Favorite non-fiction you've read this year?

[clyrc]

I've read so many great non-fiction books this year, it's really made up for the not so great fiction books. I loved "The Secret History of the Mongol Queens: How the Daughters of Genghis Khan Rescued His Empire" by Jack Weatherford, "Paradise Beneath Her Feet-
How Women Are Transforming the Middle East" by Isobel Coleman, "Small Acts of Resistance: How Courage, Tenacity, and a Bit of Ingenuity Can Change the World" by Steve Crawshaw and John Jackson , "A Winter on the Nile: Florence Nightingale, Gustave Flaubert and the Temptations of Egypt"By Anthony Sattin, and I found "The Geopolitics of Emotion: How Cultures of Fear, Humiliation, and Hope are Reshaping the World" by Dominique Moisi very interesting.

But the book I loved most this year, and tried to get everyone to read, was "People Like Us: Misrepresenting the Middle East" by Joris Luyendijk. It's an amazing book, and my favorite of all the books I've read this year.

[EV_Ares]

1. clyrc, thanks for the rec of this book: Went & bought it for my kindle. Also, Happy Holidays.

I just bought: 'People Like Us: Misrepresenting the Middle East' by Joris Luyendijk
www.amazon.com

In People Like Us , which became a bestseller in Holland, Joris Luyendijk tells the story of his five years as a correspondent in the Middle East. Extremely young for a correspondent but fluent in Arabic, he spoke with stone throwers and terrorists, taxi drivers and professors, victims and aggressors, and all of their families. He chronicles first-hand experiences of dictatorship, occupation, terror, and war. His...

[clyrc]

5. Happy holidays to you, too

I hope you like People Like Us.

[pokerfan]

2. Lost in Shangri-La by Mitchell Zuckoff

Mitchell Zuckoff’s “Lost in Shangri-La” delivers a feast of failures — of planning, of technology, of communication — that are resolved in a truly incredible adventure. Truly incredible? A cliché, yes, but Zuckoff’s tale is something a drunk stitches together from forgotten B movies and daydreams while clutching the bar. Zuckoff is no fabulist, though, and in this brisk book he narrates the tense yet peaceful five weeks during 1945 that three plane crash survivors spent immersed “in a world that time didn’t forget. Time never knew it existed.” Even at the level of exposition, the book is breathless.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/05/books/review/book-review-lost-in-shangri-la-by-mitchell-zuckoff.html

[clyrc]

6. Looks like something I would love to read

[av8rdave]

3. I'm currently in the middle of the Steve Jobs bio

Interesting read (Isaacson writes great bios), but ol' Steve doesn't come across as the most likable character., IMO.

Thanks for the rec in the OP. Will download People Like Us... today.

[clyrc]

7. I keep telling myself to stop pushing this book,

but it is so good I can't help myself.

[Merlot]

9. Am in the final third of the Jobs bio and have the opposite opinion!

Not to fond of Isaacsons style of writing, but am liking and admiring Steve more with each chapter.

It's been a real page-turner for me.

[lazarus]

4. Twain's autobiography

and volume one of a bio of Robert A Heinlein.

Also "Bonk", a book about the intersection of sex and science. Very interesting.

[clyrc]

8. I just started reading Twain's autobiography

I was so excited to find it in my library.

[Odin2005]

10. The book I'm reading now, "American Nations".

http://www.colinwoodard.com/americannations

It says that the US is not a single nation, but a collection of 10 distinct nations, several of which also are part of Canada or Mexico.

Yankeedom: New England, upstate NY, The Canadian Maritimes and the Upper Midwest

New Netherlands: The NYC area.

Midlands: Phillie, Pittsburgh, Northern Ohio-Indiana-Illinois-Missouri, Iowa, Eastern Nebraska-Kansas, Ontario, Manitoba.

Tidewater: Coastal Virginia and North Carolina.

Greater Appalachia: Appalachia, the Lower Midwest, the Inland South, and North Texas.

Deep South: The coastal plain from South Carolina to SE Texas.

El Norte: Region straddling both sides of the US-Mexico Border.

Left Coast: Coastal California-Oregon-Washington, SW British Columbia.

The Far West: The High Plains and the Inter-Mountain West.

New France: Southern Louisiana and Quebec.

[JitterbugPerfume]

11. Probably Mark Twains autobiography

or maybe The Immortal Life of Hentietta Lacks. It's reall hard to remember everything I have read this year and even harder to pick a favorite.

[clyrc]

13. I keep track of the books I read online

This year the website I use wasn't working for a few months, so I don't have all of them recorded. I have probably missed a few good ones, too.

[JitterbugPerfume]

16. that is a good idea

I think I will start keeping track online! Thanks for the tip.

[Neoma]

20. Good place to do that at:

www.shelfari.com

[salvorhardin]

12. Jon Ronson's The Psychopath Test and Nicholas Carr's The Shallows

Also, the first volume of William Patterson's biography of Robert A. Heinlein and Mitch Horowitz's Occult America: The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation.

All highly recommended.

[clyrc]

14. The occult one sounds particularly interesting

[salvorhardin]

15. I really enjoyed Occult America

It really drove home the point that we on the political left here in the US really owe a great intellectual debt to some people with some decidedly unusual beliefs.

Anyway, here's what I had to say about Horowitz's book at the time:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1377139

[MountainLaurel]

17. It's an oldie

But The 900 Days by Harrison Salisbury, about the siege of Leningrad. He has a style of writing that addresses military and political strategy as well as the effects on the "little people."

[Seedersandleechers]

18. "Life" by Keith Richards

and "Just Kids" by Patti Smith

[LuckyLib]

24. 'Just Kids' was wonderful. If you're a boomer, or love NYC, it's a winner.

She's a good writer with wonderful stories of youth life in the city in the 60's.

[Loge23]

19. The Atlantic, by Simon Winchester

Really loved this book, most of which I listened to the author read on an audio. It was so good that I brought a hardcover version to return to at will.
Others: Patty Smith's aforementioned "Just Kids" was the best of the three autobiographicals I read, the others being Roseanne Cash's "Composed" and Mr. Richard's first half -good "Life".
Just finishing up Erik Larson's "In the Garden of Beasts", which is the quite interesting recounting of William Dodd's tenure as Ambassador to Germany in the early 1930's during the rise of Hitler's horrors.
Btw, if you like autobiographies, try Quincy Jones's. Regardless if you are familiar with Mr. Jones's work or not, this book is a fascinating reveal of American musical history.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

21. Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell.

It's about why people succeed, whether it's access to resources, amount of practicing done to get competent (minimum of 10,000 hours), or what factors. It is not just luck. It's various easy to specify factors.

The Female Brain. Very interesting.

At Home by Bill Bryson.

John Kennedy, Elusive Hero by Chris Matthews.

[Z_I_Peevey]

22. I Is an Other: The Secret Life of Metaphor and How It Shapes the Way We See the World

by James Geary.

Despite the clunky title, it was a real treat: packed with information, engaging, well-written and clever.

Here's a bit from the product description: "In I Is an Other, James Geary takes readers from Aristotle's investigation of metaphor right up to the latest neuroscientific insights into how metaphor works in the brain. Along the way, he demonstrates how metaphor affects financial decision making, how metaphor lurks behind effective advertisements, how metaphor inspires learning and discovery, and how metaphor can be used as a tool to achieve emotional insight and psychological change. Geary also explores how a life without metaphor, as experienced by some people with autism spectrum disorders, significantly changes the way a person interacts with the world. As Geary demonstrates, metaphor has leaped off the page and landed with a mighty splash right in the middle of our stream of consciousness."

[bemildred]

23. I just finished Hitchen's last book of essays.

It was pretty good when it was not pretty annoying.

[bemildred]

25. "The Second Sex" -- Simone De Beauvoir. nt