Please help me find a book to give my husband for Valentine's Day. He mostly likes to read non fiction histories of obscure topics, especially if they have an anthropological or biological bent. Examples: Salt by Mark Kurlansky, Origin of the Species by Darwin, Sapiens, Lost City of the Monkey Gods etc.
He also loves Lord of the rings, but I haven't seen him read much other fantasy. He enjoyed his recent reread of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn and was laughing out loud during parts of it.
by stellarchella
3 Comments
If he hasn’t read other books by Mark Kurlansky, especially Cod and Paper, those are good options.
I highly recommend books by Diane Ackerman, especially A Natural History of the Senses and especially for Valentine’s Day A Natural History of Love. She’s also a poet but is known for a number of books that take a topic and explore everything from historical references to scientific info to how historical figures have written about it. I had no idea before reading the book on love that for example Benjamin Franklin was quite a charming ladies man although never misleading or crass about it.
Michael Pollan has written many books I think would suit, but I especially like A Place of My Own: The Architecture of Daydreams, where he details the research that went into building a small building behind his home to use as his office, with details about how he investigated obscure joinery styles, window openings etc.
Alex Bellos Here’s Looking at Euclid, covers not just famous mathematicians but a tribe that only counts to five and how ants count steps and so on.
Robert L Wolke What Einstein Told His Cook and several other books on food science and other topics.
Do you think he’d enjoy James by Percival Everett? It’s a retelling of Huck Finn from the perspective of Jim, the escaped slave and had been getting a lot of positive reviews.
Bill Bryson perhaps – A Short History of Nearly Everything, or The Body, or even A Walk in the Woods