Help me, oh internets

[miss_s_b]

You know that list of 100 fiction books you must read? That's been all over facebook and LJ and everywhere as a meme?

Well, I think there should be a non-fiction list of a similar kind. If you were to compile such a list, what would you put on it? We have a list of about 60 so far...

Do feel free to have a good argument with each other in the comments :D

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Comments

[http://www.nickbarlow.com/blog/]

Well, from a quick scan over my shelves, I'd suggest:

[i]Guns, Germs and Steel
The Language Instinct
The Blind Watchmaker
Stalingrad
On Liberty[/i]
Norman Davies' [i]Europe: A History[/i]
Michael Bywater's [i]Lost Worlds[/i]
And maybe [i]The Open Society And Its Enemies[/i]

And I'm sure there are others, but those come to mind from a brief scan.

[andrewhickey.info]

Oh, Lost Worlds is *GOOD*. Don't know if I'd put it in the 'necessary' category, but definitely in the 'wonderful book' category...

Me coupl' o' suggestions

[tommybblog.blogspot.com]

A Brief History of Time: Stephen Hawking
Last Chance to See: Douglas Adams with Mark Cawardine
Almost Everyone's Guide to Science: John Gribbin.

[ggreig.livejournal.com]

Most Secret War, R.V. Jones - practical applications of science during World War II, young scientist winds up advising Churchill.

Difficult to come up with any others, because factual books tend to be pretty niche in one way or another. I'd include Most Secret War because the science is fairly accessible to non-scientists, it's a personal story at the centre of a big historical event, but it's aspirational - science and learning can make a difference.

[draigwen]

How about Bill Bryson's A short history of nearly everything?

What about biographies? I love Palin's diaries but I'm not sure if that would be suitable for the list.

There's always The rise and fall of the Roman Empire which I'd love to say I've read, but all 8 books have been sitting on my bookcase unopened for 15 years.

[matgb]

An economics primer, preferably reasonably recent and accessible, Undercover Economist is my normal recommendation.

A couple good general history books--one for your country of residence, one for your continent of residence, one for the world. Millenium could do the job for the last, although I never managed to wade through it properly.

There are a few bits of history I think most should have extra understanding of in general, US civil war perhaps, WW2 and run up to (which basically means WW1). Hobsbawm's Age of series is pretty good for that overall, wiht Age of Extremes being the one most popular.

Some decent science texts, and some political philosphy.

Oh, and something good on the rule of law and the principles of justice. Rumpole doesn't count there, right?

Perhaps the Pratchett et al Science of the Diskworld books? I learnt a lot from them, good overall grounding in a wide area is useful.

[po8crg]

A book that I absolutely adore that stretches the mind in all sorts of interesting new ways: After the Ice: A Global Human History 20000-5000BC Steven Mithen.

Agreed on the general history - Norman Davies' Europe is better than the average European history, in that he notices that countries between Germany and Russia actually exist. Early editions have an awful lot of (minor) factual errors, so get a later one.

Not really in the top 100, but a really exceptional book that makes you rethink all the WWII history you've read: Brute Force John Ellis. You need a good grounding in WWII history and historiography to appreciate it, which is why it doesn't belong in a top 100. But you can't claim to understand WWII unless you've read it and argued with it.

The bits of history you need to understand more about are the ones that are still being argued about by non-historians. American Civil War to realise it really was about slavery, WWII so you know just how awful Hitler and Stalin's regimes really were, and the British Empire (assuming you're British yourself) so you can see both how good and how horrific it was.

[andrewhickey.info]

On The Origin Of Species
The Feynman Lectures In Physics
The Golden Bough by J.G. Frazer - the first and greatest work of comparative anthropology, though almost all completely wrong.
The Beatles In Mono by Andrew Hickey ;)
Ascorbate by Stephen Hickey & Hilary Roberts (seriously, even though Steve's my uncle)
Tunesmith by Jimmy Webb - best book on the art and craft of songwriting ever written
On Writing by Stephen King - best book on writing prose there is
Collected Essays by George Orwell - especially Politics And The English Language
The Fabric Of Reality by David Deutsch - wonderful pop-science look at the basics of quantum physics, computing, evolutionary theory and Popperian epistemology and how they tie together
An Introduction To Cybernetics by W. Ross Ashby - Cybernetics (the study of control systems) is essential not only to computing but also to politics and communication. The single most important book on this list.
Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter - a great explanation of Godel's theorem and its implications for artificial intelligence, amongst other things
Where Dawkins Went Wrong by Andrew Rilstone - because it's the best book I've ever read on religion by a religious person, and even if you're not religious, it's an important part of society.
Alec: The Years Have Pants by Eddie Campbell - the greatest comics autobiography ever
Lennon Remembers - the best of the several John Lennon long-form interviews out there
Vive La Revolution by Mark Steel - a great, funny look at the French Revolution
Extraordinary Popular Delusions And The Madness Of Crowds
Talking Cock by Richard Herring - a genuinely thought-provoking, but funny, book about attitudes to the penis
Flat Earth News - Nick Davies
The About Time books by Lawrence Miles and Tat Wood - even though they're ostensibly about Doctor Who, they're just as much a cultural history of Britain 1963-1989

[pickwick]

Seconding The Language Instinct, Flat Earth News and Godel, Escher, Bach (although the maths of the latter defeated me by about page 200.)

What else? Hmm. I'm not at home, so I can't look at my bookshelves. Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig and/or Convergence Culture by Henry Jenkins. Breaking The Spell by Daniel Dennett. Something about Greek myths.

[po8crg]

Funny, it was the music of Godel, Escher, Bach that proved problematic for me. I ended up listening to a lot of Bach, and found a real joy in classical (well, Bach's Baroque, but YKWIM) music. I need to find the time to get my head around some other composers - I think Mozart should be next, so suggestions on a primer that will explain [b]why[/b] it is how it is?

[innerbrat]

On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection by Charles Darwin

The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould. A great history of eugenics and the IQ myth.

A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn. Yes, US centric, but still an important history of one of the world's superpowers.

Experience and Education by John Dewey. For all teachers, parents, and people with an interest in education.

Life: An Unauthorised Biography by Richard Fortey

Bad Science by Ben Goldacre. I don't care if you agree or disagree with his opinions or conclusions, everyone should be aware of the methodology of scepticism.

Religious texts: The Bible, Torah, Qu'ran, Tao Tse Ching,


I'm sure I'll think of more.

[innerbrat]

The Art of War, of course.
The Diary of Anne Frank,
The Communinist Manifesto,
An Essay on the Principle of Population by Thomas Robert Malthus
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, though strictly speaking I thinkk this is fiction.

[scarier.wordpress.com]

Hmm

I am a big proponent of Naomi Klein's "No Logo".

+1 for the Feynman Lectures on Physics, and of course "On Liberty" is a given from a Liberal...

..but isn't that kind of the problem here? There's going to be a very ideological/cultural slant to a list written mainly by liberals (or at least liberal sympathisers) and geeks. It might be messy and annoying, but the balance of coverage given by such a list to particular things would have to be thought through carefully, otherwise it might just look a bit silly (IMO). Perhaps for balance it ought to also include the communist manifesto and some sort of expression of conservatism, too.

Oh well, overlooking that thought for now...

There are some good picks here: http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-nonfiction/

Ignore the "readers' list" on the right, which appears to have been overrun with votes from Randroids to a quite ludicrous extent.

[matgb]

We're looking at Comunist Manifesto anyway, and Clarke diaries and possibly something by Churchill, I've got a few other ideas.

[(Anonymous)]

Dry Store Room No 1 - Richard Fortey

[burkesworks]

The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein and Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky & Edward S. Herman are both essential reading if you want to comprehend why the world is in the state it's in right now; unsurprisingly both have shaped my world view greatly.

Other essential non-fiction titles here include Wisden (naturally), Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman? and Fear And Loathing: On The Campaign Trail '72.

[davegodfrey]

The Encyclopaedia Britannica ;)

Ok, more serious answers.

Richard Hooke - Micrographia
Carl Sagan - The Demon Haunted World
Steve Jones - The Language of the Genes
Richard Fortey - Life, An Unauthorised Biography
Richard Fortey - Earth, An Intimate History
Jared Diamond - Guns, Germs and Steel (The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee comes a close second.)
Charles Darwin - The Voyage of the Beagle
Charles Darwin - Origin of Species
Richard Dawkins - The Selfish Gene
Matt Ridley - The Red Queen
Stephen Jay Gould - You could pick any of his essay collections, but The Mismeasure Of Man has a very important message. (Although I've not read it, some of the chapters are modified from essays that appear elsewhere.)

[norfolkian.livejournal.com]

In Defence of Food by Michael Pollan

[neohippie.livejournal.com]

Good suggestions here, but I don't think anybody has mentioned Silent Spring yet.

You'd be surprised how relevant that book still is! (Actually, it seems like in a low of ways we're going backwards to how it was before that book was written. :-( )

The Origin of Species trumps anything by Dawkins. It's surprisingly readable too.

Can't think of any others that EVERYONE need to read off the top of my head right now, that no one else has mentioned. All Americans need to read Lies My Teacher Told Me. Anyone who has anything to do with animals need to read Animals in Translation by Temple Grandin. All neopagans need to read Triumph of the Moon by Ronald Hutton.

But really, Silent Spring, you guys! And then realize this stuff is all still going on.

[bagfish]

Animals in Translation is just such a wonderful book - I read it for the first time last month and was completely bowled over by it!

[(Anonymous)]

From Jane. A few suggestions:

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.
The Complete Plain Words by Sir Ernest Gowers
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White
Six Degrees by Mark Lynas
Dark Continent by Mark Mazower
The Cathedral Builders by Jean Gimpel
Walden by HD Thoreau
Boswell's London Journal
Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome
Snobbery with Violence by Colin Watson

[davegodfrey]

Is Three Men In A Boat really Non-Fiction? I had no idea...

[djm4]

Ones that aren't already listed:

Fowler's Modern English Usage (Second Edition) - it's not up-to-date, but it's beautifully written, and it's a great example of a grammarian detailing how language is used, rather than prescribing how it should be.
Something by Richard Holloway, probably Looking Into The Distance.
How to be a Bad Birdwatcher by Simon Barnes.
Something by Martin Gardner, possibly Mathematical Circus.
Figments of Reality by Jack Cohen and Ian Stewart
Sustainable Energy - without the hot air by David J C MacKay
Metamagical Themas by Douglas Hofstadter.
The Diet Myth by Paul Campos.
a man without a country by Kurt Vonnegut.
Consciousness Explained by Daniel Dennett (on the other hand, I confess that Breaking The Spell is one of the few books I've had the urge to throw across the room and totally failed to finish)

All of those authors are male and, I think, all are white. This is a failing I would like to correct, if anyone has any recommendations.

Of the ones already mentioned, I would especially like to put in a plus one for On Liberty, Last Chance To See, Guns, Germs and Steel, Vive La Revolution, the About Time series (but then I'm biased; I know both the authors), Bad Science, The Demon Haunted World, Gödel, Escher, Bach, The Selfish Gene and Animals in Translation.

[lizw]

See my comment below - about half of those are BME authors, and a few are women.

[purplecthulhu]

Godel, Escher, Bach, The Eternal Golden Braid, by Douglas Hofstadter

The most wonderful non-fiction book ever written.

The Dancing Wu Li Masters, by Gary Zukav

While a little outdated, a fun romp through some of the oddities and philosophical implications of Quantum Mechanics

The First Three Minutes, by Steve Weinberg

A history of the what might be the most important moments of the universe.

The Earthcare Manual, by Patrick Whitefield

An eyeopening yet practical introduction to building sustainable human habitats in temperate climates.

+1s

[purplecthulhu]

And +1s to The Feyman Lectures, The Demon Haunted World, Bad Science.

I'd also add Banesh Hoffman's Einstein, which works as a biography and as an introduction to his science.

[trialia]

Despite its theories being rather out of date now, I'd add Ignatius Donnelly's Atlantis: The Antediluvian World to that list... I'm sure I can come up with more, but not off the top of my head.

[wildthyme]

The problem I have with a lot of the books posted is that they're straight from any university's Politics and philosophy degree course guides.

Hardly what I'd call "entry level" for someone who's never picked up a book since they left school. The list needs to be more inclusive. At least ten of the books should be for people with no further and higher education and provide a gateway into wanting to learn more and start on the more specialised books.

Yes, Feynman is entertaining, but is the average person with no idea where to start really going to understand him from the outset?

[davegodfrey.livejournal.com]

Depends on the Feynman book. Six not-so-easy pieces or the "lectures" would be a bad place to start, but "Surely you'r Joking..." and "Don't you have time to think?" are personal memoires as much as anything else. "Six easy pieces" is probably easier to approach than "A brief history of time" for the layperson.

[lizw]

The Stripping of the Altars by Eamon Duffy. It's brilliant at making people realise how alien England's past is - a world where Government cared how many candles churches put on their altars - and also brilliant at making the reader understand the emotional world of the adherents of a religion even if it isn't their own.

Orientalism by Edward Said. It's a rant, but it's an inspired one, and a necessary cultural reference for anyone who wants to get involved in anti-racism, however tangentially.

Getting Things Done by David Allen. Everyone needs some basic personal productivity skills, and his system is effective and customisable.

The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf, to illustrate how screwed up our ideas about gender really are.

Dirt, Greed and Sex by L. William Countryman, to make people think again about what Christian ethics is all about (useful even for non-Christians, I think, given how pervasive Sunday-school level ideas about the Sermon on the Mount etc are - and I say that knowing that a lot of non-Christians will read it and like Christianity even less afterwards than they did before.)

The Peace to End All Peace by David Fromkin, to help explain the mess that is the current Middle East and why the only constructive thing Western nations can do there is Just Stop Interfering Already.

Nakba: Palestine, 1948 and the Claims of Memory edited by Ahmad Sa'di and Lila Abu-Lughod (eds.), because the Nakba is undeservedly neglected in the public consciousness by comparison to the Shoah.

Prejudice: Its Social Psychology by Rupert Brown. A classic on the causes and remedies of prejudice, particularly the racist and sexist varieties, but also taking in weight, nationality and disability.

A Theory of Justice by John Rawls. An extremely clear reinterpretation of social contract theory with good discussion of the relative merits of value ethics, utilitarianism and teleological ethics, and one of the best attempts yet at an actual methodology for incorporating the interests of the underprivileged when trying to balance different priorities. It's far from perfect, but it's well worth reading and laid the groundwork for much that came after.

The Myth of the Holy Cow by D.N. Jha, because as myths go, that one is extraordinarily widespread amongst non-Hindus, and it turns out there's a lot more to it than that; also a good illustration of how internal class privilege can distort the image a society presents to the outside.

Speaking in God's Name: Islamic Law, Authority and Women by Khaled Abou El Fadl, both to correct some more myths and for its very readable introduction to hermeneutics (methods of interpretation), which is a skill more people should have.

Passionate Uprisings: Iran's Sexual Revolution by Pardis Mahdavi, as a corrective to many Western narratives about Iranian women in which they seem to lose all their agency.

The Souls of Black Folk by W.E. Dubois - the source of the concept of "double consciousness", which has since become key in just about all forms of anti-oppression work.

Also +1s to On Liberty, Last Chance to See, Figments of Reality, Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air, and "something by Richard Holloway" - though I'd suggest Godless Morality. And +severalmillion to The Diet Myth (although the original and IMO better title was The Obesity Myth). Apart from the fact that many people's lives would be transformed for the better by realising how crap a lot of the "science" about weight and diet is, it reinforces the sceptical message of Bad Science rather nicely.

[ginasketch]

I second Dry Store Room 1 by Richard Fortey, A Short History of Nearly Everyhing by Bill Bryson and Animals in Translation by Temple Grandin.

I'd also add The Hot Zone by Richard Preston (though I would steer clear if gorey descriptions of disease scare you) and The Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick.

[ginasketch]

OOh crap. I also add Bad Science by Goldacre.

[gwenhwyfaer]

Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations

The Book of the Damned, by Charles Fort (and other works by Fort and John Keel are worth a read too)

And one more vote for No Logo

[gwenhwyfaer]

Oops, one more: Fields, Factories and Workshops, by Peter Kropotkin

too much physics and biology

[po8crg]

We seem to have managed a fair amount of physics and biology, but no chemistry or biochemistry. I'm tempted to suggest Ignition (John Clark), but it's a very narrow subject (rocket fuel), it's been out of print for decades, and copies are worth about £500. There is a PDF of it online and it's a fabulous read.

Any suggestions of something that will explain the basic principles of chemistry (atoms, ions, molecules, valence, ionic and covalent bonds, C-C structures and radicals, heat of formation, etc) and isn't a text book? Enough biochem to get your head around the respiration cycle would also be useful - a basic grounding in science can result in you shouting at the radio/TV a lot when they completely fail to explain something.

And, we could do with some maths. There, I don't even know where to start.

[po8crg]

A good historical atlas of the world.

Political boundaries as they change will pick up more clearly the bits of history you missed than reading many narrative accounts - you can't cover up what you aren't mentioning on a map so easily.

But a good historical atlas will also show religion, language, industry, extractive resources (coal, oil, etc), economies, military, trade routes, explorations, etc. Again, you can't hide complexity by not mentioning it on a map.