Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with books and nonfiction

Looking for books where a person or people are searching for a long lost person.

reenum — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 08:41:37 -0800

Looking for books where a person or people are searching for a long lost person. I loved Hunting Eichmann and would like to read more books about a person or a group of people banding together to find a long lost person.

I'd prefer nonfiction, but well written fiction will work too.

Thanks!

Please recommend books similar to Bill Simmons' Book of Basketball

reenum — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 11:44:05 -0800

I love Bill Simmons' "The Book of Basketball". What should I read next? I'm in the middle of Simmons NBA opus, and it fascinates as to how he's able to pack in so much info, yet have the book remain accessible. I especially love how he makes fun of and injects humor into the various characters and events in the NBA's history.

Are there other books that are basically all encompassing, sprawling accounts of a particular entity, field, event, etc., yet remain fun to read?

I know some folks might suggest Mary Roach, but I just couldn't get into her stuff.

I prefer nonfiction, but well written fiction would work too.

Thanks!

Lookin' for words in all the wrong places

Madamina — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 12:53:09 -0800

Between my iPhone's Stanza app and the loooooong quiet days ahead of me in the office during the holiday season, I'd like to read some stuff online. Any suggestions? I'm basically looking for good stories: things with a bit of a narrative that will keep me wondering what happens next. They should be easy to get into and not particularly deep (I will likely be interrupted a lot).

Nonfiction: longer articles with a bit of a twist, like New Yorker or Vanity Fair pieces about interesting people or events. Not commentary (unless it has some sort of unique backstory).

Fiction I've already enjoyed on Project Gutenberg: anything by the Brontes and L.M. Montgomery. I've also read pretty much everything that appeals to me (thus far) in the Harlequin online reads library, although I don't generally read paper romance novels.

I've seen this thread and this one too.

Thanks!

What books would an industrial engineer find it to be useful?

Carius — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 05:59:40 -0800

Books recommendation for an industrial engineer My friend is an industrial engineer who would like to read more "useful" non-fiction books.

I know she really like
The Toyota Way
The Machine That Changed the World

She also like a book about efficiently sorting boxes in a warehouse.

I already exhaustively searched thoroughly through ReadMe for similarly title, but have no luck.

Bonus: She will also be working in China next year.

So oh wise mefi please help her out!
Thank you for any suggestions!

Please suggest books, movies or shows like Bel Canto

reenum — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 09:44:26 -0800

I loved the plot of Bel Canto by Ann Patchett. Any recommendations for similar books, shows, or movies? I loved how Patchett's book showed hostages and hostage takers forming a sort of community within their besieged compound.

I also remember an essay with a similar theme by P.J. O'Rourke. It involved him being stuck in a hotel with a bunch of foreign correspondents during a bombing and talked about how they coped.

Any suggestions?

nomming with my eyes

kidsleepy — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 11:26:51 -0800

For such a picky eater, I sure like to read a lot about food. What good food books can you recommend? I've recently been on a food book kick. Books I've read and enjoyed are The Man Who Ate Everything, Julie & Julia, My Life in France, and Cooking for Mr. Latte. First person, humorous accounts rich in descriptive detail. I also enjoy it when there's a few recipes throw in. Bonus points for authors learning to cook or trying new foods.

What else would I enjoy? Whet my reading appetite!

Suggestions needed for great narrative nonfiction reading!

bookmammal — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 06:19:22 -0800

Please recommend your favorite "behind the scenes" nonfiction books! I love reading nonfiction "behind the scenes/a year in the life" type books that emphasize the human side of particular jobs or environments. Books that I have especially enjoyed include Courtroom 302 (a year behind the scenes in a Chicago criminal courthouse), And Still We Rise (Los Angeles inner-city high school), and The Gatekeepers (Ivy League admissions office). Any other suggestions? Bonus points if the book is about education or other helping professions, but any recommendations will be appreciated!

Sources about atrocities in the Southwest?

Bookhouse — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 13:15:29 -0800

What are the best nonfiction sources about the atrocities surrounding the Mexican-American War and related Native American wars? Having recently read In the Rogue Blood and being now halfway through Blood Meridian, I'm curious how close to fact the authors are when describing the absolute horrors committed in the Southwest during the 19th century. I'd love to find an engaging history book on the subject, but will take any suggestions for sources.

Enlightening and lovely literature on libraries.

mrhaydel — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 06:46:30 -0800

Books about libraries, and books/essays about the future of them? While looking at this book, I came across *this* book, and it got me wondering.

I'd like to read a book (or two) on libraries and their role throughout history. I'm not sure if "Libraries of the Ancient World" is what I'm after, but it did pique my interest.

I love what have been referred to as mono-histories, so I'd like to find something in that vein: tracing the earliest form of libraries in history, their role in society, all the way up to their current incarnation.

There seem to be any number of them out there on Amazon, but I'd like to hear from someone (maybe a librarian even??!) who can recommend a good read here.

I don't necessarily want library porn, so no coffee table books with pictures of beautiful libraries (unless of course, it also doubles as a history of them to some degree) - I guess I'm just kind of after the "Salt" of the library world, ya know?

Now, the second part of my question: have there been any good publications about the future of libraries? The SO and I were discussing how it used to be, to us at least, the library was a place we'd go to get research done for term papers and such for school.

While libraries are still ultimately just trying to provide access to a wealth of information, it seems that students in junior high or high school may not necessarily use them the same way as how we might have used them pre-internet. Maybe they do, but, I'm still curious as to what the prevailing thoughts are as to what libraries may be like in another 10-15 years, and how they can continue to live as public institutions.

A little Googling turned up an NPR story, and a smattering of other mildly informative things, but again, I'd prefer something a little more in depth.

If both of my questions happened to be answered in the form of one book, then that'd be just swell.

Autobiography by a former criminal turned author?!

mrhaydel — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 17:24:03 -0800

NameThatBookFilter: Autobiography by a former criminal/hard timer that later became an author? I'm getting sucked in to going through and adding books on Goodreads.com, and I'm having the darndest time remembering a particular book.

It was an autobiography written by a former criminal, who did hard time in a well known prison (not Alcatraz, but maybe Folsom, San Quentin, or Attica?), probably in the 50s or 60s.

The cover of the book, I'm fairly certain, was simply a face shot of said author, not his mugshot, but what seemed like a recent photo at the time (he looked to be in his 60s maybe). He was white, fairly short hair, possibly with a mustache.

In it, he basically traces his life from childhood and being in correctional facilities all the way up to him doing time in prison. While in prison though, I'm almost positive he authored at least one or two works of fiction, that might have even been somewhat popular.

I read this book somewhere back between around 2003-2004.

Anyone have any suggestions?

Sociology of subculture recommendations.

Ufez Jones — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 18:02:01 -0800

Can you recommend some books to me similar to the sociology-of-a-subculture style of Hunter S. Thompson's Hell's Angels, Sudhir Venkatesh's Gang Leader for a Day and Bill Buford's Among the Thugs? While I realize that the three samples I've given share a common theme of exploring a particularly violent subculture, that's not a prerequisite. I'm more interested in the "outsider meets group, befriends and hangs out with group, tells about experiences shared with group for x period of time" aspect. Any group is fine by me, so long as the book is well-written. Thanks.

please translate: bow wow. Meow. Buzz buzz.

grumblebee — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 07:02:45 -0800

Recommend non-fiction books about animals -- books that will blow my mind. I've read Animals in Translation and Animals Make Us Human.

revolutionary reading

serazin — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 09:37:38 -0800

I'm looking for readable accounts of revolutionary movements. I'd like to read about any movement where there's a marginalized or oppressed group overthrowing an oppressive government (or trying to). Any time period or geographic location is cool.

Should be:
-Nonfiction or 'fiction' that is really thinly veiled nonfiction
-More focused on a movement than one individual
-Super interesting, exciting, engaging or otherwise fun to read
-Mostly I'm looking for leftist movements, but if you think there's some really wonderful read about a right wing group I'd probably look into that too.

How to safely get an endorsement?

CollectiveMind — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 18:06:21 -0800

OK, I've posted on this subject before. Each time, I'm a little further along. Here is where I am right now. I've been working on a book since March. The idea upon which the book is based has been getting a lot of attention recently and has consistently been in the news for about four years. After a recent post about some impending national publicity, it was suggested that I create a proposal and find an agent to help distribute the book. The agent I found says that the marketing portion of the proposal needs to have endorsements about the book from authors a publisher would recognize. This is to prove that the agent isn't the only one who thinks the idea is viable.

So, I've searched the Internet for the email addresses of all of the authors of the books I compared to my own in the proposal. Agents want this done to show a publisher that few or many books on a subject might show market potential. Anyway, I've found the email addresses for the authors of about half of the books in my proposal.

Should I have any hesitation of explaining this possibly novel concept to established authors who write books on parallel concepts in hopes of getting their endorsement? Are their endorsements likely?

Some good, interesting historical nonfiction?

btkuhn — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 18:57:30 -0800

Some good, interesting historical nonfiction? I've been sticking to my goal of reading a book a week, and I've run through my current book list. I have stuck to mostly fiction, and would like to find some good historical nonfiction. My problem is, I'm usually doing my reading at the end of a long day and I don't have the patience for plodding, dense books - I want something that will keep my attention. I recently tried to read David McCullough's "Truman" because I liked "George Washington" several years ago, but I ended up quitting after about 30 pages because nothing was happening. So I am looking for books that are a bit more "gripping" than some of the nonfiction that's out there. I'm interested in any period of history and country. I know this is a pretty vague request, so I'm open to anything. If it helps at all, the most recent books that I really liked (and prompted this question) are "The Pillars of the Earth" and "World Without End", which are set in medieval Europe, a period that I don't know much about.

Thanks!

Can you recommend good books about Los Angeles?

jeremias — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 06:16:03 -0800

Can you recommend good books about Los Angeles? Non-fiction preferred but fiction as well. Have been fascinated with this city when visiting on business. I would think there would be some good books about the city out there. On the non-fiction side I would love to see a book that breaks down the cultural history of the neighborhoods and emphasizes the quirky, unusual and outrageous. Pictures would be great as well, though not necessary. On the fiction side anything that is able to give me that same sense of explaining the city's history in the context of narrative.

Books whose title is a specific year?

mediareport — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 16:04:21 -0800

Looking for popular history books whose title is or starts with a specific year - 1776, 1491, 69 A.D., etc. A subtitle after the year is fine, but the title needs to start with a specific date. Thanks! London 1945 doesn't quite fit, since it doesn't start with a year, but something like The Year 1000 and April 1865 are borderline ok. So far I've found 1215, 1421, 1434, 1453, and 1700.

Books similar to Into the Wild?

TSGlenn — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 13:28:25 -0800

I am looking for books similar to Krakauer's "Into the Wild." I used to prefer fiction, but after reading this book, I am craving some non-fiction similar to this book in a few particular ways... What amazed me about Into the Wild was that it was a true, verifiable story, making it that much more powerful than any fiction. I loved all the different people's accounts of the main character, his story, and what he meant to them. So, I'm looking for non-fiction books that have one or both of these attributes:

1. A story almost too incredible to be true, but the reader is convinced that it is through evidence or testimonial.

2. It provides a deep understanding of a unique and fascinating person (e.g. Chris/Alex in Into the Wild) and his/her motives and beliefs, which radically differ from most people's.

Also, bonus points if the story is about outdoorsy/adventuring type stuff like Into the Wild. Not a requirement though.

Looking for novel-esque non-fiction books.

melodykramer — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 19:39:20 -0800

I love Erik Larson's The Devil in the White City. It's a non-fiction book about Chicago in 1893 which reads much like a novel. I'd like to read other books written in the same novel-esque style about some other cities or historic events. Know of any novel-like non-fiction reads?

You can't read 'em all... that's précis talk

alb — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 07:29:13 -0800

Précis, outlines, abstracts for contemporary non-fiction books -- are there any sites or publications doing this? Reviews give some sense of the substance of non-fiction books, but in an inconsistent, incomplete, and opinionated fashion. Sometimes I don't want the opinion or the greater context, I just want a fairly detailed idea of what arguments and ideas are put forth, specifically for newish non-fiction books--in other words, a précis. Any pointers to resources like this?

Bonus question: Any copyright concerns in this area? Aren't factual summaries, paraphrases, etc. protected derivative works?

What are some good, light-hearted, humorous travel books?

nitsuj — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 14:09:42 -0800

What are some good, light-hearted, humorous travel books? I like books like The Sex Lives of Cannibals, Are You Experienced?, American Shaolin, everything by Bill Bryson, everything by Tony Hawks, and others. What other travel books are in the same vein?

Locale is unimportant.

Stories about healthy, "normal" marriages?

callmejay — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 00:29:41 -0800

Stories about healthy, "normal" marriages? I'm interested in reading, watching, or hearing stories about healthy, relatively "normal" marriages. Understandably, fiction and nonfiction often focus on unusual and/or unhealthy relationships. By (I'm not criticizing open/poly marriages or quirky people or whomever, but that's just not what I'm interested in.)

I remember being struck by the movie The Matador (otherwise unremarkable) which had a middle aged, long-married couple that was depicted as regularly having very satisfying, plain-old vanilla sex. That must happen all the time in real life, but in books and movies it's often about affairs or fights or kinks or what have you.

There are sitcoms like The Cosby Show and Mad About You which sort of fit the bill, but I know the hive mind can come up with more and better examples.

Beautiful Non-Fiction Books Needed

wackybrit — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 06:17:46 -0800

Can you recommend some beautiful / well designed non-fiction books? Topic is (mostly) irrelevant. I appear to have developed a fondness for books that are extremely well designed, regardless of whether the actual content interests me or not. I'm more interested in the layout, quality of the paper, the "feel" of the book, the pedagogy, the infographics / diagrams, all that sort of thing.

It's rather hard finding books like this as the best books (in a factual sense) in a particular field are not necessarily the best designed. I'm looking for books that may even totally get things wrong, but that still feel nice and present things in a compelling way (even if incorrect). All these books seem to act as a sort of mental compost for me, especially as I am in the field of writing informational and instructional texts / books myself.

Here are a few books I totally dig that would meet these criteria, just for inspiration with the answers:

Steve Krug - Don't Make Me Think
Scott McCloud - Understanding Comics
Edward Tufte - Visual Display of Quantitative Information
Edward Tufte - Envisioning Information
Tres Logos
Most "TASCHEN" books
O'Reilly's "Head First" series (such as Head First Java)
Karen Cheng - Designing Type
Aho, Lam, Sethi & Ullman - Compilers (the "Dragon" book)
Roy H Williams - The Wizard Of Ads

The topic of the books is not important. The books just need to be well designed, feel nice, look good on the bookshelf, and be enjoyable to thumb through.

Book in which female editor writes to authors?

Drohan — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 08:13:52 -0800

What'sThatBookFilter: A not-recent, nonfiction book by a female editor in which she, among other things, writes letters to her authors? The book may be a memoir, it's definitely non-fiction, unlikely to have been written within the past 30 years. Thanks for any and all suggestions!

What are the best books for learning about other solar/planetary systems?

jspierre — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 09:32:39 -0800

What are some of the best non-fiction books out there written by legitimate scientific authors (not psuedo-science) that discuss other galaxies, and specifically, solar/planetary systems outside of our own solar system? I'm very interested in learning more about solar/planetary systems outside of our solar system. I would also like to learn more about theories on the probability of life in these other systems, but just learning about them in general may be good enough to start off with.

I'm not looking for sci-fi, so it has to be non-fiction, and I don't want any psuedo-science "little grey men with big heads", either. I'm looking for reputable authors/scientists only, and the more recent, the better. Also, I'm not a scientist, so something that reads like a Doctoral dissertation would not be too helpful.

There are plenty of books out there on the subject, I'm sure (a search on Amazon turned up plenty), but I can't judge their authenticity or respectability online.

Does anyone know of any books that might meet my needs?