Citizen Reader

A nonfiction list to peruse.

If you're looking for a list of new spring nonfiction titles to consider, you might do worse than the "15 Promising Nonfiction Books for Spring" one they have posted over at the Christian Science Monitor.* I hate the way you have to click through the list page by page, incidentally (come on, CSM, you can't add a "view on one page" button?), but at least there's only fifteen titles to click through.

It's a bit heavy on the serious history titles for my taste, but there's more than a few noteworthy items there. In particular I'd like to draw your attention to George Packer's The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America. Packer's the author of another fabulous book, The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq, that I still remember as being one of the best things I've ever read on Iraq, so I'll definitely be looking into this one.

What do you think? Anything on the list pique your interest?

*Incidentally, I subscribe to the CSM in my Google Reader (for now--fuck you, Google, for taking your Reader service down soon--I hope Google+ fails in a big way even as you try to force everyone onto it), and I always get a lot of interesting headlines and news there, including, weirdly enough, a great assortment of recipes.

Yet another awards list of books I haven't read yet.

This past weekend they held the ALA Midwinter conference in Seattle, and as they typically do at this time, the organization has released their picks for their annual "ALA Notables" (as well as their "Reading List" books, which are notable genre titles).

You can see the entire list over at the Reader's Advisor Online. As per usual (for me, anyway) the list is a combination of books I haven't read (and am not real interested in reading) and books I disliked (I tried to get through Susan Cain's Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking THREE times and failed; Jim Holt's Why Does the World Exist?: An Existential Detective Story was just beyond me). I'm left wondering what I do like to read, since both their "genre" and their "notable" (read: literary) picks totally bore me. But then, I'll let you in on a little secret: everything the American Library Association does, pretty much, bores me.* The whole organization always smacked of a really long and worthless work meeting to me: lots of commitees, lots of politics and backstabbing, very little of anything concrete or helpful actually getting done.

*Except their Read posters. I'll admit, I'm a sucker for their Read posters. Mainly because I'm shocked that they actually managed to produce something tangible.

Books to movies, 2013.

Have you seen this list of movies based on books that are opening in 2013?* The entire list pretty much makes me snore,** although I adore Baz Luhrmann (director of Strictly Ballroom and Moulin Rouge) and wouldn't mind seeing his take on The Great Gatsby.

Anything on this list that piques your interest? I must admit I'm not the most highbrow of movie fans; I think the only movie I got to see in the theater last year was the James Bond pic Skyfall, and the only movie I'd really like to see this year is the new Star Trek (particularly because I want to see Benedict Cumberbatch as the villain).

*Thanks to the Reader's Advisor Online for the link.

**Except for the movie Admission, which bugs me. I liked the novel by Jean Hanff Korelitz and I am in love with Paul Rudd. But Tina Fey? TINA FEY? My beautiful Paul Rudd has to act attracted to Tina Fey? I guess we'll see if he's got real acting chops or not.

Why aren't librarians allowed to love books?

When I worked in the public library I was frustrated by many things. Mainly, I'll admit, by the rudeness* of the general public, which remains the number-one reason I am still relieved not to be working a public-service desk job right now (although I'm sure I'll have to go back to one sometime, and will just be damn glad if I'm able to get one). But a slightly more esoteric annoyance I had with the system was how librarians are often told (in library school, or in training) that to be good "readers' advisors"--people who help readers find things they might enjoy reading--they must focus solely on what the reader wants. "It's not about you," we librarians are told, "Readers' Advisory is not about pushing your opinions on readers."

Read This!: Handpicked Favorites from America's Indie Bookstores
by Hans Weyandt (edt)

Well, okay. I get it. When you're helping a reader find something to read it is of course vital that you focus on their interests. Likewise, if someone is, say, a Jodi Picoult or Nicholas Sparks reader, it is probably nicest if the librarian doesn't say (although they might be dying to): "So, you like hack authors, huh?"

But at the same time, I think that attitude does everyone a vast misservice. It hurts librarians, who are made to feel they can't speak about any books too enthustiastically--that they cannot "recommend," they must only ever "suggest," and strive never to allow their own opinions a part in the conversation. And I think eventually it hurts readers--who might be looking for, not only some assistance, but also a good book conversation with someone who also loves reading--not someone who is desperately trying not to have any opinions on any books whatsoever during the encounter.

Now, all of that is a very long-winded way to say I loved, absolutely loved, a little book I checked out at the end of last year titled Read This!: Handpicked Favorites from America's Indie Bookstores.** God love independent booksellers. They don't dick around with any "don't bring your own opinions or loves" edicts. This book consists of twenty-five indie bestsellers' lists of their favorite 50 books--each chapter provides some information on the bookstore where the contributor works, the list, some paragraphs about a few of the titles listed more specifically, and a short q-and-a about bookstores and readers with the contributor. And they don't list their 50 best-selling titles, or 50 "sure bets" (a term which always annoys the shit out of me, since I figure my sure bet is bound to be someone else's can't stand)--they list their 50 FAVORITES. It's awesome. Straightforward and very, very pleasing. I read it a chapter at a time last month, always at bedtime, and it was a very satisfying and settling read.

The short interviews with the booksellers were almost my favorite part; and the following is my favorite response to the question "Who is your most trusted source for book recommendations?" (by bookseller Emma Straub): "There are reviewers I trust, and friends I trust, and booksellers I trust. Really, my problem is that I have too many smart people recommending books to me all the time. My backlog is so enormous that often by the time I actually read a book, I've forgotten who told me they loved it or which newspaper gave it a rave. Then it's just up to me and the book to see if we can get along." (p. 16.)

Look at those words: Trust. Recommending. Smart. Love. Now THOSE are the words you should always bring to talking with other readers. So join me in the revolution, librarians: get rid of that wishy-washy word "suggest" once and for all.

*Not to mention general scariness and sometimes flat-out violence.

**If you buy it new the royalties go to the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE).

Best nonfiction 2012: my very first podcast!

Many, many thanks to Steve Thomas, who creates the podcast Circulating Ideas ("the librarian interview podcast"). He was nice enough to ask me to participate in his podcast round-up of the best books of 2012 (as well as some sneak previews of 2013 titles), and I had so much fun doing it.

You can find the podcast at his site. In the first installment, he interviewed Liz Burns, Kelly Jensen, Kristi Chadwick, Anna Mickelsen, myself, and Becky Spratford on our "best" picks.

I'll admit I listened to my part first (it starts around the 1 hour 18 minute mark)*, but I went back when I had more time later in the week and listened to the rest and thoroughly enjoyed it. (It was particularly useful for me, as a lot of great fiction and YA titles were discussed.) I particularly enjoyed the fact that many of the lists are presented in a conversational format. And: a second installment is now up as well!

*My apologies: at times I was talking too close to my headset microphone and there's some annoying noises on the hard consonants. I didn't realize that was happening--live and learn!

Lists, lists, and more lists.

It's that time of year again: Best of the Best Books Lists, 2012.

Got a jones for every Best of list you can find? Consider stopping over at the Reader's Advisor Online; we're collecting "Best of 2012" lists over there in the right sidebar. Or, you could visit Largehearted Boy's massive annual aggregation of "Best of" lists.

I haven't yet found a list that really lights my fire, but I'll let you know if I do. What about you? Any of these lists seem particularly strong to you?

A different type of "inspirational" book.

I have been thinking about my anti-The Shack rant on Wednesday, and, particularly after a kind reader suggested to me that yes, there were problems with the book, but there was still stuff there, particularly about the human need for independence (and how it sometimes gets us in trouble), that they could "take away" from the book and from which they could learn.

So I have been thinking that writing the rants is fun, but perhaps it would be more helpful to consider what type of book The Shack is, and if there are any comparable books that would be, you know, slightly better (and perhaps even free from dialect and obvious conclusions painted up as revelations).

So: Has anyone out there read any "Inspirational" books that were helpful to you, or books that you found inspirational, even if they were not marketed as such? What were they, and how did you find them helpful? Let's start a list so I am better prepared to offer alternatives to The Shack, rather than just ripping it up and down.

I'll start us off:

I found Norman Maclean's novel/memoir A River Runs Through It and Other Stories inspirational for its theme that you can love completely without complete understanding. I always remember that with people I like, but sometimes I forget it with people whom I don't like and with whom I don't agree on many issues. And yes, I know some people find this book boring because it is about fishing. But I really don't know how you could fault Maclean's writing skills.

I read it so long ago I forgot what I liked about it, but I remember thinking that C.S. Lewis's slim nonfiction volume A Grief Observed, about the dark period he went through after his wife, Joy Gresham, died from cancer, was very thoughtful.

So? What've you got for me?

2012 nonfiction trends: the conclusion.

Let's wrap up this series on nonfiction trends in 2012, with a little question-and-answer.

Q: So are there any 2012 nonfiction titles that you DO want to read, CR, you big crank?

A: Why yes, as a matter of fact, there are. Not many, though.

Q: Okay, so what are they?

A: Well, there is one title that actually made me go, "oooh," in a high-pitched falsetto. (This is a good thing.) That title is The Lifespan of a Fact, by John D'Agata and Jim Fingal, which is based on the correspondence between a nonfiction author and his fact-checker. That's pure awesomeness. It seems to be getting a lot of press, although not all of it is good.

Q: But that's it? Just the one title? What, are you ridiculously picky or something?

A: Yes, now that I have less time to read, I do find myself becoming a bit more, as you say, "ridiculously picky." But I also wouldn't push these forthcoming books out of bed for eating crackers:

Any of the new biographies on Queen Elizabeth

Susan Sontag: As Consciousness Is Harnessed to Flesh (just based on that title alone)

Colm Toibin: New Ways to Kill Your Mother: Writers and Their Families

Michael J. Sandel: What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets

Julia Fox: Sister Queens: The Noble, Tragic Lives of Katherine of Aragon and Juana, Queen of Castille

Craig Taylor: Londoners (an oral history--I'm actually pumped pumped PUMPED to get a look at this one)

Baldwin Rosecrans: Paris, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down (Another one where I am primarily charmed by the title)

Rachel Cusk: Aftermath: On Marriage and Separation (I just love Rachel Cusk.)

Caitlin Flanagan: Girl Land (Flanagan just makes me laugh; I enjoy how feminists hate her SO MUCH, and yet even they have to admit she can really write)

Q: That's all you can find, out of 300+ titles?

A: Well, yeah. See aforementioned "crank" and "less time for reading" disclaimers. If it's shiny happy book coverage you're looking for, well, go to most any other lit blog besides this one.

2012 nonfiction trends: part 3.

To me, it seems that a third trend in 2012 nonfiction titles is a focus on Environmental and Natural History titles.

I have absolutely nothing against Environmental titles; many of them have been written by some of my favorite authors (Rachel Carson and Wendell Berry, I'm looking at you). All the same, I can't say that there is anything in the spreadsheet (under Environmental writing) or on this list that I really, really must read any time soon. Although Richard Fortey's Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms: The Story of the Animals and Plants that Time Left Behind does sound kind of interesting.

So there's my ideas about 2012 nonfiction trends: politics, comforting history and historical biography, and environmental titles. If you'd like to see a PDF version of the talk I gave, here it is (or you can click on the Nonfiction Trends 2012 (OWLS) link at the right).

What I want to know is: do you agree with these trends? Have you been noticing any nonfiction trends? (I also think that there's fewer memoirs coming out this year, although I think they'll continue to be popular with readers.) Any trends that you'd LIKE to see?

Nonfiction trends 2012: part 2

In which we consider some nonfiction book trends for the coming year, and how they all make me want to stop reading, and then poke my eyes out for good measure.*

In addition to political books, it seems like there are a ton of History and Historical Biography titles coming out. (And a lot of Historical Biographies are related to politics; consider titles like John F. Kennedy, by Alan Brinkley; Two Americans: Truman, Eisenhower, and a Dangerous World, by William Lee Miller; Eisenhower in War and Peace, by Jean Edward Smith; Reagan and Thatcher, by Richard Aldous, etc.) And not only are there a lot of History books, there are a lot of History books on subjects and with angles that leave me cold (for various reasons):

Ike's Spies, by Stephen Ambrose (Ambrose is a big fat plagiarizer)

Freedom's Forge: How American Business Built the Arsenal of Democracy that Won World War II, by Arthur Herman (see? America was great once! All we need is another "great" war for which we can manufacture a ton of weapons--that will keep people employed and make America great again!)

Enterprise: America's Fightingest Ship and the Men Who Helped Win World War II, by Barrett Tilman (WWII! WWII! Keep writing about WWII and Americans will never notice anything is wrong currently!)

Now, this is unfair of me. There are actually a lot of forthcoming History books that have nothing to do with World War II and look decent. But I can't say that any of the titles in the spreadsheet or on this list light me on fire. What do you think?

*Sorry to be such a melodramatic grouch about it. But really. All of these new nonfiction titles bore me to death, and that's just the titles! Imagine getting stuck reading these entire books. Ugh.

2012 nonfiction trends: part 1.

In my trolling for forthcoming nonfiction titles I formulated some ideas about what's going to be big in nonfiction this year. These trends are, of course, based on my opinion--I've never really looked at or considered trends before, so I can't speak to my accuracy. All I can really tell you is that I looked at more than 300 forthcoming nonfiction titles, as well as a number of various blog and journal articles, to formulate these ideas.

So what's going to be big, and why?

I have two words that are bound to strike fear into the heart of anyone who never had or has completely lost any interest in politics: Election Year. God help us all, but 2012 is a big election year and correspondingly, political and current events books are going to be big. Not only will candidates be putting out their own books and having books written about them, plenty of authors are getting in on the subject. In addition to current political titles, there's a number of big political historical biographies coming out.

Curious about what the actual politics titles are? Please check the spreadsheet I posted a link to Monday*, or check out a condensed list of forthcoming political titles here.

I can't be objective about these titles; the very idea of reading any of these books makes me want to puke, but I'd like to give an extra special pukey shout-out to Dennis Prager's title Still the Last Best Hope: Why the World Needs American Values to Triumph, which is described at Prager's website as explaining how "Humanity stands at a crossroads, and the only alternatives to the 'American Trinity' of liberty, natural rights, and the melting-pot ideal of national unity are Islamic totalitarianism, European democratic socialism, capitalist dictatorship, or global chaos if we should fail."**

But if you're interested in politics? This is going to be a very good nonfiction year for you.

*A word about the spreadsheet. It's organized by genre, but those are my genre headings. Where I use the heading "name memoir," that means "celebrity memoirs." Also, books tagged with my genre heading "Malcolm Gladwell," are variously known as "Making Sense..." books, "Big Idea" books, "Big Think" books, and many other headings. I tend to call them Malcolm Gladwell books, myself, since his titles (e.g., The Tipping Point) are the best known in the genre.

**Does this sentence even make sense? It's hard for me to tell, I get bored in the middle of it and can't view it as a whole.

Looking at 2012 nonfiction trends.

Somewhere in the middle of my neverending nonfiction reading slump I gave a presentation (for the Outagamie Waupaca Library System continuing education program--thanks again for hiring me!) on nonfiction trends in 2012.

As I told the attendees, it was somewhat hilarious for me to be giving a talk on trends. Me and any kind of "trends" are rarely in the same room together. I've never  particularly cared what the "it" books of each season are (I do, but more out of professional curiosity than out of a burning desire to read them myself) and I'm definitely not up on fashion trends. I put on a "work outfit" to give the presentation--it was given through web meeting software, and no one could see me, but I find it gives a little "oomph" to your presentation to be dressed professionally (or as "professionally" as I can manage)--and the sweater I was wearing was about fifteen years old. Pathetic. But I was happy to be speaking on a new topic--a topic about newness, if you will, so I read what I could and researched what I could to try and suss out some nonfiction trends of the coming year.

While researching the trends, I threw together a quick spreadsheet of nonfiction titles that will be coming out this year. I entered the authors and titles, the month they're coming out, and then assigned some quick-n-dirty genre headings. You can download that spreadsheet yourself; it can be sorted alphabetically by author or title, by genre (which is how it's sorted now), or by release month. All week I'll be talking about what I learned putting that spreadsheet together, so buckle your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy trends ride.

Best books overload.

I've been blogging this month over at the Reader's Advisor Online, and one of the features we're running is a list of the Best Books Lists that get published all over the place this time of year. (Holla, by the way, to Largehearted Boy, who compiles the Mother of All Best Books Lists list.)

As a result, I am burnt out on Best Books list. I always preferred a Worst List, myself, but there's not as many of those (although I enjoyed this one and this one). I know we've covered this a bit in our Citizen Reader Survey of 2011, but let it all out? What, in your opinion, were the worst books of 2011?

I've got a couple of suggestions: Ann Patchett's State of Wonder, of course. Also, Alan Jacobs's The Pleasure of Reading in an Age of Distraction. I wasn't overfond of Caitlin Kelly's Malled: My Unintentional Career in Retail.

Now it's your turn!

Tuesday Article: Best of the best of the best of the best...

I will probably not get around to doing any best or worst lists this year, as just trying to match the Time Magazine Best 100 Nonfiction Titles list is doing me in. However, I did do one "Best of" list for Library Journal this year:

Library Journal Best Business Titles 2011

There's lots of other lists there too, although Library Journal's articles are much shorter this year (I only listed ten Best Biz books, last year it was around 35 or so). And if you're really jonesing for "Best of Books" lists for the year, check out the sidebar at the Reader's Advisor Online, or the exhaustive, exhausting list that Largehearted Boy has going. Have fun!

100 Best-ish Nonfiction Titles: Sports

Two categories left in our exploration of Time magazine's 100 Best Nonfiction Titles list: today Sports, next time, War. YAY!*

So here's what Time had to say about the Sports category:

Ball Four, by Jim Bouton
The Sweet Science, by A.J. Liebling

Well, this is another category where Time didn't wear itself out suggesting titles. I've not read either of them, although I do like Liebling and the Ball Four book, first published in 1970 as an "inside story" about baseball, sounds pretty interesting. As long as they were going to have a sports category, I'm surprised they only listed two books, but hey, to each their own. It's a bit tricky to list what I think are the best Sports books--I already mentioned at least one in the Biography section (Pistol, by Mark Kriegel).

Seabiscuit: An American Legend, by Laura Hillenbrand. Yes, I know pretty much everyone has read this book already. But it's that rarest of rare nonfiction books: one that lives up to the hype. Anyone who likes a good underdog story will enjoy Hillenbrand's historical narrative about Seabiscuit, the little knobby-kneed horse that could.

The Ticket Out: Darryl Strawberry and the Boys of Crenshaw, by Michael Sokolove. A heartbreaking book about baseball players who make it, against all odds, to the big leagues, and then still suffer from things like drug addiction and not knowing how to handle success and money.

Scoreboard, Baby: A Story of College Football, Crime, and Complicity, by Ken Armstrong and Nick Perry. A particularly timely read, in light of the Penn State scandal; this is an eye-opening read about exactly how much violence and criminality people are willing to allow in their college sports program culture (warning: it's a lot, including rape, savage beatings, and shootings). The authors, journalists both, focus primarily on the University of Washington football team.

I thought about listing The Blind Side, by Michael Lewis, but I think Michael Sokolove's book covers much the same ground (impoverished youth making it through sports--spoiler alert: Darryl Strawberry's life story and struggles with drug addiction will make you cry) without as much sentimentality, and is a superior read, although I do feel The Blind Side is a very good book.

*Not yay, war; yay, we're almost done. Although I may still do a couple of lists of Investigative, Travel, and True Crime: three huge categories Time ignored, for whatever reason. I guess I can see leaving out Investigative and True Crime, but Travel? Come on.

100 Best-ish Nonfiction Titles: Self-Help

An end is in sight for our consideration of the Time 100 Best Nonfiction Titles, I promise. The Time category list proceeded alphabetically, so the way I see it, all we've got left is Self-Help/Instructional, Sports, and War (they also include Social History, but we covered that in our History section). I'm not crazy about any of these categories, thinking Self-Help is largely too personal to apply "best of" honors to, and I feel like I listed some of the best Sports books under Biography. War, likewise, seemed more a part of History to me. But I already punked out on the Nonfiction Novel and Political lists, so I'm going to woman up and finish out with these categories.

Here's the Self-Help/Instruction titles Time listed:

The Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous
The Elements of Style, E. B. White and William Strunk, Jr.

Well, at least this is a list that has brevity going for it. But I just get a chuckle out of any list that pairs these two books in the same category. I've been lucky enough not to need The Big Book*, but I have read parts of The Elements of Style and should read it again. It is a great little book for writers.

Now, best self-help. I fully believe in the category; I once taught a class on the reading interests of adults and I told the students not to laugh at self-help, as everyone will need a self-help book of some kind someday. Really. It's a universal. But, as noted previously, Self-Help tends to be very personal. There's definitely benchmark titles in the field: Dale Carnegie's How To Win Friends and Influence People; Stephen Covey's The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People; John Gray's Men Are from Mars, Women are from Venus; anything by Geneen Roth or Wayne Dyer, etc. Those tend to leave me cold. So I'm just going to list a couple of books I've found very informational in my own life, and leave it at that.

The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need, by Andrew Tobias. Personal finance affects everyone, and even if you don't plan on becoming a big-time investor (or you don't have much to invest), Tobias's very understandable and often quite funny (which is necessary; books like this are a real snooze if the author doesn't have a sense of humor) guide can really help you get your mind around money basics. College graduates (if not high school) should be given the latest edition of this guide as a graduation present.

Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition. Everyone needs a dictionary, and don't give me any shit about using dictionary.com. Your computer isn't always on, or at least it shouldn't be, and neither should your smart phone. I use my dictionary ALL the time, for spelling help, pronunciation (Mr. CR and I had a heated discussion about the pronunciation of the word "secreted" the other day--I won't keep you in suspense, I won), hyphenation, etc. The other day my dad called and wanted to know the definition of "hubris." I love my dictionary. It's one of the few things in the world that I know how to use and never lets me down.

*Sometimes the spirt is willing but the flesh is weak: My standard physical reaction to anything more than two beers is to pass out, only to wake myself up with copious vomiting 6 to 12 hours later. At least it made me a cheap date, if not the life of the party.

100 Best-ish Nonfiction Titles: Science

Okay, we're going to finish up our alternative take on the Time 100 Best Nonfiction list if it kills me. Today's a big category, but at least it's one I understand: Science.

Now when I say I understand, I mean I understand it as a category. I emphatically don't understand science (or math) as a concept; if I did I'd be a lot more successful.* What I find annoying about science is that someone can explain it to me all they want, even fairly graspable concepts like electricity, and a minute later I'll have forgotten EVERY SINGLE THING about the explanation. It's like the Men in Black came through with their mind-wipey thing. Mr. CR says this is what I do when I'm not interested in something--in goes in one ear and out the other without making any sort of impression. So whether it is a question of being intellectually deficient or just uninterested, you'd think this would be a category I wouldn't enjoy.

But I do. When I find a good, readable, understandable, and yes, the most overused word of all, compelling science book, I really really love it. So I'm excited to discuss this one. Now, here are the books Time listed:

A Brief History of Time, by Stephen Hawking
Coming of Age in Samoa, by Margaret Mead
The Double Helix, by James Watson
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer**, by Siddhartha Mukherjee
The Lives of a Cell, by Alice Park
The Naked Ape, by Desmond Morris
On Human Nature, by Edward O. Wilson
The Selfish Gene, by Richard Dawkins
Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, by Thomas Kuhn

This is a poor list, in my opinion, and one that is skewed too heavily to the biological and "soft" sciences (particularly the Margaret Mead--I might argue about anthropology being a true "science"--and I say that as someone with a degree in library "science," so I know how broad labels can be). Of course the Hawking title is there, although it reminds me of something I read once that posited that that book was the most bought and least read book in the world, which seems to me about right. There's nothing really wrong with the titles themselves, particularly if you want to read books that have proved controversial--like the Morris and Dawkins books (I'm a bit suprised that Paul Ehrlich's The Population Bomb isn't listed here, as it was also hugely controversial), and some of them are quite good. But let's see what we can come up with:

The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA, by James Watson. This is an EXCELLENT choice. If you read only one science book in your life, make it this one. Not only is it a fantastic discussion of the discovery of the structure of DNA and the birth of the study of genetics as we know it, but Watson as an author is not only good at explaining the science, he's also like your favorite chatty cousin who always knows the best gossip on everyone and isn't afraid to share. Regardless of how you feel about his treatment of women scientists (did he and Crick rip off their colleague Rosalind Franklin's research?), it's a fascinating read.

Pushing the Limits: New Adventures in Engineering, by Henry Petroski. It would behoove everyone to know a little something about engineering as an applied science, and Petroski makes the topic exciting (yes, exciting!) in this consideration of engineers pushing the envelope.

The Last Sorcerers: The Path from Alchemy to the Periodic Table, by Richard Morris. Very readable history of science/chemistry.

An Alchemy of Mind: The Marvel and Mystery of the Brain, by Diane Ackerman. I'm not a Diane Ackerman fan myself but I've known lots of very smart mathy and sciencey people who enjoy her, so I thought she deserved a place on the list. This is one of her more well-known titles, about the brain (which is always a fascinating subject to read about, I think).

Fallout, by Jim Ottaviani, with Suspended in Language (about physicist Niels Bohr) being a close second. This is a graphic novel about the development of the atomic bomb, and it is quite possibly the best science book I've read. Ottaviani is a super talent.

Parasite Rex: Inside the Bizarre World of Nature's Most Dangerous Creatures, by Carl Zimmer. Quite possibly the most memorable science (or any genre, for that matter) title I have ever read. Parasites are fascinating, although their ick factor is high. But they're most definitely here to stay and their lives are entwined with ours, so it's important to know about them, and Zimmer is a fantastic science author.

Prime Obsession Bernhard Riemann & the Greatest Unsolved Problem in Mathematics, by John Derbyshire. I think there should be at least one math book on this list, and frankly, this is the only one I've ever finished. I tried Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity by David Foster Wallace, but it was beyond me. Like, it didn't even feel like it was in English, beyond me.

I was a little surprised there wasn't anything by Stephen Jay Gould, Carl Sagan, Dava Sobel, Jonathan Weiner, or Michio Kaku on the Time list, frankly, they're big names in the field. And both of our lists are remiss in the fields of astrophysics/space exploration--do you have any titles in that area or others that you could suggest?

*I often worked the Friday night shift at the public library, and when proud parents would tell me how advanced their children were in reading, I always wanted to say, "You know where that gets you? That's right--working behind a public service desk at 8 p.m. on a Friday night. I'd encourage your child in math, if I were you."

100 Best-ish Nonfiction Titles: Nonfiction Novels and Politics

I know, you're starting to be just as sick of Time magazine's list of the 100 Best Nonfiction titles as I am, aren't you? I'm also getting sick of my lists. Lists get old, I find, which is part of why I can never quite believe how much people seem to like lists for everything. Evidently you need to be a more organized person than I am. Or, perhaps, all things in moderation, and this has been just too many lists.

But, we have started. And because I never finish anything, I feel that we need to finish this. But that doesn't mean I can't cheat. Take today's categories: Nonfiction Novels and Politics. Christ. Can you think of more boring categories? I can't. And what does "nonfiction novel" mean, anyway? Yet another category I disagree with. So today I'll tell you Time's picks, but I'm not listing my own. If I can think of any Politics titles that didn't make me puke, I will add them to an Investigative Writing list I still plan to do.

In the meantime, please do discuss the below, or suggest any title picks of your own in these categories!

NONFICTION NOVELS

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Tom Wolfe
The Executioner's Song, Norman Mailer (This one should be True Crime, guys, it just SHOULD)
In Cold Blood, Truman Capote (Again: TRUE CRIME. Just call it a genre already, for the love of God.)
Out of Africa, Isak Dinesen

POLITICS

All the President's Men, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward
The Clash of Civilizations, Samuel P. Huntington
The Conscience of a Conservative, Barry Goldwater
God and Man at Yale, William F. Buckley, Jr.
Homage to Catalonia, George Orwell
The Making of the President 1960, Theodore H. White
The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt
The Paranoid Style in American Politics, Richard Hofstadter
What it Takes, Richard Ben Cramer

100 Best-ish Nonfiction Titles: Ideas

The next category to consider on the old Time 100 Best Nonfiction list is something they call "Ideas." The books are as follows:

The Closing of the American Mind, by Allan Bloom
The End of History and the Last Man, by Francis Fukuyama
Godel, Escher, Bach, by Douglas Hofstadter
The Hero with a Thousand Faces, by Joseph Campbell
Imagined Communities, by Benedict Anderson
The Nature and Destiny of Man, by Reinhold Niebuhr
Orientalism, by Edward Said
Syntactic Structures, by Noam Chomsky
A Theory of Justice, by John Rawls
Understanding Media, by Marshall McLuhan
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert Pirsig

Now here's a list that really put me to shame: I've read a total of two of them, and I didn't really understand those. And again I'm a bit stymied by the category: it seems almost like philosophy, but the Bloom title seems more like cultural criticism or current affairs, while Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance seems like kind of a lightweight compared to the rest. Maybe I'm wrong on that, but I don't really know what the Time editors were shooting for here. And I out-and-out laughed at the idea of making it through the Chomsky and the Niebuhr: not likely in this lifetime (for me, anyway). Although I should read the Joseph Campbell and McLuhan titles; I've always wanted to.

So again I'm forced to cobble a few choices into a category I don't understand. I'm not a huge philosophy reader, and if I'm looking for Ideas books I tend to go to a category that I think of as "Making Sense..." (As in, Making Sense...of ourselves; Making Sense...of each other; Making Sense...of our culture, etc.) Others have sometimes labeled these books Big Think, or Bright Ideas, or many other names. I suppose we could all be honest and call them "NF Books That Don't Really Fit Anywhere Else," but that wouldn't be as catchy. Another thing I find interesting about this category is that many of these types of books are emphatically NOT narrative...but people read them recreationally (or not really based on subject) anyway. But that's a different fight for a different day: "Why I hate the term narrative nonfiction" (and the tangential argument "Why I hate the term sure bet"). For now? My Ideas list:

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, by Malcolm Gladwell. Of course it's become totally cliche now, to read a Malcolm Gladwell title, but you really should read this one anyway. It's an interesting read, about how sometimes an attention to detail can have a larger effect on the big picture than you might think, and it's an important title to know, because like Roger Putnam's Bowling Alone, it's been cited ad nauseum in other books and reviews.

The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart, by Bill Bishop. An interesting look at how Americans are sorting themselves into communities where everyone looks like each other. Kind of the anti-melting pot scenario, if you will. An interesting topic and a well-written book. Perhaps this one should be Investigative instead, but it felt more like an academic book you could actually understand than it did a work of journalism.

You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto, by Jaron Lanier. I'd never heard of him before, but evidently Jaron Lanier is a big name in the study of artificial intelligence. That made it much more interesting to read this book (although I'd like to read it again and see if I could understand more of it), cautioning about where we're headed with the technology we choose and use.

The Wars We Inherit: Military Life, Gender Violence, and Memory, by Lori E. Amy. I reviewed this one a while ago; it knocked me over. Full of interesting questions about violence, gender roles, family dynamics, and how we treat one another not only in our families but in the larger world.

Anything by John Kenneth Galbraith; I find him fascinating. (And no, as long as we're on the subject of economics, I will not be suggesting Freakonomics, I think Steven Levitt plays fast and loose with his research.)

Two other authors who come to mind are Jacques Barzun and Christopher Lasch, but I've honestly never made it all the way through any of their works.

And that's all I've got? Ideas? Ideas on Ideas books? Anyone?

You'll notice my list is decidedly less intellectual than Time's. That'll happen. I suppose some Michel Foucault should be on it somewhere, for one thing. But I never did manage to cultivate an appreciation for Michel Foucault, even in college. (Fun true story to prove how dumb I am: the one class for which I was supposed to read Foucault was an introductory library school class, and my professor kept referring to monographs. And I always thought, what the fuck are you talking about? Even after I'd looked it up and knew it meant book I still got sidetracked EVERY SINGLE TIME the prof said "mongraph," with this on a loop in my brain: "Why are you saying monograph? Couldn't you just say book? Or scholarly book, just to change it up sometimes?" It struck me as so stupid, you go for 18-22 years with everyone calling them books, and all of a sudden you're supposed to call them monographs. And by the time I was done thinking about it, he'd be done explaining Foucault and I would have missed it. Sigh.)

100 Best-ish Nonfiction Titles: History

Big category today, everyone, not least because the Time list of 100 Best Nonfiction titles included a lot of History books, as well as a "Social History" category. What? I think "Social History" is one of those lame categories where no one really knows what it means. So we're dispensing with the two categories and listing Best-ish History titles, full stop. Are you ready?

Here's Time's titles (Social History is in the second list):

The Best and the Brightest, by David Halberstam
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, by Dee Brown
Carry Me Home, by Diane McWhorter
The Fatal Shore, by Robert Hughes
The Gnostic Gospels, by Elaine Pagels
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, by James Agee
A People's History of the United States,* by Howard Zinn
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, by William L. Shirer

The American Way of Death, by Jessica Mitford
Animal Liberation, by Peter Singer
The Beauty Myth, by Naomi Wolf
The Death and Life of Great American Cities, by Jane Jacobs
The Feminine Mystique, by Betty Friedan
Guns, Germs, and Steel, by Jared Diamond
Nickel and Dimed, by Barbara Ehrenreich
The Other America, by Michael Harrington
Why We Can't Wait, by Martin Luther King Jr.
Working, by Studs Terkel

These lists are so lame I don't even know where to start. First of all, why are books like Let Us Now Praise Famous Men and A People's History of the United States called History and not Social History? Why is a book like Nickel and Dimed called Social History and not Investigative or Journalism or Current Affairs? I refuse to play along with these categories--I'm going to offer a separate list of Investigative titles where books like The Beauty Myth and The American Way of Death (which is old, now, but that doesn't really make it "History") can go.

I don't disagree with a few titles on this list; the Studs Terkel in particular is an important and interesting oral history, and I've heard good things about The Fatal Shore, but I'll admit I've not read the majority of them, and the ones I have read didn't do much for me (in particular I've never understood the appeal of Jared Diamond, I think his writing is SO BORING).

Anyway, fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy ride; for me, History is a tough category, because I don't read a ton of it, and I tend to like the under-the-radar titles rather than the big popular Stephen Ambrose types (even before the many plagiarization charges against Ambrose I was not a fan). So this may be a somewhat underdoggy type list.

The Rape of Nanking, Iris Chang. This one should be on Time's Best History list. Period. Rather than paying lip service to women's history with Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique (which also doesn't really belong in the History category), a book of history written by a woman, telling the true horror of what happened to all of Nanking's residents during the second World War, but particularly to its women residents.

Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak, Jean Hatzfeld. An oral history of the Rwandan genocide, told by the people who did the killing. It's unsettling in the extreme but you should read it nonetheless. Philip Gourevitch's We Regret To Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families is a close second in this category.

How the Irish Saved Civilization, Thomas Cahill. This title was quite popular when it came out, and with reason (I thought). Cahill's a good writer and even if you don't agree with his emphasis on the importance of Irish monks saving civilizations' manuscripts, it'll give you something to think about. Just very nice, not overdone, readable history.

Hiroshima, by John Hersey. Well, this one was written at the time, so it probably counts as Investigative as well, but now it's a fantastic read about the history of what atomic weapons do to people. Once you read this one I promise you you'll never forget learning about radiation burning people's kimono patterns directly onto their skin. Hersey was an interesting writer, although some of his works are dated now; another interesting war reporter to consider for historical purposes is Martha Gellhorn.

Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants, by Robert Sullivan. Boo on Mark Kurlansky (for me his books are too long and somewhat dry); I say this one is the best "micro-history" out there. Sullivan explores world and New York City history through the story of its lowliest and arguably most disgusting residents. (I'm still recovering from learning, in this book, that adult rats can squeeze themselves through a hole the size of a quarter.)

In Our Hearts We Were Giants: The Remarkable Story of the Lilliput Troupe--A Dwarf Family's Survival of the Holocaust, by Yehuda Koren. I no longer read books about World War II--historians and publishers seem to think it's the only era in history worth writing about, and I've just read TOO MUCH of it--but when I did this one stood out. The story of a dwarf family being experimented on by Nazi doctors is horrific, but its emphasis on the family's love and support for one another highlights the other side of human nature. Another history which is told on human scale on the topic is Death on the Black Sea: The Untold Story of the Struma and World War II's Holocaust at Sea.

Queen Isabella: Treachery, Adultery, and Murder in Medieval England, Alison Weir. I'm using this one as a stand-in for all the great Historical Biography titles I should be listing, but which I can't think of right now. It's a good idea to read any Alison Weir--she's a well-known and skilled (and comprehensive--her books are the big thick impressive type) historical biographer. I really like getting my history through biography, as a matter of fact; another great choice here would be Robert Massie's Nicholas and Alexandra, from which I learned most of what little I know about Russian and revolution history.

I know I'm missing a TON. What history titles would you suggest?

*I've read maybe half of this one. I keep trying, I liked Howard Zinn, but I just can't get into it.