Recommend me non-fiction

I need some books to read and I have no idea where to start.

Particularly in the areas of:

Politics/current events
International history (I especially like reading about specific countries)
Travel
Africa and/or the Middle East

but I'll take any suggestions at all. I tend to lean toward the readable rather than the dry and academic, but I'll consider anything. I just felt like I haven't "learned anything" in a while, being out of school and all. I've gotten lazy.

I've always liked Lawrence Weschler's work

For travel/memoir writing Patrick Leigh Fermor and Eric Newby are lots of fun.

more info about yr tastes? what have you esp enjoyed?

Africa & Middle East: Ryszard Kapuscinski

Lately I've enjoyed memoirs about dark times ("A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier," "The House at Sugar Beach," "They Poured Fire on Us From the Sky," Tracy Kidder's work) as well as "In the Land of Invisible Women" (the latter of which I had issues with, but I liked the insider perspective on Saudi Arabia). Basically, I like to learn as much as I can about places and current (or recent-ish) events, but if it's TOO academic or dry, there's a chance I may end up putting it down.

I've also liked some Sachs, Collier, etc. that I had to read for college, but it's been 5+ years since then and I haven't been keeping up with current politics (but I'd like to).

I don't want to make it seem like I only like the "journalistic" approach, because I HAVE been known to pick up things like "Africa: A Biography"...but when I think about reading in my free-time, I usually go for something I can plow through a little quicker. Really, either style is fine though, as long as it's not boring as all hell.

Katherine Boo's new release "Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity" appeals to me, if that helps.

Glad you mentioned that K. Boo. Was recommended recently but I forgot about it. Just finished and absolutely loved "Pulphead" by John Jeremiah Sullivan. Essays on everything from Paleo-era caves of Kentucky to Axl Rose and a truly touching piece on Michael Jackson. I also enjoyed Chris Kraus's look at contemporary LA art, "Where Art Belongs."

Looking around my shelves for recommendations:

Absolutely k-classic history: Guns of August & The Proud Tower, both by Barbara Tuchman. A People's Tragedy, Orlando Figes.

Paul Theroux's travel books are not quite uniformly excellent, but almost so. Whether you like his travel writing depends entirely on how you get along with his personality as your 'travel companion'. The Old Patagonia Express is a good starting point.

Science-minded non-fiction: Song of the Dodo, David Quammen. Annals of the Former World, John McPhee. The Making of the Atomic Bomb, Richard Rhodes. Genius, James Gleick. Full House, Stephen Jay Gould.

Essays: Selected Non-Fictions, Jorge Luis Borges.

ghost wars, about the cia in afghanistan, soviet-era to 9/11; doubles as a bio of bin laden

robert caro's LBJ bio, quit your job and sever all your social ties and you can have the first three volumes done in time for the fourth next month

nixonland, nothing is more fun than this book including sex and mario

three who made a revolution, joint lenin/trotsky/stalin bio from 1948, neither hagiography nor assassination, way better than recent bios of lenin and trotsky although not necessarily more fun than the enviably named SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE's two stalin books, which need to be adapted as soon as possible into a daniel day-lewis vehicle called something like THE RED TSAR

the fatal shore, about the dystopian sci-fi scenario that was the founding of british australia

decline and fall of the roman empire, not all at once (unless you're really feeling it) but gibbon is great to hang out with; buy him a drink and let him assess emperors/blame everything on christianity/invent modern history

whichever of nabokov's two volumes of half-batshit litcrit (lectures on literature and lectures on russian literature) is about more books you've read

david foster wallace essays

douglas adams' last chance to see

that big fat christopher hitchens best-of that came out last year can't not be worth it

Africa & Middle East: Ryszard Kapuscinski

Zacata is looking for non-fiction.

That quip aside, Kapuscinski's book on the fall of Haile Selassie is incredibly good, but like all his work there are questions over how much of it was just made up.

"The Middle East" by Peter Mansfield is a book I never tire of recommending to people who want to know about the Middle East. It is a short book, but when you read it you feel like you are getting everything important and missing nothing of consequence. I have not read the more recent edition that was revised by someone else after Mansfield's death but I'm sure it is still pretty good.

"memoirs about dark times"

One of my favourite courses in university was a history course focusing on France under the Vichy regime. In addition to a good academic history (France: The Dark Years), we read two very interesting memoirs, Strange Defeat by March Bloch - a historian who was present during the French defeat - and Outwitting the Gestapo by Lucie Aubrac - a resistance member.

pulphead pulphead pulphead. why can i never remember that title? i gotta read that. dude is the new something or other.

Africa & Middle East: Ryszard Kapuscinski

I'll second that.

Yeah, the massive Hitchens is a great treasure trove of stuff--even if you often disagree with his later political views, as I do, he writes some lovely prose, and his litcrit is often great (as long as you ignore the fact that he only seems to read women writers when they write about Great! Men! of! History!, like Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall)

yeah scott, read pulphead. dude is the new something or other. blurbs say dfw but there's less brain wank happening. i'm a longtime ilx lurker and new poster and (not to sound creepy) you're my favorite. i imagine you'd dig it.

A People's Tragedy, Orlando Figes.

this book is good n' great in many ways but i dunno if i could honestly recommend it to someone as a good 'first' read on the russian revolution -- not only is it a helluva long read, but figes's unwaveringly snarky tone gets wearying over hundreds of pages. i also found his takes on some of the major figures pretty reductive -- kerensky and lenin especially. it's hard to think of two more complex and bewildering ppl in all of history; in figes's book, they just come off as cartoon characters.

i'd recommend brian moynahan's out-of-print 'comrades' for a gritty, journalistic take on 1917. and yeah, the recent montefiore stalin books, for sure.

Yeah, the massive Hitchens is a great treasure trove of stuff--even if you often disagree with his later political views, as I do, he writes some lovely prose, and his litcrit is often great (as long as you ignore the fact that he only seems to read women writers when they write about Great! Men! of! History!, like Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall)

however, one of the best inclusions in this omnibus is an introduction for a reissue of Rebecca West's Black Lamb and Grey Falcon.

speaking of travel narratives, please read D.H. Lawrence's Sea and Sardinia even if you find his other books repulsive.

Did you read the Rebecca West? I remember urging that one on you.

lawrence's travel books and lit criticism are terrific.

i still need to read orwell nonfic. or more of it, i should say. read essays, but no book-length things.

Really iffy about Orlando Figes after his whole slagging-off-other-writers-about-Russia-under-an-Amazon-reviewer-pseudonym thing, where he did that, then threatened to sue them when he was found out, then blamed it all on his wife, then finally admitted it was him all along but it wasn't his fault because he had been researching Soviet history and was depressed, and so was a victim of Stalin who deserved to be pitied. Somehow I find it hard to imagine being able to enjoy the historical analysis of someone capable of thinking and acting in such a way.

Did you read the Rebecca West? I remember urging that one on you.

I read about two hundred pages, particularly taken with a lunch in Croatia (?) during which she and her hapless hubby eat chicken liver risotto. I'll return this summer.

a good magazine/journal that has put together a list of best nonfiction books of the 2000s or something? like i mean not a mainstream-type list with like michael pollan or something on it

Currently reading American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics if Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century by Kevin Phillips. About the role of religion in the rise of Bushism. Also goes into the history of religion in politics. I just finished Not in Our Backyard, stories of victories by environmental ethics.

Oops, my spellcheck is terrible - it replaced "activist" with "ethics".

Anyhow, Phillips lists a lot of other books on southern politics, which I am going to try to read.

1). David Goldfield - Still Fighting the Civil Ear

2). America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960's

3). Alice Fahs & Joan Waugh - The Memory of the Civil War in American Culture

That Wallace book I read was fascinating and infuriating.

taylor branch's america in the king years trilogy