I love non-fiction books about human biology, cancer, social issues, near-death, survival books, and indigenous people. While primarily searching for recommendations in these categories, I would be willing to hear about other exceptional non-fiction books.
Some of my most favourite non-fiction reads were (no particular order):
- Poverty by America
- The In-between
- The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks
- Everything is Tuberculosis
- The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet
- Evolution Gone Wrong
- No More Tears: The Dark Secrets of Johnson & Johnson
- What Happened To You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing
- The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder
- Ghost Boy: My Miraculous Escape from a Life Locked Inside My Own Body
- Dying to Be Me: My Journey from Cancer, to Near Death, to True Healing
EDIT: actually even fiction might be nice, but not sure if you can found something covering these categories as well. 🙂
by Tiramissu_dt
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Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese.
Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green
Survival Stories/Near Death:
Into Thin Air by Krakauer
A Marriage at Sea by Elmhirst
*The Body* by Bill Bryson for human biology.
The Emperor of all Maladies 🫡
i loved his storytelling style, especially for such a morbid subject.
JUDY MELINEK –
“Working stiff : two years, 262 bodies, and the making of a medical examiner”
MARY ROACH –
“Stiff : the curious lives of cadavers”
CAITLIN DOUGHTY
“Will my cat eat my eyeballs? : big questions from tiny mortals about death”
“From here to eternity : traveling the world to find the good death”
“Smoke gets in your eyes : and other lessons from the crematory”
But really anything by any of these authors is good.
Destiny of the republic by Candace Millard
Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing
Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks was super interesting: tells the story of Henrietta Lacks, a poor Black tobacco farmer whose cancerous cells were taken without her consent in 1951, becoming the first immortal human cell line (HeLa) used in countless medical breakthroughs like the polio vaccine, gene mapping, and cloning
Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Start Up
Educated
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in an American City
Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything
Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End
Me Talk Pretty One Day
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales
Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall
I genuinly think I have the best reading rec for you, please trust me.
Undue risk: Secret State Experiments on Humans by Jonathon D. Moreno. It is a very dark topic, yes, but it is not written in a sensationalist way. It is educational, political, and anthropologically focused. It will become one of those books that lives as a reference book in your brain, constantly relevant to what’s going on in the present day in some way or another.
Some others are:
*The Poison Squad by Deborah Plum
*Written in Bone by Sue Black
*Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dylativ Pass Incident by Donnie Eichar
*Raw Dog: The Naked Tuth about Hot Dogs by Jamie Loftus
*Franchise: The Golden Arches of Black America by Marcia Chatelain
Three of these are food focused but they cover the food industries’ intersection with social issues, food science, and health issues so you might like them.
Look for books by Julian Fontayne
Man’s Search for Meaning
deep down dark: the untold stories of 33 men buried in a chilean mine, and the miracle that set them free
indianapolis: the true story of the worst sea disaster in u.s. naval history and the fifty-year fight to exonerate an innocent man
(side note: why are non-fiction titles so long lmao)
ladies and gentlemen, the bronx is burning: 1977, baseball, politics, and the battle for the soul of a city
going up the river: travels in a prison nation
the wager: a tale of shipwreck, mutiny, and murder
code name: lise: the true story of the woman who became wwii’s most highly decorated spy
american prison: a reporter’s undercover journey into the business of punishment
the longest race: inside the secret world of abuse, doping, and deception on nike’s elite running team
i’m glad my mom died
the boys in the boat: nine americans and their epic quest for gold at the 1936 olympics
survival of the fastest: weed, speed, and the 1980’s drug scandal that shocked the sports world
the girl with seven names: a north korean defector’s story
endurance: shackleton’s incredible voyage
i could keep going but i hope this helps!!