# Can anyone recommend a good non-fiction book?



## McRocket

I just read 'Fear' (great book) and have some extra online freebies coming but have no idea what to get.

Any suggestions...but please make it non-fiction?


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## Correll

McRocket said:


> I just read 'Fear' (great book) and have some extra online freebies coming but have no idea what to get.
> 
> Any suggestions...but please make it non-fiction?





The Righteous Mind


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## Oddball

https://www.amazon.com/Creature-Jekyll-Island-Published-Griffin/dp/B00NBJGFD8/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_t_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=8KH4KGQ60M33R67E9VTJ


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## candycorn

McRocket said:


> I just read 'Fear' (great book) and have some extra online freebies coming but have no idea what to get.
> 
> Any suggestions...but please make it non-fiction?



Woodward’s Book, _The Commanders_ is probably one of the better books I read along the lines of the US Government.  It covers from when GHWB took office up until Desert Storm I.    I may pick it up again given the recent departing of GHWB.  It will definitely make you nostalgic for when we had a real President.


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## JGalt




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## candycorn

_The Art of the Deal. _ Oh wait, you said non-fiction.  Nevermind.  It’s a cartoon.


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## Hossfly

Best non-fiction book I've ever read.


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## miketx

McRocket said:


> I just read 'Fear' (great book) and have some extra online freebies coming but have no idea what to get.
> 
> Any suggestions...but please make it non-fiction?


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## McRocket

candycorn said:


> McRocket said:
> 
> 
> 
> I just read 'Fear' (great book) and have some extra online freebies coming but have no idea what to get.
> 
> Any suggestions...but please make it non-fiction?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Woodward’s Book, _The Commanders_ is probably one of the better books I read along the lines of the US Government.  It covers from when GHWB took office up until Desert Storm I.    I may pick it up again given the recent departing of GHWB.  It will definitely make you nostalgic for when we had a real President.
Click to expand...


Hey, sounds perfect. Thanks!


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## Disir




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## skye

If you like biographies and American writers last century ...I recommend this one


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## candycorn

McRocket said:


> candycorn said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> McRocket said:
> 
> 
> 
> I just read 'Fear' (great book) and have some extra online freebies coming but have no idea what to get.
> 
> Any suggestions...but please make it non-fiction?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Woodward’s Book, _The Commanders_ is probably one of the better books I read along the lines of the US Government.  It covers from when GHWB took office up until Desert Storm I.    I may pick it up again given the recent departing of GHWB.  It will definitely make you nostalgic for when we had a real President.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Hey, sounds perfect. Thanks!
Click to expand...


A better book than "Fear" if you ask me only because at the time, you didn't know what you doknow today.  Like (not giving too much away here), Secretary Cheney packed a suitcase on the eve of DS1.  But he didn't take it with him to the Pentagon because he didn't want reporters to know he planned on being there overnight.  He sent an aide to get it and bring it to the Pentagon later.  Today, that would have likely been on Twitter the moment it happened.  "Fear" told us a whole lot of stuff we already knew although that part of Mattis folding boxer shorts is hilarious.


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## Likkmee

*The Long Emergency*


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## longknife

*Here are four of the most amazing nonfiction works I've ever read:*






*A History of the English-Speaking Peoples (The Birth of Britain / The New World / The Age of Revolution / The Great Democracies)*

*by, Sir Winston Churchill*


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## OldLady

The Lost City of Z by David Grann is good, if you like a story about an archeologist/explorer in the South American jungles.
It's been out awhile, so you might have already read it.


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## leecross

longknife said:


> *Here are four of the most amazing nonfiction works I've ever read:*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *A History of the English-Speaking Peoples (The Birth of Britain / The New World / The Age of Revolution / The Great Democracies)*
> 
> *by, Sir Winston Churchill*


Reading those is on my bucket list.

Churchill was a GREAT man. Maybe the greatest of the 20th Century.

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## leecross

McRocket said:


> I just read 'Fear' (great book) and have some extra online freebies coming but have no idea what to get.
> 
> Any suggestions...but please make it non-fiction?


I know you said non fiction, but there are some here who might go for historically based fiction.


The Day of the Jackal

For the 1973 film adaptation of the novel, see The Day of the Jackal (film).

The Day of the Jackal (1971) is a thrillernovel by English writer Frederick Forsythabout a professional assassin who is contracted by the OAS, a French dissident paramilitary organisation, to kill Charles de Gaulle, the President of France.

The Day of the Jackal[https://upload]

1971 UK 1st Edition dustjacket (spine & front)

AuthorFrederick ForsythCountryUnited KingdomLanguageEnglishGenreSpy, Thriller, Historical novelPublisherHutchinson & Co(UK)
Viking Press (US)

Publication date

7 June 1971 (UK)
6 August 1971 (US)Media typePrint (hardback & paperback)Pages358 pp (first edition, UK)
380 pp (first edition, US)ISBN0-09-107390-1(first edition, hardback)OCLC213704

Dewey Decimal

823/.9/14LC ClassPZ4.F7349 Day3 PR6056.O699

The novel received admiring reviews and praise when first published in 1971, and it received a 1972 Best Novel Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America. The novel remains popular, and in 2003 it was listed on the BBC's survey The Big Read.[1]

The OAS does exist as described in the novel, and the book opens with an accurate depiction of the attempt to assassinate de Gaulle as led by Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry, but the subsequent plot is completely fictional.

The Day of the Jackal - Wikipedia

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## flacaltenn

McRocket said:


> I just read 'Fear' (great book) and have some extra online freebies coming but have no idea what to get.
> 
> Any suggestions...but please make it non-fiction?



Get yourself a copy of the Official GRE Study Guide and test yourself..  Great way to spend time improving your life... Forget the salacious political tell-alls and narcissistic biographies. Do something for yourself...


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## CrusaderFrank

McRocket said:


> I just read 'Fear' (great book) and have some extra online freebies coming but have no idea what to get.
> 
> Any suggestions...but please make it non-fiction?


Anything by Erik Larson


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## beautress

CrusaderFrank said:


> McRocket said:
> 
> 
> 
> I just read 'Fear' (great book) and have some extra online freebies coming but have no idea what to get.
> 
> Any suggestions...but please make it non-fiction?
> 
> 
> 
> Anything by Erik Larson
Click to expand...

I found 3 books by Erik Larson that looked interesting--"The Devil in the white City," In the Garden of Beasts", And "Dead Wake: the Last Crossing of the Lithuania. I just found all 3 on Amazon and put an order in. Sometimes they go through and sometimes they don't when you order books through bargain sellers. We'll see what the mailman brings. 
Thanks for the tip. I read their short content notes--two deal with issues during World Wars, and one deals with a serial killer in a big city fair  in the 1890s.


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## dblack

McRocket said:


> I just read 'Fear' (great book) and have some extra online freebies coming but have no idea what to get.
> 
> Any suggestions...but please make it non-fiction?



Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid - my very favorite book of all time.


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## leecross

beautress said:


> CrusaderFrank said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> McRocket said:
> 
> 
> 
> I just read 'Fear' (great book) and have some extra online freebies coming but have no idea what to get.
> 
> Any suggestions...but please make it non-fiction?
> 
> 
> 
> Anything by Erik Larson
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> I found 3 books by Erik Larson that looked interesting--"The Devil in the white City," In the Garden of Beasts", And "Dead Wake: the Last Crossing of the Lithuania. I just found all 3 on Amazon and put an order in. Sometimes they go through and sometimes they don't when you order books through bargain sellers. We'll see what the mailman brings.
> Thanks for the tip. I read their short content notes--two deal with issues during World Wars, and one deals with a serial killer in a big city fair  in the 1890s.
Click to expand...


*Erik Larson’s ‘Dead Wake,’ About the Lusitania*




Credit John Shuley & Company/Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

By Hampton Sides

    March 5, 2015

One day seven years ago, while on a magazine assignment, I found myself on a boat off the coast of Ireland, bobbing in dark, heavy seas 300 feet above the slumbering wreck of the R.M.S. Lusitania as sport divers returned triumphantly to the surface. When they came aboard, the gleeful explorers, part of a marine archaeology expedition sanctioned by the Irish government, produced a piece of history — a plastic container holding a handful of .303 rounds they’d found inside the plankton-hazed ruins, rounds that had been manufactured in America and bought by the British to kill Germans during World War I. One of the divers peeled back the lid, and the corroded ammunition greeted fresh air for the first time in 93 years. “There’s thousands of cases of ammo down in that hole!” one of the Irish divers cried out. “You could just scoop the stuff up!” But then he turned somber. Even though he had dived the great wreck dozens of times before, the expression on his face was that of a spooked man. “It will always be a scary place, a daunting place,” he told me. “There’s a lot of lost souls down there.”

Few tales in history are more haunting, more tangled with investigatory mazes or more fraught with toxic secrets than that of the final voyage of the Lusitania, one of the colossal tragedies of maritime history. It’s the other Titanic, the story of a mighty ship sunk not by the grandeur of nature but by the grimness of man. On May 7, 1915, the four-funneled, 787-foot Cunard superliner, on a run from New York to Liverpool, encountered a German submarine, the U-20, about 11 miles off the coast of Ireland. The U-boat’s captain, Walther Schwieger, was pleased to discover that the passenger steamer had no naval escort. Following his government’s new policy of unrestricted warfare, Schwieger fired a single torpedo into her hull. Less than half a minute later, a second explosion shuddered from somewhere deep within the bowels of the vessel, and she listed precariously to starboard.

The Lusitania sank in just 18 minutes. Nearly 1,200
...

More at link.

Erik Larson’s ‘Dead Wake,’ About the Lusitania


After watching "A Night to Remember" over the years since it's 1958 debut, and the various documentary accounts of the Titanic tragedy, I never once felt any interest in watching the Leonardo DiCaprio film. And to date I still have not seen it.

But the story of the Lusitania sinking has always tantalized me and seemed just as tragic.

I believe it actually WAS bearing military armaments, but still...


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## williepete

1491

Eye opening. If 1491 whets your appetite, there is a follow on book, 1493.


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## CrusaderFrank

1421: the year the Chinese discovered America


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## Vastator

McRocket said:


> I just read 'Fear' (great book) and have some extra online freebies coming but have no idea what to get.
> 
> Any suggestions...but please make it non-fiction?


The Bell Curve.


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## Wry Catcher

McRocket said:


> I just read 'Fear' (great book) and have some extra online freebies coming but have no idea what to get.
> 
> Any suggestions...but please make it non-fiction?



For our times, ON VIOLENCE By Hannah Arendt

From the review:

"Dr Arendt discusses the theories about violence in historical perspective and re-examines the relationship  between war and politics, violence and power."

It is not an easy read.

The final paragraph of On Violence:  is enlightening.  In short ..."those who hold power and feel it slipping from their hands, be they the government or the people being governed, have always found it difficult to resist the temptation to substitute violence for it"


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## Wry Catcher

leecross said:


> beautress said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> CrusaderFrank said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> McRocket said:
> 
> 
> 
> I just read 'Fear' (great book) and have some extra online freebies coming but have no idea what to get.
> 
> Any suggestions...but please make it non-fiction?
> 
> 
> 
> Anything by Erik Larson
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> I found 3 books by Erik Larson that looked interesting--"The Devil in the white City," In the Garden of Beasts", And "Dead Wake: the Last Crossing of the Lithuania. I just found all 3 on Amazon and put an order in. Sometimes they go through and sometimes they don't when you order books through bargain sellers. We'll see what the mailman brings.
> Thanks for the tip. I read their short content notes--two deal with issues during World Wars, and one deals with a serial killer in a big city fair  in the 1890s.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> *Erik Larson’s ‘Dead Wake,’ About the Lusitania*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Credit John Shuley & Company/Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division
> 
> By Hampton Sides
> 
> March 5, 2015
> 
> One day seven years ago, while on a magazine assignment, I found myself on a boat off the coast of Ireland, bobbing in dark, heavy seas 300 feet above the slumbering wreck of the R.M.S. Lusitania as sport divers returned triumphantly to the surface. When they came aboard, the gleeful explorers, part of a marine archaeology expedition sanctioned by the Irish government, produced a piece of history — a plastic container holding a handful of .303 rounds they’d found inside the plankton-hazed ruins, rounds that had been manufactured in America and bought by the British to kill Germans during World War I. One of the divers peeled back the lid, and the corroded ammunition greeted fresh air for the first time in 93 years. “There’s thousands of cases of ammo down in that hole!” one of the Irish divers cried out. “You could just scoop the stuff up!” But then he turned somber. Even though he had dived the great wreck dozens of times before, the expression on his face was that of a spooked man. “It will always be a scary place, a daunting place,” he told me. “There’s a lot of lost souls down there.”
> 
> Few tales in history are more haunting, more tangled with investigatory mazes or more fraught with toxic secrets than that of the final voyage of the Lusitania, one of the colossal tragedies of maritime history. It’s the other Titanic, the story of a mighty ship sunk not by the grandeur of nature but by the grimness of man. On May 7, 1915, the four-funneled, 787-foot Cunard superliner, on a run from New York to Liverpool, encountered a German submarine, the U-20, about 11 miles off the coast of Ireland. The U-boat’s captain, Walther Schwieger, was pleased to discover that the passenger steamer had no naval escort. Following his government’s new policy of unrestricted warfare, Schwieger fired a single torpedo into her hull. Less than half a minute later, a second explosion shuddered from somewhere deep within the bowels of the vessel, and she listed precariously to starboard.
> 
> The Lusitania sank in just 18 minutes. Nearly 1,200
> ...
> 
> More at link.
> 
> Erik Larson’s ‘Dead Wake,’ About the Lusitania
> 
> 
> After watching "A Night to Remember" over the years since it's 1958 debut, and the various documentary accounts of the Titanic tragedy, I never once felt any interest in watching the Leonardo DiCaprio film. And to date I still have not seen it.
> 
> But the story of the Lusitania sinking has always tantalized me and seemed just as tragic.
> 
> I believe it actually WAS bearing military armaments, but still...
Click to expand...


I read it on a cruise to Alaska, historical fiction but very interesting especially when read by someone who also served on a Tin Can doing ASW patrol.


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## Blackrook

JGalt said:


>


So the Daddy is black, Mommy is Asian and the baby is white?  WTF???


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## leecross

Wry Catcher said:


> McRocket said:
> 
> 
> 
> I just read 'Fear' (great book) and have some extra online freebies coming but have no idea what to get.
> 
> Any suggestions...but please make it non-fiction?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> For our times, ON VIOLENCE By Hannah Arendt
> 
> From the review:
> 
> "Dr Arendt discusses the theories about violence in historical perspective and re-examines the relationship  between war and politics, violence and power."
> 
> It is not an easy read.
> 
> The final paragraph of On Violence:  is enlightening.  In short ..."those who hold power and feel it slipping from their hands, be they the government or the people being governed, have always found it difficult to resist the temptation to substitute violence for it"
Click to expand...

That is an interesting observation.



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## leecross

Blackrook said:


> JGalt said:
> 
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> 
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> So the Daddy is black, Mommy is Asian and the baby is white?  WTF???
Click to expand...

Somehow I can imagine it vying for credibility in a young atheist's mind (such as our youngest are being bred to be) with the story of Mary's immaculate conception (Jesus' virgin birth).

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