What is the best nonfiction you have ever read?

Question

Also, gimme the storyline.

Answer 1

Alive by Pierce Paul Reed

Try it, its amazing. It is about a football team from uruguay crashing into the mount andes and living on the flesh of the killed for about a certain time.

Answer 2

Not much nonfiction works have storylines, maybe just history and biography.

The best nonfiction I've ever read that had a story line was The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne.

The Irresistible Revolution tells about Shane Claiborne's transition from college student to advocate for the poor, including a short summary of the time he spent in Calcutta working with Mother Theresa.

Answer 3

Anything by Susan Sontag is good. I specially like Illness as a Metaphor and On Photography. But you may want something more lively, so try Antonia Fraser's biography of Marie Antoinette, Thomas Moore's Care of the Soul or Nadine Gordimer's The Essential Gesture. You may browse inside the books in Amazon, to get an idea of what they're about.
Enjoy!

Answer 4

Either A Beautiful Mind by Silvia Nasar, the movie is sort of based on it, it's about the mathematician John Nash, and his life, but it's brilliant, the movie is nothing compared to it, you really get into his mind...his struggles with schizophrenia and his work...

or Schindler's List (also called Schindler's Ark) by Thomas Keneally (it's technically fiction, but it's based on real events and real people, with a lot of research), also turned into a movie, it's about this guy named Oskar Schindler, who saved a lot of Jews during the time of the Holocaust. It isn't just his story, it tells the story of more people too, and it is really, really interesting, partly because it really happened. He isn't really a hero, he is a war profiteer working for the Nazis, running factories with contracts, and yet, with his factories, he manages to save 1,100 lives. He bribes and entertains his way through, getting Jews under the pretense of having them work in his factories. Eventually gathering a list (where the title comes from) of people he brings to a factory far away from the concentration camps where others were being gassed and shot. He spent most of his fortune for those he saved, and was poor for the rest of his life. It was facinating, how a person can do things like that...

Answer 5

Skating to Antarctica by Jenny Diski.

Jenny Diski is a journalist for the London Review of Books, and a novelist.
Skating to Antarctica is her first travel book.
She craves for whiteness. Her whole house is white, white walls, white sheets. But it's not enough. So she decides to go to Antarctica, because she pictures it as pure white, with nothing but white. She goes on a luxury cruise, and writes about her journey.
The interesting thing about this book is that she notices things in people, which make her think about something in her past, and she unfolds some of her 'secrets' little by little to the reader.
Also, she explains very well what she expected to find (the whiteness) and what she did find --the whiteness filled with little black dots, being all the other people with her on the cruise.. Yes, she wanted peace and quiet and blinding whiteness, and yet she finds herself surrounded with people in the most remote place in the world!
The writing is beautiful and witty, which makes a very entertaining read!
So much so that I then went on reading her second travelogue, Stranger on a train: she travelled in the United States by train only, and tells about all the people she met on the way, and about her vision of America through a train carriage. Very good as well!

Happy reading!

Answer 6

I read a lot of non-fiction, and enjoy biographies. The first one that came to mind is "More than a Rose" by Heather Robertson. It's about the wives of the Canadian prime ministers--an interesting topic, since nobody seems to pay attention to the women "behind" the figureheads. My twisted side goes for books about killers, particularly female murderers. You name it, I've read it, when it comes to that topic. I'm also fascinated by P.T. Barnum and the sideshows of the early 20th century. Finally, I'm very much into philosophy, and enjoy anything written by Mark Kingwell, particularly "Dreams of Millennium," which is sociological/antropological and philosophical look at millennial angst. Another book of his, "The World We Want" is about citizenship, and what that means from a philosophical point of view.

Answer 7

Shakey: Neil Young's Biography by Jimmy Mcdonough

Not only is the the biography on one of the most pervasive and eclectic performers in rock history but is also goes into great detail about the early days of rock and takes a personal look at when rock came form in the early 60s. I could not put this book down...

If you want to take a look at something way more cerebral check out A Brief History of Everything by Ken Wilber. This book is the account of men and women's place in a universe of self and society, spirit and soul, and sex and gender is written in question-and-answer format, making it both readable and accessible.

Wilber offers a series of original views on many topics of current controversy, including the gender wars, multiculturalism, modern liberation movements, and the conflict between various approaches to spirituality.

This book gave me a great sense of place and purpose within humanity.

Answer 8

"Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood" by Moroccan sociologist Fatima Mernissi. It's the story of her childhood in Fez, Morocco, right before Morocco became independent from France. It's set up almost like short stories, vignettes even, but they're cohesive. It gives an excellent insight into the life of that time and place.

Answer 9

They Cage the Animal's At Night by Jennings Michael Burch
One rainy day in Brooklyn, Jennings Michael Burch's mother, too sick to care for him, left him at an orphanage, saying only, "I'll be right back." She never returned. Shuttled through a series of bleak foster homes and institutions, he never remained in any of them long enough to make a friend. Instead, Jennings clung to a tattered stuffed animal, his sole source of warmth in a frightening world. This is the poignant story of his lost childhood. But it is also the triumphant tale of a little boy who finally gained the courage to reach out for love-and found it waiting for him.

Answer 10

i despise nonfiction books with a passion.
but i have to read them this summer for summer reading.
Out of the nonfiction books that i do like, i enjoy autobiographies.

my personal favorite is:

Soul surfer-- the story on Bethany Hamilton, the teen surfer who lost her arm to a shark and her story of trying to get back on the board. its interesting to see how her life is like and how she came to be a celebrity almost over night. shes very inspiring.

hope i helped. (: