100 Greatest Non-Fiction Books?

[Bayerd]

All the cycling ones....too many to mention.

It's a shame A Boy and his Bike by Richard Potts can't be added, it's definately fiction....

 

[swee'pea99]

I'd miss out Orwell - I find him self-aggrandising in his non-fiction and his fiction I find average at best.

That's rather scathing! Each to their own, but I don't think 1984 or Animal Farm have proved as enduring as they have by some fluke. Orwell may not have the finesse or subtlety of some writers, but there's definitely a place in literature for his brand of robust, muscular, conceptual prose. There are limits to what he does, but no-one does what he does better.

As for his non-fiction, much of it is stunning. I defy anyone to read Down & Out in Paris and London, say, and come away unstunned. It must be 30+ years since I read it, but I still remember his observation that in Paris, the amount of spit you get with your steak is proportional to the price you pay.


And has anyone ever come up with a better potted guide to writing better English than his 6 rules, from Politics & The English Language:

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

No, Orwell is kind of the literary equivalent of, say, Lowry. He's no Picasso, but art needs Lowrys too.

 

[threebikesmcginty]

[quote name='swee'pea99' timestamp='1308303317' post='1711728']As for his non-fiction, much of it is stunning.
[/quote]

I think this extract from The Road to Wigan Pier is first rate...

The train bore me away, through the monstrous scenery of slag-heaps, chimneys, piled scrap-iron, foul canals, paths of cindery mud criss-crossed by the prints of clogs. This was March, but the weather had been horribly cold and everywhere there were mounds of blackened snow. As we moved slowly through the outskirts of the town we passed row after row of little grey slum houses running at right angles to the embankment. At the back of one of the houses a young woman was kneeling on the stones, poking a stick up the leaden waste-pipe which ran from the sink inside and which I suppose was blocked. I had time to see everything about her — her sacking apron, her clumsy clogs, her arms reddened by the cold. She looked up as the train passed, and I was almost near enough to catch her eye. She had a round pale face, the usual exhausted face of the slum girl who is twenty-five and looks forty, thanks to miscarriages and drudgery; and it wore, for the second in which I saw it, the most desolate, hopeless expression I have ever seen. It struck me then that we are mistaken when we say that’ It isn't the same for them as it would be for us,’ and that people bred in the slums can imagine nothing but the slums. For what I saw in her face was not the ignorant suffering of an animal. She knew well enough what was happening to her — understood as well as I did how dreadful a destiny it was to be kneeling there in the bitter cold, on the slimy stones of a slum backyard, poking a stick up a foul drain-pipe.

 

[RedRider]

I think this extract from The Road to Wigan Pier is first rate...

Brilliant. (It's the standout passage for me, too.)

He's dismissed by some as public schoolboy slumming it with his 'proles' but that's harsh. He put his life on the line to fight facism in Spain. Some on the left resent him and call him a 'Trot' or a splitter but that's cos he called Stalin for the murderer he was at the time when others decided not to look which is embarrassing for them. He was unflinching. Think carefully and question what you think is his legacy. It's not easy.

His refusal to take the easy road and his ideas on language and thought are inspirational, thought-provoking and important.

Watching the film Brazil (again) the other night, I was reminded how influential he remains.

 

[Monsieur Remings]

Yep, second all the above about Orwell; I should have put The Road to Wigan Pier too but Homage to Catalonia had more of an effect on me at the time. I don't particularly like 1984 but Animal Farm is fantastic for its simplicity and strength of message and he does have an enduring legacy.

Meeting some international brigaders some years ago I remember that they didn't think much of him, unfairly in my opinion, for all the reasons you give above RedRider. The POUM were right in the thick of it, very early on before the Stalinism of the soviets (and the brigades) undermined much of their early effort.

An iconic figure.

 

[Fnaar]

[quote name='swee'pea99' timestamp='1308303317' post='1711728']

And has anyone ever come up with a better potted guide to writing better English than his 6 rules, from Politics & The English Language:

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
[/quote]

I love Orwell, but really hate that essay. he breaks all his own rules, and it's a pompous piece of bilge.

 

[threebikesmcginty]

I love Orwell, but really hate that essay. he breaks all his own rules, and it's a pompous piece of bilge.

I rather like rule 5, it has a certain je ne c'est quoi!

 

[swee'pea99]

TBH I haven't read the article since I were a teen, back in the 1870s, but I do salute those rules.

 

[Yellow Fang]

Jack Kerouac, On the Road.

It's a shame A Boy and his Bike by Richard Potts can't be added, it's definately fiction....

That reminds me. Papillon was an excellent read, but I pretty sure that was fictionalised too.

Come to think of it, I wonder how much of Mr Nice was accurate. I don't know how anyone's memory can be that reliable in detail.

 

[Yellow Fang]

I know how she feels. I recommend MetroRod in such situations. They've got all the gear for clearing blocked drains.

I'm not too sure about The Road to Wigan Pier. It's good in places, but it's a bit patchy.

 

[Fab Foodie]

Top would be: Bronowski - The Ascent of man.
This was the book/TV series that inspired my love of science.
Others in no particular order:

Rachel Carson - The Sea
Biochemistry - Stryer
Food Science - Magnus Pyke
10001 Questions & Answers
Tell me why annual 1972
Oasis in Space - Jaques Copusteau
The story of Astronomy - Patrick Moore
The heart of the Antartic - Ernest Shackleton
The Endurance Expedition - Ernest Shackleton
Everest the Hard Way - Chris Bonnington
Coasting - Jonathon Raban
A brief History of Time - Steven Hawkins
The Blind Watchmaker - Richard Dawkins
he Selfish gene - Richard Dawkins
Book of the Bicycle - Richard Ballantyne
The Joy of Sex
The Khama Sutra
The Crystal Horizon: Everest Solo - Reinhold Messner
Stalingrad - Anthony Beevior
The Tunnel - Andre Lacaze
Spike Milligans War Memoirs
The Escape Artist - Matt Seaton
7 Years in Tibet - Heinrich Harer

... and many more. They might not top the critics list, but they inspired and stuck with me.

 

[Davidc]

Too many to list and the Grauniad list has a lot of very good ones.

I'm going to nominate one I've just read though, it's

1000 Years of Annoying The French by Stephen Clarke.

It's non fiction, historical and very funny, a difficult combination.

 

[Flying_Monkey]

The Crystal Horizon: Everest Solo - Reinhold Messner

A great book!

I've read some of your others, and the only one I would quibble with is Hawkins's A Brief History of Time - it's deathly! Okay, so there is a lot of complex information in there, but it's not a well-written book or a good example of how to communicate science to non-scientists IMHO, and it has a well-deserved reputation as one of the most bought but least read books around!

 

[Fab Foodie]

A great book!

I've read some of your others, and the only one I would quibble with is Hawkins's A Brief History of Time - it's deathly! Okay, so there is a lot of complex information in there, but it's not a well-written book or a good example of how to communicate science to non-scientists IMHO, and it has a well-deserved reputation as one of the most bought but least read books around!

I coughed-up the extra and bought the illustrated version and got on with OK, but then as a budding scientist I already had a reasonable understanding of the subject at the time.

I forgot 'Manwatching' by Desmond Morris, I read it when I was quite young when I knew nothing of the subject and found it utterly fascinating. I'm still a very keen observer of people and their nuanced behaviours.
My mother belonged to the Readers Digest book club and I had an unhealthy early diet of Thor Heyerdahl and Eric Von Daniken, a firm fave I recall was Immanuel Velikovsky's (sp?) 'Worlds in Collision'.
Somehow all this stuff sent me on the path to Food Science ... LOL.

The Grauniads list shows I've a lot of reading to catch-up with.

 

[RedRider]

My mother belonged to the Readers Digest book club and I had an unhealthy early diet of Thor Heyerdahl and Eric Von Daniken

My dad's bookshelf had a fair few of the Guardian's list but a good dose of interesting nonsense like Kontiki Expedition, Sacred Mushroom and the Cross and sundry Ley line/plains of Nazca gubbins as well. Fairly harmless and I loved it.

Some stuff isn't so lovable. One time a flatmate pressed a Holy Grail tome into my hand saying it was the best thing ever. The author was looking for the ark of the covenant and the book chronicled his adventure. As well as weaving coincidences into an unconvincing theory he disrupted sacred ceremonies, agreed to do PR work for a nasty African dictator and generally came across like a shoot during his quest.

Written in the 80s I think. I wish I could remember the author's name cos I'd like to read it again just to make sure it was as bad as I remember. It was like a parody of the genre by Martin Amis or someone. But it wasn't.