indiana_j: (Default)
indiana_j ([personal profile] indiana_j) wrote2011-12-20 06:23 pm

Nonfiction help

I need nonfiction recommendations.  I'm not normally a reader of nonfiction - fantasy and horror, with the occasional foray into mystery and, every once in a while, romance (I generally prefer my fiction to have romance in them but I'm not generally a fan of the romance novel, per say) - but I've read a few this year that I really liked.

Namely, Deborah Blum's The Poisoner's Handbook earlier this year (which I'd recommend reading, btw, it's really, really good and very well written) and currently The Billionaire's Vinegar by Benjamin Wallace, which is about a bottle of wine that sold for $156,000 - it's pretty good, if a bit dry at times.

I'd like to read more, especially since I'm getting a Kindle and won't necessarily have to have these in physical form, but I don't know what to get.  So I turn to you guys, with these things to be kept in mind:

* I really do like history and am not much of a science person.  However, that being said, as long as something is interesting and doesn't either make me feel stupid and / or make me feel like it's talking down to me, I can read.  Also, food related books (I have a book I'll be reading called The Foie Gras War) are a win.

* They have to be interesting.  The reason I generally prefer fiction to nonfiction is that the first is able to keep my attention and I have trouble doing so with nonfiction.  So, nonfiction that ... I don't know, feels like a good enough story to be fiction?

Areas of interest: food, history, science and any others that folks think I might be interested in.

[identity profile] indiana-j.livejournal.com 2011-12-22 12:35 pm (UTC)(link)
You've pretty much sold me on the book - though I started to get worried when you mentioned simplicity after that equation. Because to me, that doesn't look simple. But the rest of it convinced me!

I like books like that - where the key element is science but it's the story of it or its impact. Where I can feel that I came away learning something without feeling like I was stupid / talked down to during it.

Essentially, over the last year, especially after reading Blum, I realized that history in general terms isn't the only type of history that's interesting and that I can read a history science book and enjoy it.

[identity profile] mike-smith.livejournal.com 2011-12-24 04:17 am (UTC)(link)
What I mean is I just appreciated the "x plus y makes xy" aspect to it. Ammonia is a molecule made of nitrogen and hydrogen atoms, and you can actually make it by just cramming nitrogen and hydrogen gas together. Usually it`s not that easy.