100 Greatest Non-Fiction Books?

[PaulB]

Even that terrible book about Big Mig?

Yes, I love aerial combat over Korea, me.

 

[Canrider]

Domesday book?

Tao Te Ching?

The Gateless Gate?

Hammurabi's code of laws?

 

[swee'pea99]

No AJP Taylor in the history, Wittgenstein in the philosophy, Hunter S Thompson (Dr.) in the journalism or Bill Bryson in the travel? Weird. Especially the Bryson.

 

[marinyork]

Euclid's Elements. It is generally quite hard including Maths books, because although there have been a few great ones either the public haven't heard of them, or they aren't books, but more in other formats.
On the interesting suggestions of earlier, I would agree with The Extended Phenotype, I would agree with various other people that have said that Aristotle's various books on Biology such as The Parts of Animals and History of Animals are somewhere up there. I haven't unfortunately read all of them.
QED by Feynman
The Republic - it's not going to be a very popular choice, but I think this tells us so much about ourselves and the world our minds inhabit. It was an explosively influential work.
Discourse on the origin of inequality by Rousseau.

I would agree heavily with some of the choices in there like Montaigne, Fanon, Carson and Lovelock. I'm not sure that religion is up to much in that list though, seems a bit on the sparse side.

 

[Chromatic]

Yes, I love aerial combat over Korea, me.

A bad book about aerial combat over Korea couldn't be worse than the book in question. Mind you maybe it was about that, there was lots of bollocks about flying like the wind and such guff.

 

[RedRider]

No... Hunter S Thompson

Yes, strange omission. Maybe they thought they'd covered the base with Tom Wolfe?

Another personal favourite of mine not to make the list is London: A Biography by Peter Ackroyd.

 

[Yellow Fang]

It's tricky trying to remember all the non-fiction books you've read over your life that have made a big impact on you.

"The Emporer's New Mind" by Roger Penrose seems to have been read by more people than you'd think.
One of Richard Dawkins books, either "The Selfish Gene" or "The Blind Watchmaker" made me lose my faith in humanity, never mind God.

I've read most of Orwell's non-fiction: Down and Out in Paris and London, The Road to Wigan Pier, and Homage to Catalonia. Homage to Catalonia impressed me a lot.

Except for Robert Grave's "Goodbye to all that", the best autobiography that I've read was Fay Weldon's "Auto da Fay".

 

[slowmotion]

I would trade The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test for Richard Neville's Play Power.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/...m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_r=0ESKSEWVRYCXPCM0JR64

 

[Deafie]

Gallipoli to the Somme: Recollections of a New Zealand infantryman. by A.C Aitken

 

[zacklaws]

"We were soldiers once......and young"

 

[Baggy]

The Railway Man - Eric Lomax

I've read most of Orwell's non-fiction: Down and Out in Paris and London, The Road to Wigan Pier, and Homage to Catalonia. Homage to Catalonia impressed me a lot.

The first would definitely be on my list, but I can't remember a thing about Homage to Catalonia!

 

[vernon]

Fair enough 3BM, but Goldacre refers to himself as "Dr", yet doesn't hold a doctoral degree.

But he is a qualified medical practitioner and is entitled to use the title.

 

[asterix]

Jack Kerouac, On the Road.

On the Road has been a huge influence on many poets, writers, actors and musicians, including Bob Dylan, Jim Morrison, Hunter S. Thompson and many more. "It changed my life like it changed everyone else's," Dylan would say many years later. Tom Waits, too, acknowledged its influence, hymning Jack and Neal in a song, and calling the Beats "father figures." At least two great American photographers were influenced by Kerouac: Robert Frank, who became his close friend - Kerouac wrote the introduction to The Americans - and Stephen Shore, who set out on an American road trip in the 1970s with Kerouac's book as a guide. It would be hard to imagine Hunter S. Thompson's road novel, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, had On the Road not laid down the template - likewise films such as Easy Rider, Paris, Texas, even Thelma and Louise.[20]

A truer classic than 'The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test' IMO. Although I quite enjoy Tom Wolfe's writing it is entertaining and descriptive more than thought-provoking or inspiring.

 

[swee'pea99]

Jack Kerouac, On the Road.

On the Road has been a huge influence on many poets, writers, actors and musicians, including Bob Dylan, Jim Morrison, Hunter S. Thompson and many more. "It changed my life like it changed everyone else's," Dylan would say many years later. Tom Waits, too, acknowledged its influence, hymning Jack and Neal in a song, and calling the Beats "father figures." At least two great American photographers were influenced by Kerouac: Robert Frank, who became his close friend - Kerouac wrote the introduction to The Americans - and Stephen Shore, who set out on an American road trip in the 1970s with Kerouac's book as a guide. It would be hard to imagine Hunter S. Thompson's road novel, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, had On the Road not laid down the template - likewise films such as Easy Rider, Paris, Texas, even Thelma and Louise.[20]

A truer classic than 'The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test' IMO. Although I quite enjoy Tom Wolfe's writing it is entertaining and descriptive more than thought-provoking or inspiring.

Um, it's also a novel. Next!

 

[Yellow Fang]

I used to read quite a lot of books about military aircraft and air campaigns when I was younger. There were a lot of good books on this subject. I don't know if it would deserve a place in the top 100, but I thought The Canvas Falcons about the WWI fighters was particularly good.