I'm looking for nonfiction books on subjects that surprised you as to how fascinating they were even though the subject matter might be niche.
There are tons of books about the presidents, wars, political conflicts, true crime, etc.
I just started Beautiful Swimmers (granted, I am from Maryland) and it's a nice charming look into a topic I would've never explored too much in depth. I'm planning on reading How to Build a Car next because I have recently started watching F1.
So what niche interest areas have you learned about because of a good book that surprised you?
by GooberBuber
10 Comments
The Hot zone by Richard Preston.
It made me want to study the subject.
The Book of Eels by Svensson– it’s a meditation on life as much as anything, but you learn so much about eels, and I was surprisingly fascinated. Such a lovely book. I recommend it all the time.
Oranges by John McPhee. There’s even a review blurb on the back of the edition I read that says something like, “You may come to the end of this book and say to yourself, ‘but I can’t just have read a whole book about oranges!’” Or anything by McPhee, really.
Nuclear War – a minute-by-minute (sometimes second-by-second) account of what is likely to happen in the case of a nuclear war.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. I may have got the author’s name slightly wrong. Check it out, interesting on so many levels.
Stiff by Mary Roach. Everything you didn’t know about dead bodies.
I recommend this one every time a request for a nonfic rec comes up because it’s honestly one of the best and most interesting books I’ve ever read: Vagina Obscura, by Rachel E. Gross. So little scientific research has been done on women’s health and reproductive system, and she really gets in deep (pun intended). FASCINATING and super well-written book.
Some great and kind of random nonfiction I’ve read over the years:
My Own Country by Abraham Verghese (a doctor writing about the early days of AIDS in a small town in the American south).
A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson (maybe outdated now on some stuff)
Alex & Me by Irene M. Pepperberg (she trained parrots – it’s an super unexpectedly great book, probably my top recommendation)
Mary Roach!
Everything is Tuberculosis–John Green
Fire Weather–John Valliant
How Not to be Wrong–Jordan Ellenberg
Paved Paradise–Henry Grabar