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    • Help, I'm running out of things to read! Suggestions?

    Posts: 475 Member
    edited January 2 in Chit-Chat
    I'm pretty much a non-fiction reader; not so much self-help, mostly things like essays, history, lots of areas of science, social science, popular statistics, business books if they're more along the lines of stories of what happened (like what happened in the financial collapse or what happened to Enron or the story of New Coke, etc.) I even get into things like stories of the discoveries of treasure ships.

    Not big on popular biography (show-biz figures) but do enjoy historical biograhies sometimes, when I'm in the right mood.

    Problem is I read a lot and new books in my areas of interest don't seem to come out fast enough.

    I need books available as E-books because I need to be able to make the print larger to be able to read for any period of time.

    So: what should I read next?

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    • Posts: 1,312 Member
      I'm finishing a book called "What is the What" by Dave Eggers. It is biographical fiction (based on a true story) and details the journey of one of Sudan's "Lost Boys." It is very interesting from a political as well as emotional perspective. I've learned a lot about the crises in Sudan and Somalia, and it is quite inspiring. Dave Eggers is a great writer, too.
    • Posts: 25 Member
      I am reading book one in the Heroes of Olympus series by Rick Riordan. I read all five of his fist series Percy Jackson and the Olympians. I was very surprised I like it but very well written. Very vivid you can almost put yourself in the story as an onlooker. I would suggest starting with the Percy Jackson books, that will give you a little back ground but they do not have to be read in order although it helps.

      Although they were written for a young adult audience the story was very good. I hope you enjoy.
    • Posts: 113 Member
      I tend to prefer fiction. I'm currently reading "Let's Pretend This Never Happened" by Jenny Larson...SO FUNNY! I also highly recommend "The Red Tent" by Anita Diamant.
      Please share any recommendations you might have. I'll read anything. :)
    • Posts: 1,312 Member
      I tend to prefer fiction. I'm currently reading "Let's Pretend This Never Happened" by Jenny Larson...SO FUNNY! I also highly recommend "The Red Tent" by Anita Diamant.
      Please share any recommendations you might have. I'll read anything. :)

      Loved "The Red Tent" as well!
    • Posts: 336 Member
      From a non-fiction perspective, i've really enjoyed the books by Erik Larsen (Devil in the White City, In the Garden of Beasts) - he has a great talent for telling a historical story. The Poisoner's Handbook by Deborah Blum was also very interesting. I especially loved reading that one on my Kindle and the look on my husband's face when I told him the title :devil:
    • Posts: 475 Member
      From a non-fiction perspective, i've really enjoyed the books by Erik Larsen (Devil in the White City, In the Garden of Beasts) - he has a great talent for telling a historical story. The Poisoner's Handbook by Deborah Blum was also very interesting. I especially loved reading that one on my Kindle and the look on my husband's face when I told him the title :devil:

      LOL, I might use that one on my husband as well. It's kind of an inside joke with us. We met on the internet and at first my sister was afraid he might be an axe murderer. Then, about 6 months ago a young man left some threatening voice mails for my daughter. When the police went to talk to them, he told the guy I had "threatened to cut his throat" (note: I faint at the sight of blood so if I did cut someone's throat, I wouldn't get away!). So we've had great fun back-and-forth about our mutually murderous propensities...so poison...hmmm.

      I've read Devil in the White City, might look at some of his others. Will checkout the Poisoner's Handbook too, never heard of it.
    • Posts: 1,760 Member
      Shampoo bottle.
    • Posts: 8,646 Member
      I tend to prefer fiction. I'm currently reading "Let's Pretend This Never Happened" by Jenny Larson...SO FUNNY! I also highly recommend "The Red Tent" by Anita Diamant.
      Please share any recommendations you might have. I'll read anything. :)

      I love Jenny Lawson!! That book is great & so is her blog!


      As for the OP, The Spirit Catches You & You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman. I just got done reading that one.
    • Posts: 158 Member
      I tend to stick to fiction, but one of my favorite non-fiction books is The Hiding Place by Corrie tenBoom, which is all about her experience during the Holocaust. The Ancestor's Tale by RIchard Dawkins is also really good according to my old roommate, but it's likely you've already read that.
    • Posts: 228 Member
      I would suggest anything by Augusten Burroughs (mostly memoirs) or Sarah Vowell (mostly history, but written in a very accessible, semi-personal way).

      Or "Life's That Way" by Jim Beaver. He is a character actor who lost his wife to cancer. AMAZING book. Helped me get through the death of someone close to me.
    • Posts: 2
      I am a huge fan of Ross King - he combines history with a good story - Michael Angelo and the Popes Ceiling is a great one by him
    • Posts: 1,599 Member
      "Karate-Do: My Way of Life" by Gichin Funakoshi (founder of Shotokan Karate.) Good story, has some interesting history.
    • Posts: 308 Member
      you may have already read some of these, but here are some good ones:

      The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives
      - Mlodinow
      The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-eye View of the World
      - Pollan
      Predictably Irrational
      - Ariely
      Broker, Trader, Lawyer, Spy: The secret World of Corporate Espionage
      - Javers
      Connected: How your Friends' Friends affect Everything You Do
      - Christakis & Fowler
      The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York
      - Caro (this goes beyond a just biography to talk about the rise of suburbia in America)
      Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard
      - Heath and Heath (the title sounds sort of self-help but it has a lot of behavioral economics)
      Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex
      - Roach
      A History of Pi
      - Beckmann
      Rising '44: The battle for Warsaw
      - Davies ( or anything by Norman Davies, actually)

      Enjoy!
    • Posts: 475 Member
      I am a huge fan of Ross King - he combines history with a good story - Michael Angelo and the Popes Ceiling is a great one by him

      Neither of those two is available for Kindle, but he has a new one coming out 10/30 on Leonardo. I've added it to my Wish List, which is where I slot books I want to remember to look at in the future.

      Thanks!
    • Posts: 293 Member
      Outlander - Diana Gabaldon!
    • Posts: 475 Member
      you may have already read some of these, but here are some good ones:

      The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives
      - Mlodinow
      The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-eye View of the World
      - Pollan
      Predictably Irrational
      - Ariely
      Broker, Trader, Lawyer, Spy: The secret World of Corporate Espionage
      - Javers
      Connected: How your Friends' Friends affect Everything You Do
      - Christakis & Fowler
      The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York
      - Caro (this goes beyond a just biography to talk about the rise of suburbia in America)
      Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard
      - Heath and Heath (the title sounds sort of self-help but it has a lot of behavioral economics)
      Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex
      - Roach
      A History of Pi
      - Beckmann
      Rising '44: The battle for Warsaw
      - Davies ( or anything by Norman Davies, actually)

      Enjoy!

      I've read all but three of these - seems like we have very similar tastes in reading. History of Pi isn't available for Kindle, but I've added 'Broker, Trader, Lawyer, Spy' to my Wish List.

      Thanks!
    • Posts: 1,022 Member
      I've been reading Sin in the Second City, I'm not sure if it's available as an e-book, but it's good. It's about the Everleigh Club, a Victorian-era brothel, in Chicago. The other one on my list is Devil in the White City.
    • Posts: 592 Member
      show previous quotes

      LOL, I might use that one on my husband as well. It's kind of an inside joke with us. We met on the internet and at first my sister was afraid he might be an axe murderer. Then, about 6 months ago a young man left some threatening voice mails for my daughter. When the police went to talk to them, he told the guy I had "threatened to cut his throat" (note: I faint at the sight of blood so if I did cut someone's throat, I wouldn't get away!). So we've had great fun back-and-forth about our mutually murderous propensities...so poison...hmmm.

      I've read Devil in the White City, might look at some of his others. Will checkout the Poisoner's Handbook too, never heard of it.


      Devil in the White City is amazing! His other books are also good. I don't usually read this type of novel, but In Cold Blood was also excellent.
    • Posts: 24 Member
      The Glass Castle and Half Broke Horses are amazing books.
    • Posts: 308 Member
      I've read all but three of these - seems like we have very similar tastes in reading.

      wow, I guess we do have similar taste! Any recos for me?
    • Posts: 17,121 Member
      ISHMAEL
    • Posts: 308 Member
      I've read all but three of these - seems like we have very similar tastes in reading.

      a couple more (which you've probably read!):

      The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary
      - Winchester
      More Sex is Safer Sex: The Unconventional Wisdom of Economics
      - Landsburg
      The Napoleon of Crime: The Life and Times of Adam Worth, Master Thief
      - MacIntyre
      Survival of the Sickest : A Medical Maverick Discovers Why We Need Disease
      - Moalem
      The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many are Smarter than the Few and How Colective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies, and Nations
      - Surowiecki
    • Posts: 1,454 Member
      I've been reading some historical fiction lately.

      - Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross
      - anything by Ken Follet. Pillars of the Earth is one of my all-time favorites, and I just got done reading Fall of Giants.
    • Posts: 475 Member
      show previous quotes

      wow, I guess we do have similar taste! Any recos for me?

      Hmmm....

      The Signal and The Noise by Nate Silver
      What's Luck Got to Do With It by Joseph Mazur
      Crash of the Titans by Greg Farrell
      Fooling Some of the People All of the Time by David Einhorn
      Lost Rights by David Howard
      Sleights of Mind by Stephen Macknik et al
      Numbers Rule Your World by Kaiser Fung
      The Man Who Loved Books Too Much by Alison Hoover Bartlett
      Operation Mincemeat (or anything really) by Ben Macintyre
      A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
      The Lost Chalice by Vernon Silver
      The Greatest Trade Ever by Gregory Zuckerman
      The Killer of Little Shepherds by Douglas Starr
      The Half Life of Facts by Samuel Arbesman

      Anything by Oliver Sacks
      Anything by Neil deGrasse Tyson
    • Posts: 475 Member
      show previous quotes

      a couple more (which you've probably read!):

      The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary
      - Winchester
      More Sex is Safer Sex: The Unconventional Wisdom of Economics
      - Landsburg
      The Napoleon of Crime: The Life and Times of Adam Worth, Master Thief
      - MacIntyre
      Survival of the Sickest : A Medical Maverick Discovers Why We Need Disease
      - Moalem
      The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many are Smarter than the Few and How Colective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies, and Nations
      - Surowiecki

      I've read just about everything Simon Winchester ever wrote. Have you read 'The Meaning of Everything', which is also about the OED?

      Two on this list I haven't read, Thanks!
    • Posts: 171 Member
      I'm not much on nonfiction...but one I have on order is The Faithest. I read an article by the author and it was an interesting way to look at religion/spirituality.
    • Posts: 416 Member
      I typically read fiction, but here are some non-fiction/historical fiction books I've read recently and enjoyed:

      Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman by Jon Krakauer
      The Letter: My Journey Through Love, Loss, and Life by Marie Tillman
      Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwanandan Holocaust by Immaculee Ilibagiza
      Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman by Robert Massie
      In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson
      A Stolen Life by Jaycee Dugard
    • Posts: 83 Member
      BUMP!! I loveto read and am always looking for new books to read. :happy:
    • Posts: 416 Member
      Another great resource is GoodReads. I keep track of the books I've read, and would like to read. It also recommends others based on what I've read and a Listopia where others rate books based on genre.
    • Posts: 113 Member
      Outlander - Diana Gabaldon!

      Loved this book! Very much fiction. Read it twice and cried both times.
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