Reading slump: prefer nonfiction

Try The Warlord Chronicles or The Last Kingdom. They are historical fiction about the time of King Arthur and the time of King Alfred in England, respectively. Both are by Bernard Cornwell.

Since you prefer nonfiction:

•The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan, US history/The Dust Bowl

•The Wager by David Grann, British maritime history

•On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder, contemporary politics

•Paris in Ruins by Sebastian Smee, the birth of Impressionism in art.

•Human Smoke by Nicholson Baker, Germany in WWII.

• The Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England by Ian Mortimer, history in a Lonely Planet style easy reference book

• Salt by Mark Kurlansky, how salt was viewed as part of culture and society across continents and millennia.

• Wicked Plants by Amy Stewart, history and stories of botanical poisons.

All of them are well-worth reading!

Some mindblowing nonfiction books that really spoke to me:

– *Braiding Sweetgrass* by Robin Wall Kimmerer. If you like the way people are from different cultures, I highly recommend this one. It’s about the relationships between people and ecosystems from a Native American (Potawatomi) scientist’s perspective.

– *The No-State Solution: A Jewish Manifesto* by Daniel Boyarin. This is fascinating in a history/philosophy way about Jewish people and what makes the Jewish nation what it is, historically and in the present.

– *The Mismeasure of Man* by Stephen Jay Gould. This is about the history of scientific racism and intelligence testing and it’s REALLY fascinating.

The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes. You’re gonna love it.