A nonfiction page-turner.

July 12, 2010 2:53 PM

The best nonfiction you've ever read. A page-turner. Something you couldn't put down and more redundancies.

Exactly that. Can you recommend the best nonfiction book you've ever read? Something that really gripped you. Could be any topic.

There is another thread asking for really good nonfiction books but I feel it needs more. Maybe some fresh suggestions could help.

posted by theholotrope to writing & language (74 answers total)

Devil in the White City is the non-fiction that comes to mind.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 2:57 PM on July 12, 2010 [9 favorites]

The Worst Hard Time by Tim Egan, about the Dust Bowl in the US in the '30s and the people who stayed behind to live through it. Absolutely compelling.
posted by Sublimity at 2:57 PM on July 12, 2010 [4 favorites]

Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser, and its follow-up, Reefer Madness.
posted by Tomorrowful at 2:58 PM on July 12, 2010 [1 favorite]

I couldn't put down Hard Road West.
posted by rtha at 2:58 PM on July 12, 2010

Baltimore's Mansion is a memoir about Newfoundland that I couldn't put down until I was finished reading it. And then I had to reread it immediately.
posted by bewilderbeast at 2:58 PM on July 12, 2010

The Girls Who Went Away. I picked this as "beach reading" two years ago this month and finished it on the plane.
posted by muddgirl at 2:59 PM on July 12, 2010 [2 favorites]

How is this not chatfilter. Pick the best non fiction book? That's arbitrary and dependent on personal tastes. Maybe you could give us more to work with? Category?
posted by ShootTheMoon at 2:59 PM on July 12, 2010

a few off the top of my head, on a variety of topics:

The Poisoner's Handbook
Into Thin Air
A Nervous Splendor
Shot in the Heart
In the Heart of the Sea
Helter Skelter
In Cold Blood
posted by scody at 3:00 PM on July 12, 2010 [1 favorite]

Good Calories, Bad Calories
posted by prunes at 3:01 PM on July 12, 2010 [5 favorites]

Phantoms in the Brain, if you like neuroscience and excellent medical/psychological case studies. Musicophilia, along the same lines.
posted by supercres at 3:01 PM on July 12, 2010

David McCullough's The Path Between the Seas was a book that I found myself staying up into the wee hours of the morning reading because I couldn't put it down. He made a really compelling narrative for a story that I already knew the ending (spoiler: they build a canal in Panama!)

Seconding Devil In the White City.

My latest discovery is Operation Mincemeat. Again, you know how the story ends (The Allies win World War II!) but it's a fantastic story.
posted by ambrosia at 3:01 PM on July 12, 2010

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich
posted by tamitang at 3:02 PM on July 12, 2010 [1 favorite]

Colour: Travels Through the Paintbox. More of a page-turner than most nonfiction books I've read, although still I did put it down several times. More interesting than compelling like, say, Fast-Food Nation.
posted by GuyZero at 3:03 PM on July 12, 2010

Seconding The Devil And The White City. Also, The World Without Us.
posted by jquinby at 3:03 PM on July 12, 2010

Jon Krakeur's "Into Thin Air." Read it literally in one sitting.
posted by drjimmy11 at 3:03 PM on July 12, 2010

Anything by:
Richard Preston
John McPhee
Timothy Egan
or any of the Roosevelt biographies by Edmund Morris
lots to choose from
posted by OHenryPacey at 3:04 PM on July 12, 2010

Seconding Devil in the White City. The last section, especially, is creepy and gripping.

Freakonomics is highly readable, and each chapter operates as a mini-mystery, which keeps you reading to find out the answer.

Nickel and Dimed
posted by lunasol at 3:04 PM on July 12, 2010

The Worst Journey in the World really knocked my socks off.

I rarely read nonfiction but this is an amazing book.
posted by Saminal at 3:06 PM on July 12, 2010

Oh, lord I forgot - anything by Bill Bryson: A Short History of Nearly Everything or A Walk in the Woods. These books are fantastic.
posted by GuyZero at 3:07 PM on July 12, 2010

I enjoyed The Lost City of Z.
posted by josher71 at 3:07 PM on July 12, 2010 [3 favorites]

Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk by Legs McNeil
posted by kimdog at 3:08 PM on July 12, 2010

John Adams by McCullough. There's a reason HBO spent a fortune turning it into a miniseries.
posted by SMPA at 3:09 PM on July 12, 2010 [2 favorites]

Shadow Divers. I couldn't "couldn't put (it) down" as I "read" it as an audiobook during a commute, but I'd go back in my car at lunch to hear more.
posted by ShooBoo at 3:11 PM on July 12, 2010 [1 favorite]

I found Under the Banner of Heaven and Shot in the Heart both fascinating.
posted by mireille at 3:11 PM on July 12, 2010

The Discovery of France
posted by fire&wings at 3:11 PM on July 12, 2010

The Crusades Through Arab Eyes. If you can believe it, it's an incredible page turner!
posted by Salvor Hardin at 3:14 PM on July 12, 2010

The Worst Journey in the World really knocked my socks off.

I'll second that; this is quite possibly my favourite book. The New York Review of Books said "The Worst Journey in the World is to travel writing what War and Peace is to the novel... a masterpiece."
posted by bsaunders at 3:14 PM on July 12, 2010

yeah, pretty much anything by Barbara Ehrenreich or Jon Krakauer.
posted by hollisimo at 3:14 PM on July 12, 2010

(I didn't mean the book is doubtfully true - I just mean that I didn't expect it to be so enthralling)
posted by Salvor Hardin at 3:14 PM on July 12, 2010

Oh, everything scody said. I was going to suggest In the Heart of the Sea (fantastic! enthralling!) and The Poisoner's Handbook especially. I also enjoyed Devil in the White City and another book by the same author, Thunderstruck, Garlic and Sapphires (Ruth Reichl's time as the NYT food critic), and The Ghost Map.

Freakonomics and Blink are both very readable, though a different sort of book.
posted by jeather at 3:15 PM on July 12, 2010

I was fascinated by The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. A really fascinating look at medical research, race, class, etc.
posted by agatha_magatha at 3:16 PM on July 12, 2010 [2 favorites]

A Brief History of Time.
posted by bearwife at 3:22 PM on July 12, 2010

The Hermit of Peking by Hugh Trevor-Roper.
posted by CutaneousRabbit at 3:23 PM on July 12, 2010

The Grand Prix Saboteurs - WWII France specifically, the early part of the book is devoted mostly to the racing, while the last two thirds is all about the training and being part of the French resistance

Prisoner's Dilemma - Combination biography of John von Neumann [with all the Manhattan Project and Cold War fun!] and history of game theory.

The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King: Inside the Richest Poker Game of All Time - About a rich guy who really gets into poker and tries to even the playing field with the pros by raising the stakes high enough
posted by radicarian at 3:28 PM on July 12, 2010 [1 favorite]

I agree with so many of these suggestions. I love a gripping true story. I would like to add
The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher, about the advent of modern detective work
and The River of Doubt, about Teddy Roosevelt's disastrous trip to explore the Amazon.
posted by TrarNoir at 3:29 PM on July 12, 2010

Simon Singh's Fermat's Last Theorum (aka Fermat's Enigma) has it all - dueling, murder, drama, suspense, and math.
posted by Paragon at 3:31 PM on July 12, 2010

Love's Executioner and Other Tales of Psychotherapy is really great. Even if you only have the slightest interest in psychology.
posted by millipede at 3:33 PM on July 12, 2010

A Woman in Berlin, by Anonymous. It's the diary of an unidentified journalist living in Russia-occupied Berlin in 1945.
posted by arcticwoman at 3:35 PM on July 12, 2010

Dark Sun is just amazing. My favorite parts cover the Rosenberg spy scandal and the birth of the Soviet Nuclear program.

Shadow Shoguns is another quick fascinating read. Japanese politics sounds boring, but it's full of puppet masters and lively characters. It's essential to understanding why the Japanese system exists as it does today.

The Turk: The Life and Times of the Famous Eighteenth-Century Chess-Playing Machine

Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America
posted by Alison at 3:35 PM on July 12, 2010 [1 favorite]

I don't know if it's the best non-fiction I've read, but it's gripping and hasn't been mentioned.

A Night to Remember
posted by entropicamericana at 3:38 PM on July 12, 2010 [1 favorite]

The Fifties by David Halberstam, I read it in one sitting.
posted by Omon Ra at 3:38 PM on July 12, 2010

David Foster Wallace's A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again
posted by doublehappy at 3:39 PM on July 12, 2010

Watch the Skies: A Chronicle of the Flying Saucer Myth

You know the concept that flying saucers are alien spacecraft and they're here because they're investigating our use of nuclear weapons?

Yeah, that whole idea was invented with a single magazine article by a single person, Donald Keyhoe, in 1950. Up until then, people had seen things in the sky, but it wasn't until Keyhoe that the strange sightings were married to a single mythical idea of aliens from outer space.

Fascinating book about how culture can go completely haywire based on a few key sources of outright insanity, then go wild in a giant game of Chinese whispers run amok.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 3:39 PM on July 12, 2010

Non-fiction books I couldn't put down:

Into Thin Air
Into the Wild
A Civil Action
Fatal Vision
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down
Rainbow's End
posted by marsha56 at 3:42 PM on July 12, 2010

Thirding or fourthing Devil in the White City.

Also:

The Perfect Storm (whether or not you've seen the movie)
Journey into the Whirlwind is the autobiography of a woman sent to Siberia by Stalin. It is phenomenal and not well-known enough.
posted by thinkingwoman at 3:44 PM on July 12, 2010

note very cheerful, but: The Nazi Doctors.

Amazingly insightful. Compelling. And fascinating.
posted by miss tea at 3:46 PM on July 12, 2010

I stayed up all night to finish The Cuckoo's Egg but I wonder if it's aged well.
Also found Longitude by Dava Sobel to be most engaging and surprising.
posted by evilmomlady at 3:59 PM on July 12, 2010

Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand
The Soul of A New Machine by Tracy Kidder
posted by timeistight at 3:59 PM on July 12, 2010

Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea

Really gripping read. It tells the story of North Koreans that the author interviewed, covering their lives shortly before Kim Il Sung's death, through the famine thereafter and their eventual escapes to China and South Korea. Their stories are presented as narratives - it reads almost like a novel. It gave me a really interesting glimpse into the lives and thoughts of people living under that regime, and a lot of the practical details of how they got by during hard times and how they managed to escape are quite fascinating.
posted by pravit at 4:03 PM on July 12, 2010 [1 favorite]

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

The Orchid Thief: A True Story of Beauty and Obsession

The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary

Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions and The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic at Work and at Home

Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping and Call of the Mall: The Geography of Shopping

The Living Great Lakes: Searching for the Heart of the Inland Seas

Into the Wild (continuing the Jon Krakauer love; also, if you wanted me to stick to the letter of your question and recommend only one book, this is it)

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

Courtroom 302: A Year Behind the Scenes in an American Criminal Courthouse

Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets

The Mummy Congress: Science, Obsession, and the Everlasting Dead (also, possibly my favorite book title ever)

Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages

The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 4:03 PM on July 12, 2010 [1 favorite]

I can't believe nobody's mentioned Touching the Void yet.

Also, The Lost Painting.
posted by Duchy Original at 4:05 PM on July 12, 2010

Born to Run
posted by nitsuj at 4:06 PM on July 12, 2010

Robert Caro's biographies of LBJ (he has published three large volumes and is working on a fourth). Just gripping.
posted by Mr. Justice at 4:07 PM on July 12, 2010

Marching Powder
posted by nitsuj at 4:08 PM on July 12, 2010

King Leopold's Ghost
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
posted by zoomorphic at 4:09 PM on July 12, 2010

Paddle to the Amazon
Bringing Down the House
posted by nitsuj at 4:10 PM on July 12, 2010

Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea

Also, someone else has already mentioned some Oliver Sacks, but not my favorite, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat.
posted by sigmagalator at 4:11 PM on July 12, 2010

Prick Up Your Ears, John Lahr's biography of playwright Joe Orton.
posted by hot soup girl at 4:11 PM on July 12, 2010 [1 favorite]

Two books that I sincerely believe to be deeply fascinating, compelling and even spellbinding, especially if you've never given much thought to the way humans think about animals. Each comes at it from a very different perspective:

Hunters, Herders, and Hamburgers: The Past and Future of Human-Animal Relationships by Richard Bulliet

Rain Without Thunder: The Ideology of the Animal Rights Movement by Gary Francione
posted by (The Rt Hon.) MP at 4:15 PM on July 12, 2010

The Circus Fire: A True Story of an American Tragedy by Stewart O'Nan, And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts, South by Shackleton, The Johnstown Flood by David McCullough, Triangle: The Fire That Changed America by David von Drehle, This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War by Drew Gilpin Faust.
posted by Morrigan at 4:17 PM on July 12, 2010

Coming Plague
Guns, Germs, and Steel
World Without Us
For her own good
posted by fifilaru at 4:18 PM on July 12, 2010

Oh... totally seconding And the Band Played On. I read it last summer, and it has totally haunted me.
posted by kimdog at 4:19 PM on July 12, 2010

I LOVED Blue Latitudes. I didn't know anything about the travels of Captain James Cook and I thought I didn't much care but this book was just .. great. I read it again and liked it even more the second time.

I also greatly enjoyed Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea.

Another favorite is Zero Three Bravo, an account of a woman's solo trip across the country in her own small plane.

In A Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson was a lot of fun to read ... about Australia.
posted by Kangaroo at 4:21 PM on July 12, 2010

As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl
posted by jacquilynne at 4:22 PM on July 12, 2010

Kabloona: Among the Inuit

This extraordinary classic has been variously acclaimed as one of the great books of adventure, travel, anthropology, and spiritual awakening. In 1938-39, a French nobleman spent fifteen months living among the Inuit. He is at first appalled by their way of life: eating rotten raw fish, sleeping with each others wives, ignoring schedules, and helping themselves to his possessions. But as de Poncins odyssey continues, he is transformed from Kabloona, The White Man, an uncomprehending outsider, to someone who finds himself living, for a few short months, as Inuk: a man, preeminently.

posted by Balonious Assault at 4:27 PM on July 12, 2010

Oh, hey, fifilaru's mentioning Guns, Germs, and Steel reminded me of Collapse, also by Jared Diamond.
posted by sigmagalator at 4:35 PM on July 12, 2010

The Road by Cormac McCarthy was literally un-put-downable for me.
posted by gnutron at 4:36 PM on July 12, 2010

Crap. You said nonfiction. Ignore the guy that failed to read the question completely.
posted by gnutron at 4:37 PM on July 12, 2010

GuyZero has it with anything by Bill Bryson; his memoir The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid was so entertaining I barely put it down at all. A Walk in the Woods was amazing as well.

Also, Voyage of the Turtle by Carl Safina was sad, yet hopeful and very very affecting.
posted by just_ducky at 4:40 PM on July 12, 2010

Heavier than Heaven: the biography of Kurt Cobain, by Charles R Cross
posted by MXJ1983 at 4:40 PM on July 12, 2010

For redundancy: Another vote for anything by David McCullough. I started with Path Between the Seas and ended up reading all of his books.
posted by esome at 4:41 PM on July 12, 2010

Blue Blood
posted by mlis at 4:43 PM on July 12, 2010

Here are a couple of ostensibly academic titles that I found absolutely riveting, and wouldn't have found had I been outside my area of study at the time.

The Closed World: Computers and the Politics of Discourse in Cold War America
(Paul N. Edwards)


Cultural Intimacy: Social Poetics in the Nation-State
(Michael Herzfeld)
posted by snuffleupagus at 4:46 PM on July 12, 2010

A couple more:

Animals Make Us Human

Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets
posted by bearwife at 4:48 PM on July 12, 2010