it comes out in paperback in September.

I can just tell this is going to be a great thread! I have not read any non-fiction recently so I won't really join in until I am reading one. I have lots of NF on Mt. TBR, however, and my wish list has grown based on the books mentioned above!

A quarterly thread of knowledge on a specific topic would certainly interest me - I don't know if I would be able to add anything of import but I would enjoy reading your posts. From the items above, I wonder if anyone would like to focus on archeology (underwater archeology - that's a new one for me!-, evidence of migration, and so on).

Not just magazines, but I realize most of my non-fiction reading takes place on line. Five Roman-Era Shipwrecks were just discovered off the coast of Italy.

Some of the best informed people I know do most (if not all) of their non-fiction reading online. When I am unfamiliar with a historical or geographical reference, the internet is my first stop.

In terms of non-fiction, one of my favourite titles is Michael E. Bell's Food for the Dead: On the Trail of New England's Vampires. This book sounds macabre, but Bell discusses a wide range of topics which are of interest to me: folklore, genealogy, social history, medicine, and the supernatural. It's a good book to read for Hallowe'en.

I second Shadow Divers. Just recommended it for a library patron on Tuesday.

The best non-fiction I've read so far this year is Celestial Mechanics: The Waltz of the Planets, by Alessandra Celletti and Ettore Perozzi. I personally find orbital mechanics extremely difficult, but this book makes comprensible many difficult concepts, things like planetary resonances and n-body problems and those interesting little Lagrangian points, etc. And the book is pure pleasure to read. It has lots of diagrams and NO equations. :) Very up-to-date as well.

I am about to begin reading Robert Graves The Long Weekend (social history, England, 1919-1939). This book has been on my shelf for about six years now. The interest in this thread has prompted me to take it down and start reading. I currently have three non-fiction books in the works:
1. The Long Weekend, Robert Graves (about to begin)

2. Musashi's Book of Five Rings, Stephen Kauffman (martial arts, philosophy): this book is a slow-go for me but it is absolutely fascinating. If you enjoyed the character of Mr. Miyagi in the Karate Kid movies, this book will remind you of him - it is full of wonderful thoughts to contemplate. Be forewarned, however, that Musashi was one of Japan's best double sword fighters, so while this book is a thoughtful read, it was essentially written for fighters and samurais by a fighter and samurai. It is not for the faint of heart.

3. America: The Last Best Hope, William J. Bennett (American History, vol. 1) I am embarassed to list this book yet again. The pages are wall-to-wall with small print. It is fascinating, but I can only read about 20 pages at a time before my eyes need a break. A good overview or refresher on the history of the USA with interesting little tidbits tossed in that continue to pique my interest.
PAM

Just finished "Three Cups of Tea" by Greg Mortenson and his writer friend. Interesting and does make you think how you could change the world if you had (a) the time, (b) the inclination, and (c) the money. However, I think it would have made things a lot easier if he hadn't tried to reinvent the wheel and just hooked up with someone who already knew what to do. There were a lot of problems that i felt could have been avoided if he hadn't been too proud to ask.

Still, a good book, but could have done with some editing. (Too long in places.)

For some reason, on the computers I usually use, I have been unable to post to this thread (and sometimes even read it), so I'm late in responding to all the interesting recommendations. Apologies from me but thanks to you!

PAM, the subject of Shadow Divers is certainly a form of archaeology. It sounds really good -- I'll get on it right away.

Chris, I used to read several archaeology magazines, but I cancelled my subscriptions a couple of years ago when I leased out my house and went on the road (to the air) again. The Native American migration sounds like something I might have mentioned since I've read a number of books about the different theories. I think the one that really spurred my interest was:

The Real Eve: Modern Man's Journey Out of Africa by Stephen Oppenheimer (Science: Genetics; Anthropology; Ancient History: Archaeology) Oppenheimer posits that the successful migration -- the one that produced all us humans now living on the planet -- was a southern migration, crossing the narrow strait of the Red Sea from Africa to what is now the southern Arabian Peninsula. This was naturally during a time when the sea levels were substantially lower. These folk were beachcombers so they followed the beachline all the way around into southern Mesopotamia to the Indus valley (when the Indus was most impressive), then down along the west coast of the Indian peninsula (land that is now submerged), around to southeast Asia, perhaps island-jumped eventually to Sahul (the continental-shelf extension of Australia/New Guinea).

I mentioned all of the above because it does have something to the do with the Native Americans. The descendants of the beachcombers kept up the family business and eventually spread up the coasts of what are now The Philippines, Taiwan, and Japan. Most of the physical (archaeological) evidence of these people is now underwater, presumably, with a few notable exceptions (the Jomon and Ainu of Japan). Anyway, the beachcombers, joined by migrations of later continental Asians, continued across the land bridge of Beringia into the Americas, all the way down to Tierra del Fuego.

DNA evidence has proven that everyone is kin to everyone else, but there are still plenty of puzzles. One for instance: The South American 'Indians' belong to an older archaeological and genetic migrant-group than the North American ones. Now, how did that happen? It makes sense when you consider that the Last Glacial Maximum destroyed most of the evidence in North America and people couldn't live there for many generations (the ancestors holed up in Beringia, apparently, which was ice free). Then the ice melted; Beringia was flooded; and the newest migrants filled in a scoured-clean landscape.

For those of you who are interested in Native Americans and their interaction with the pioneers of the West, I recommend "the Captured" by Scott Zesch. This is about actual children who were captured by various tribes, lived with them, and their return to so-called "civilization", later on. I got it at a used book sale and having enthused about it, passed it on to my step-daughter who is fascinated by it. Frieda, I think this one might interest you.

Frieda, by the way, one day this week I could not post at all on this site nor any of the other Gardenweb sites, reason unknown. I know the management has been having some issues with the back button.

Goodness, I've been waiting for a long time for a thread about NF! NF is primarily what I read, although during the summer I take time off to read various mystery series. Right now am plowing through J.A. Jance for a nice break from serious reading.

I most love biographies of women who are/were artists, writers and adventuresses. Three favorites are Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert, by Georgina Howell. Bell was an in-depth explorer of Arabia at a time when Englishwomen stayed home and raised families. One of the most important women of the 20th century, it would take paragraphs to describe her unbelievable life, which included setting the borders of modern Iraq. Also loved O'Keeffe & Stieglitz, by Benita Eisler, about the sassy and stubborn artist. All-time favorite is Simone de Beauvoir, by Deirdre Bair. Simone was much more interesting than her famous lover, Jean-Paul Sartre, a mama's boy and a weak philosopher, who didn't have nearly the zest for life that SDB did.

De Beauvoir wrote, inter alia, my favorite travel book, America Day By Day. The intrepid Simone spent three months traveling all over the USA by train, bus and car, and her observations are fascinating (wrong sometimes, but fascinating), and she is a powerful writer.

Recently finished Among the Believers, by V.S. Naipaul, who spent nearly a year in 1980-81 in Iran, Pakistan, Malaysia and Indonesia, and unwittingly predicted much that has gone wrong in those areas. And he's a wonderful writer.

Have also read a lot about FDR and Eleanor, my fave being No Ordinary Time, by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Truman and TR presidential biographies are in my TBR pile.

Having worked in the field of Middle East, I've read much history, etc., about the area, and quite a bit about 9-11. A very unusual and gripping book is Touching History, by Lynn Spencer. She tells the stories of the planes that were in the air on that day - the passenger flights, the military planes, especially the Air National Guard fighter jets, the cargo planes, etc. It's a short and exciting book, and reveals much about that day that we generally don't know.

I've almost finished "The Angel of Grozny Life Inside Chechnya" by Asne Seierstad the same who wrote
The Bookseller of Kabul" , but this one isn't written in a literally form as TBOK, but as a reportage.
The book cover from the first Chechnya war ,1994, when the author was at her first experience as journalist , until nowadays, I'm finding it quite informative

grelobe

in between other books, reading Michael Dirda's "Readings: Essays and Literary Entertainments", a series of short essays that were published in the Washington Post Book World over a series of months/years. Only read a few so far, but enjoying them. They are good to pick up and put down and they're about books..... :-)

Still reading Dirda's essays -- Have to admit that some of them are way above me in that he talks about books I have never heard of or are way back in history (like Greek poets etc). However, I am learning a lot and he is fun to read bc he is so passionate about it.

To balance that out, I have picked up "The Devious Book for Cats", a parody of those books for girls and boys. This is quite funny and if any of you have experience with cats, you can see where the authors are coming from. We have a new half-kitten half-cat who has adopted us and he is the perfect cat. Does everything right (so far) but could be because he is an indoor/outdoor critter. He is absolutely hilarious and has obviously read this cat parody book.

Usually I read five or six nonfiction books for every one fiction, but here lately I've gone through a spurt of novel reading. Fiction takes so much more effort for me that now I'm ready to kick back and pamper myself for a while with the following:

The Riddle and the Knight: In Search of Sir John Mandeville, the World's Greatest Traveller by Giles Milton - Sir John is suspected of being one of the biggest travelogue-writing frauds of all time; but was he really? The author attempts to find out by going himself to the places Mandeville claimed to have journeyed through.

I just read a bit about Milton going to visit the Patriarchate of the Greek Orthodox Church in Istanbul (Constantinople in Mandeville's time) but he found himself in a seedy part of town and needed directions. Passing an Orthodox Church he stepped inside its door to find a woman in the vestibule. He asked her and after she told him which way to go, Milton asked her if she was a Romioi (a direct descendant of the Roman founders of Constantinople):
"No," she said. "I'm Italian. From Bologna."

She didn't look Italian, and I asked when she had moved to Istanbul. She paused for a moment, then said: "I think we moved here four centuries ago."
If Milton keeps up this sort of thing, I'm going to love this book!

The Degaev Affair by Richard Pipes (History, Biography)
I'm not well-informed about Russian history, so this bio of an obscure-to-me political terrorist who witnessed the assassination of Tsar Alexander II and then directly helped plot the assassination of the chief of Russia's security organization ordinarily would not have attracted me. But I read the back cover anyway, for some reason, and was instantly intrigued because this terrorist, Sergei Degaev, eventually wound up at -- of all places! -- the University of South Dakota as an avuncular mathematics professor known as Alexander Pell. "Jolly little Pell" and his pleasant wife were evidently great favorites of his students, the faculty, and the townspeople. This guy was a terrorist?

Huck's Raft: A History of American Childhood by Steven Mintz
The romanticized notions and nostalgia for the halycon days of childhood can be dispensed with quite quickly when we realize that the whole idea of childhood as we think of it only goes back to around the first part of the twentieth century. Even Samuel Clemens who did more than any other American writer of his day to capture the essence of nineteenth-century boyhood was under no illusions that childhood, for the most part, was about one-tenth bliss and nine-tenths pure hell. This overview of the history of American childhood from the 17th century to the beginning of the 21st century looks to be fascinating -- I sure hope so.

I'm spending time in the American Civil War. Just finished Horwitz's Confederates in the Attic which I found very witty and entertaining but I'm not sure I can call it balanced given how anecdotal it is and how often I found myself thinking that he's carefully chosen his snapshots to make his point about bigotry while ignoring quite a lot of other things -- I'm sure I'm in the minority for thinking that way. Have now embarked upon Noah Andre Trudeau's Southern Storm: Sherman's March to the Sea which is a big door-stopper that should take me awhile to finish.

Also recently bought The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science by Richard Holmes. I like books that make connections and this one looked interesting. Not sure when I will read it, though. Too many books, too little time.

Lemonhead, Dirda was an early fan of Gaiman and it was his review that introduced me to a now favorite. And how can I not love a male reviewer who loves Georgette Heyer. Dirda used to do a weekly chat at the Washington Post that was a lot of fun and is probably still available in their archives. Now he does a blog. I have all his books but have only dipped in and out of them.

Sable, Among the Believers was my introduction to V.S. Naipaul. I love that book.

The thread on TBR piles popped back up to the top. One of the books I've had on my own TBR pile forever is The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan (history, USA, 20th century). I took it with me on vacation along with about ten other books because one should always have choices. I read two other fiction books first, but then picked up this one. It is fascinating. It is also eerie as I read the similarities between the beginnings of the Great Depression (in the USA) and the current economy. Too many similarities for my comfort. This is a part of my nation's history that I've always known existed, but knew very little about it. I am only about 1/3 of the way through but having trouble concentrating on getting anything else done... minor stuff like oh, say, laundry and cooking. Gosh... so many trivialities get in the way of my reading.

PAM

Chris in the valley - What other books by Naipaul would you recommend (non-fiction)? I am so enamoured of his style! I knew a fair amount about Iran and Pakistan, but Malaysia and Indonesia were new topics for me and now I follow any news about them much more easily.

Today I received another nice deal from Amazon, a new first edition of The Last Lion: Winston Churchill: Alone, 1932-1940 (by William Manchester), at a used price. Those were the years that he was out of power and was a voice in the wilderness decrying the onrushing events in Europe, and was mocked and scorned for his views. Then, after Germany invaded Poland, the Brits rushed to get him into power. The book is beautifully produced, with wonderful little details on its front pages. It's a huge book and densely written, and it just may break my J.A. Jance streak!

sassydoc, I've brought up this thread just for you. Here you can see how diverse we at RP are in our reading tastes. There is also a 2nd non fiction thread here if you care to search it out.