What Non-Fiction Are We Reading Now (Jan. thru Mar. 2024)?

Share your Q1 book selection updates here.

started this eBook via Libby ~

Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning
by Liz Cheney
(includes her fascinating first-person account of the interactions and actions that were taking place as the insurrection progressed)

I've declared 2024 the YOBB (Year of Big Books) as I intend to get through some of the larger tomes that have been on my TBR shelves for a while. So far, I've read 14 of the 731 pages of Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow.

I'm a little over half way thru Alexander Hamilton but have had to put it aside for library book deadlines and book club reads. I'm starting Pornography War: The Past, Present, and Future of America's Obscene Obsession by Kelsy Burke

>4 LynnB: Pornography War: The Past, Present, and Future of America's Obscene Obsession looks interesting. The subject is interesting from a legal 1st Amendment perspective, but also from the feminist disagreement about it. I saw Andrea Dworkin speak about it many, many years ago.

EVE: How the female body drove 200 million years of Human Evolution.by Cat Bohannon.....Extremely interesting in so many ways

Started Chronicles of a Cairo bookseller.
Book club selection & I'd not twigged it was non-fiction initially.

>6 ricko800: I saw that in the bookshop prior to Christmas, when buying presents for other people. i was very tempted, do report back.

>6 ricko800:>7 I read EVE: How the female body drove 200 million years of Human Evolution. It was very interesting and I learned a lot. Her ideas become more speculative as the book progresses, but she is very clear on what is known vs likely vs maybe.

>5 vwinsloe: I'm half-way thru and it's very thought-provoking. It looks at both sides of the feminists' perspectives, along with the Christian right and talks with sex workers themselves.

>9 LynnB: I see that it was just published last spring, and that it includes information about the internet. That sounds really interesting. I've put it on my wishlist. Thanks for mentioning it here.

Also listening to non-fiction. A History of treason on audiobook.
Looks like I might be missing out on pictures of the archive items in the print edition.

Learning to Live Out Loud
Piper Laurie
4/5 stars
I knew about Piper Laurie, the actress but I don't think I ever saw her in many films but I going to check out some of her older films. She was the mother in the horror film Carrie (which I did see). She also lived quite an interesting life. I really enjoyed her autobiography. She just recently died in 2023 at the age of 91.

I'm reading Know My Name: A Memoir by Chanel Miller

I'm reading The Forever Witness: How DNA and Genealogy Solved a Cold Case Double Murder by Edward Humes.

I just started Braiding Sweetgrass which has held up well in reviews here for a decade.

Reading The Seabird's cry. Lots of lyrical description in here.

A Girl from Yamhill
Beverly Cleary
4/5 stars
This is one of two biographies written by Beverly Cleary. This is the first one and it details her life growing up in Yamhill, Oregon. This is a juvenile biography but I really enjoyed it and I think adults will really enjoy this book too. I am going to read her second book My Own Two Feet and am looking forward to that one also!

So far:

The Plantagenets : the warrior kings and queens who made England
World of Patterns: A Global History of Knowledge
Other minds : the octopus, the sea, and the deep origins of consciousness

Currently reading:

The quiet before : on the unexpected origins of radical ideas

All have been excellent.

Carried forward from last year, I am still reading The Library Book by Susan Orlean.

There are a couple of other things I've dipped into, but not committed to reading through (yet). One is a selection of Frederick Law Olmsted's letters and other writing. It's BIG. But it can be easily digested in small bites.

Finished A History of Treason, which was fascinating. I listened to it, I wonder if the print edition had images of some of the documents referenced.

I'm about to start Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson

My Own Two Feet: A Memoir
Beverly Cleary
4/5 stars
This is the second memoir from Beverly Cleary, writer. The book starts with her college years during the depression including WWII, working at a library and ends with the publication of her first book. I really enjoyed this book too! I am surprised this is a Juvenile book but it is definitely a book adults will enjoy!

>15 vwinsloe: I've read it twice and will read it again in the future (which is unusual for me, as I do not re-read often). I hope you enjoy it as much as I.

I am about half-way through both A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through? and The Rediscovery of America

Finished The Seabird's Cry. I could have done with a ready reckoner as to the different birds, I'm not sure I could identify them in a parade...

>23 Treebeard_404: I did enjoy it, and am passing it on to a friend. The final essays got a bit too hopefully spiritual for me, but I loved the ideas in the book and learning something of Native American language and culture.

>24 Treebeard_404: A City on Mars is on my wish list. I'm interested in what you think of us.

I finished the LTER book The Fragile Blue Dot. While the ramifications of climate change on the earth are mentioned, the majority of the stories address the difficulties suffered by mankind as he tries to tackle the danger. Some present population control as the most effective quickest solution but recognizes that mankind recoils from the idea leaving the earth doomed.

I'm reading The Girls of Atomic City, and it's fascinating so far.

I finished The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony that Shaped America by Russell Shorto.

This is a fascinating and very well-written and deeply researched history of the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, the town on Manhattan Island that was eventually taken over by the English and became New York City. Dutch holdings at the time ranged as far north as the settlement that eventually became Syracuse, NY, and as far south as the Delaware River. In grammar school in New Jersey in the 1960s, we were barely taught about the importance of New Amsterdam. Peter Minuit and Peter Stuyvesant became vaguely familiar names, but essentially no details about them were taught. We knew about the Dutch presence mostly through place names and through old storybooks like The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. But Shorto's narrative shines a bright light on the history of the Dutch in 17th century North America, and on the the degree to which Dutch influence molded the spirit of the multi-cultural, exuberant, dynamic city that New York City grew into.

Today being the author's birthday, I've just started Pagels' Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, & Politics in the Book of Revelations.

Gracie: A Love Story
George Burns
4/5 stars
Written by the actor George Burns, he talks about his life and his love for his wife and partner Gracie Burns. He talks about his adopted children since Gracie couldn't have children and he also goes over their roles in entertainment including films, radio and television. Very entertaining!

I'm reading Democracy in Chains, and it explains a lot.

I'm listening to American Like Me edited by America Ferrera and I'm really liking it. It's a collection of stories from immigrants and their experience in the US, read by the contributors.

Giant: Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, James Dean, Edna Ferber, and the Making of a Legendary American Film
Don Graham
4/5 stars
I have seen this film years ago and highly enjoyed it. The author did a nice job of relating the history of the making of this film and the events around the actors lives in that time period. I am definitely going to re-watch it.

I finished reading Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, & Politics in the Book of Revelations and posted an extensive review. I think I am going to continue in historical diachrony, proceeding to MacMullen's Christianity & Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries.

In addition to the two titles I mentioned in message #24, I am about halfway through the audio version of The Need to be Whole but Wendell Berry.

Favorite Non-Fiction so far in Q1 of 2024:
1. Allergic: Our Irritated Bodies in a Changing World by Theresa MacPhail
2. The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs
3. Radium Girls by Kate Moore

Currently Reading:
- The Romance of Mining by T.A. Rickard
- Marie Curie by Robert Reid
- How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi

A few nonfiction books in the hopper for the rest of the quarter:
1. All That Remains: A Life in Death by Sue Black
2. Digging up the Dead: A History of Notable American Reburials by Michael Kammen
3. The American Porch: An Informal History of an Informal Place by Michael Dolan
4. Be a Revolution: How Everyday People are Fighting Oppression and Changing the World - and How You Can, Too by Ijeoma Oluo
5. The Chicago River: A Natural and Unnatural History by Libby Hill

I'd love to hear if anyone in this group has read any of those books and has any thoughts to share!

>32 JulieLill: loved that book!

finished elizabeths german garden: a journey review here https://www.librarything.com/topic/356174#n8427100

>38 Kyler_Marie: Radium Girls, I read that a few years ago! Fascinating!

Good Boy: My Life in Seven Dogs
Jennifer Finney Boylan
4/5 stars
This is the autobiography of Jennifer Finney Boylan who talks about her life when she becomes a transgender. She also writes about her love of her dogs and what she learned from each of them. Nicely written.

ETA to fix my mistakes!

reading Wifedom and quite liking it Like the way the author of the book brings us into the past, but making it very much reminds us that we really havent come a long way

I have started Living in the Appalachian Forest by Chris Bolgiano

I'm reading Culloden: Battle & Aftermath by Paul O'Keefe

my review of wifedom is here post 175 https://www.librarything.com/topic/356174#n8442238

Crying in H Mart
Michelle Zauner
4/5 stars
This was a wonderfully written autobiography about the rock musician, Michelle Zauner. She writes about her life as a musician, and her Korean family but she also talks about her mother's cancer diagnosis and the effect it had on her family. Highly recommended! Biography

review of wifedom is here

https://www.librarything.com/topic/356174#n8443156 post 175

I read through and viewed Death in the Making, a book of astounding and emotionally charged photographs, mostly by Robert Capa, of the Spanish Civil War. There are 111 images by Capa, 24 by Gerda Taro, Capa's collaborator and sometime romantic partner and 11 by a Polish photographer known as Chim (born Dawid Szymin). You can find my more in-depth comments on my Club Read thread.

I've wrapped up Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries and posted a review to LT. I think my next non-fiction read will be Dreams, Illusion and Other Realities. Doesn't sound exactly like non-fiction, does it? But it's Indological history of religion.

I appreciated your review, that first one sounds really interesting to me; Ive always enjoyed reading about the gnostics and others pagans as well as the early church. will have to take a look at it

>50 cindydavid4:
The Pagels book on early Christianity I read earlier in the month was as interesting and more approachably written, but I was interested in what MacMullen had to say.

ok thanks; I have loved all of her books so well see

46 - We're reading that for book club this year. I'm both excited and dreading it. I lost my mom about 7 years ago and I'm still having trouble moving on. But I hear great things about the book.

Random Acts of Medicine: The Hidden Forces That Sway Doctors, Impact Patients, and Shape Our Health
Anupam B. Jena
4/5 stars
The title pretty much explains it all. It was a fascinating look at healthcare and poses questions that the researchers worked on. One chapter focused on who is a better doctor, a seasoned veteran doctor or someone who just graduated. Is it ever a good time to have a heart attack? Another chapter was why kids with summer birthdays are more likely to get the flu. Non-Fiction Books

>54 JulieLill: That sounds fascinating. I'm adding it to my wish list.

I'm reading Know My Name which is a very well written memoir by the Stanford rape survivor.

>56 vwinsloe: I read that earlier this year. I thought it was so powerful. Chanel Miller writes a brutally honest account of her rape and its aftermath. She shows us the invasiveness of documenting her injuries. The unfeeling court process where her victimhood was judged as harshly, if not more so, as the crime. She shows us so tragically about the impact on herself, and on those who love her. I thank her for finding the courage to pursue justice and to write this book.

Everyone should read her Victim Impact Statement. I would make it required reading in high schools.

As I read the reviews posted on LT, I wonder how many men have read/will read this book. Ideally men would and thus develop a deeper understanding of life as a woman subjected to sexual violence. Am I asking for the impossible?

>57 LynnB: I don't think that it is impossible for some men to read Know My Name, but sadly, not the ones who should. I was horrified to read the fact that Chanel Miller was apparently already suffering from PTSD from being in the proximity of the Isla Vista Incel mass murder. And I love how she describes the endless street harassment that all young women should recognize. When I try to explain that growing up as a girl is like running a gauntlet of sexual predators, I am accused of exaggeration. Sigh. I hope that more women authors echo Chanel Miller until the truth finally breaks through.

I _guess_ Surely You Can't Be Serious: The True Story of Airplane! counts as non-fiction reading.

Oh, and I just finished A City on Mars: Can we settle space, should we settle space, and have we really thought this through?.

I'm into a medical-oriented non-fiction, too - Cook County ICU by Cory Franklin. It's basically a memoir about his 30-years at this hospital, a bit self-righteous, somewhat funny and reasonably organized. I'm not sure I can listen straight through, but might break off for something a bit less me-me-me. It's part of the Audible Plus library, so no harm no foul if I don't like it.

>59 Treebeard_404: I would read the Airplane book!

me too! you might like the Mel Brooks book I read a while back all about me: my remarkable life in show business lots of fun stuff about how his movies were made, as well as stories from his life on stage and screen

For some reason ive been on a Douglas Adams run; now Im reading his last book the salmon of doubt "hitchiking the galaxy one more time" a collection of essays, script, speeches and the sort that show that he wasnt just a comdiean, he was also scary brilliant. For example in his speech he gave at Cambrige 1998, entitled is there an artificial god is a mix of what is life, the whys of religion, the science in evolution and the promise technolgies . I need to reread this section because I know I didnt understand everything, but what I did understand is brilliant

liked this quote

“I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies:
1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.”

>63 cindydavid4:

But that means I'm too young to think that the automobile is against the natural order of things, whereas I clearly understand it to be so!

>63 cindydavid4: I like that a lot!
While I've read HHGTTG, I've not read any of his essays. *scurrys off to correct that*.

I've started listening to Misjustice read by Dame Helena Kennedy. While I suspect we're not going to agree fully on everything, she is interesting, knowledgeable and thought provoking.

Salmon of Doubt is brilliant from start to finish. I have the audio version which features Stephen Fry among others. I still miss Adams terribly. How much fun he would have had when Apple got mainstream.

I do as well. In the new collection of his works 42: The Wildly Improbable Ideas of Douglas Adams is a letter to him from Neil Gaiman. Made me think of him losing these two friends *, how hard that must still be for him.

*terry pratchett

I'm reading Anastasia: The Life of Anna Anderson by Peter Kurth. I know that recent DNA evidence shows Anastasia is buried with her family, but I remain interested in the life and times of pretenders.

>64 paradoxosalpha: I agree with you about automobiles

>68 LynnB: I did not know she had been buried with family. A book I thnk I will read.

>35 JulieLill: This was filmed near Alpine, Texas which has hills and trees. I would re-watch again also.

>70 mnleona: Read nicholas and alexandra for the whole story of the family, and then read the romanovs the complete story of how the grave was located and how they solved the mystery. Have kleenex available

I finished Homage to Catalonia, George Orwell's memoir of his time in Spain fighting with the anti-Fascist forces in the Spanish Civil War. Orwell presents a vivid picture, sprinkled with wry humor, of his months in the trenches in the mountains of Catalonia. There are also two detailed chapters on the fighting between the forces of the various anti-Franco militias and the central government forces in the streets of Barcelona in 1937.

Finished a book from one of Princeton University Press' book series. The Jefferson Bible by Peter Manseau. Note: Manseau wrote it, but the copyright is actually assigned to The Smithsonian Institute as Manseau has/held a particular role at the SI. The book is interesting because it covers the actual publishing history and distribution of Thomas Jefferson's personal experiment in engaging with the four Christian gospels. Naturally, Jefferson had done it for his own purposes and hadn't intended the work for publication at all; how the work made it through a Congressional approval process for publication and the men who drove it through that process is really quite interesting.

Schindler's List
by Thomas Keneally
4/5 stars
This is the fictionalized version based on the real-true life story of Oskar Schindler which was later made into a film. Schindler during WWII helped a number of the Jewish population escape from the death camps in Czechoslovakia. Lengthy but interesting! Books Off My Never Ending Reading List

I'm reading The Ride of Her Life which is an interesting story of a woman who rode a horse from Minot, Maine to California back in the mid-1900s. Annie Wilkins had fallen ill with a lung ailment (either TB or lung cancer) and had to sell her farm for the back taxes. The doctor gave her 3-4 years to live at most, so she decided to hit the road.

I'm reading Talking to Canadians by Rick Mercer

Anybody interested in study texts on ancient religions? Currently reading Griechische Religion der archaischen und klassischen Epoche. The introductory chapters were quite challenging, and I dearly miss maps and illustrations. Now it's moving on with elements of rites and decorum. Fascinating.

>79 Buchmerkur: Nice. Added it to my wishlist and by now infinite TBR pile

Robert Owen by Joseph McCabe

This is a short, clear biography of visionary English social reformer, Robert Owen, written by Joseph McCabe, who was himself, 70 years later, a prominent Rationalist writer and lecturer. (McCabe's wikepedia bio here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McCabe)

Robert Owen was a British industrialist in the early 19th century who spent his life and a major bulk of his money attempting to improve the lot of the British working class in a multitude of ways, including promoting shorter work days (the standard at the time was 14 hours per day), raising the minimum age of factory employees from 7 years old to 10 or 12, creating schools for children and even day care at company and/or public expense and full equality for women.

Owen spent his long life trying to set up enlightened industrial town and factories and agitating for his ideas, first in the English Parliament and then, giving up on the politicians, among British society as a whole. He never gave up on trying to replicate his success in Scotland, and in trying to point out the ultimate justice and economic advantages of improving the lot of factory workers, including champion and financially supporting the early English labor union movement. Not surprisingly, his pleas fell on deaf ears among British industrialists and politicians.

Finished Misjustice. Worth the admission fee just to hear her say murder in the classic glasgow accent. >;-)
Otherwise thoroughly thought provoking, interesting and anger making in equal measure.

still reading about the Griechische Religion der archaischen und klassischen Epoche by Walter Burkert, now have advanced to the mythical figures. I liked the overview to cult and ritual. It's just a collection of sources and facts, a bit old school but Burkert is aware of a danger to paint clear pictures and to make a rhyme of everything. Still, sorted by subjects he just throws everything in he can find. There is a hilarious slating in the review section by Vertumnus, which is fun to read but a bit harsh, methinks. Try to finish the book over the holidays.

>83 Buchmerkur:
Your reading has drawn my attention to a Burkert paper in my own library, "Bacchic Teletai in the Hellenistic Age," contained in Masks of Dionysus. I'm keen to read it right now, but it's getting put in a queue behind The Eucharist in the New Testament.

>81 rocketjk: fascinating subject. In Germany in the Weimarer Republic, Minister Hans von Raumer pleaded for better work conditions because it would come cheaper than revolts and sabotage. ... I wonder about Deutsche Bahn and Lufthansa nowadays ...
Bettine von Arnim Armenbuch engaged in worker's rights early on at the time Karl Marx studied conditions in London.

>84 paradoxosalpha: ... which is an appropriate subject for the holidays, indeed

>85 Buchmerkur: Very interesting! Thanks for that info. I will learn more about von Raumer and Armenbuch.