Good non-fiction reads
 

I've been thinking lately that I read fiction almost exclusively, and thus I'd like to broaden my spectrum into the realm of things that actually happend. I'm willing to try anything that is interesting, and I would thus like to find out what some of your favorite non-fiction reads are.

the Charles R Cross "HEavier than heaven" book is pretty good, the David Lee Roth bio is meant to be very funny too.

I've beeen meaning to get Vonnegut's new one about living in GWB's america

That's a really broad classification. Anything specific you want to read about? Ancient history, politics, cultures, philosophy, inspirational?

I'd like some recommendations as well. Something in the vein of anthropology. Maybe something about ancient egypt or something about Eastern culture.

Herodotus

Are you referring to A Man Without A Country, or is there an even newer one that I'm not aware of?

If you are talking about that one, it's worth reading (and although short it manages to be alternately hilarious and sad) but anyone who has read a number of his books will recognize some of the material from his previous books. Although it contains new observations, for the most part it plays the same kind of role as a Greatest Hits album would. One of my former friends gave it to me as a gift, but read it beforehand, and said she liked it (but it was the only thing of his that she has read, and after reading it I wonder if she was just lying to make me happy, since I can't picture her reading any of his other books--and she hasn't since). The book was enjoyable to me partly because it referenced things he discussed in his other books, like Jailbird for instance.

...
hey, I bet you might like Diary of a Hope Fiend - Timothy Leary or maybe Diary of a Dope Fiend - Aleister Crowley
hmm, no one's said Helter Skelter or In Cold Blood yet...

if no one objects, I'll skip right past "good" & go straight
to
great


1 either/or vols 1-2 - soren kierkegaard
2 purity of heart - soren kierkegaard
3 the denial of death - ernest becker
4 the golden bough - frazer
(also the larousse encyclopedia of mythology...aw hades, throw in edith hamilton too)
5 the book of changes, i ching - trans. richard wilhelm/ foreword by jung
6 complete works - plato
7 picasso:50 years of his art - alfred h barr
(another great one is picasso's picassos with photos by david douglas duncan)
8 the outsider - colin wilson
9 love's body - norman o. brown
10 tao te ching - lao tzu
11 fear & trembling - kierkegaard
12 the philosophy of andy warhol - warhol
13 magic & schizophrenia - geza roheim
14 psyche & symbol - c.g. jung (also man & his symbols - a posthumous work by jung scholars)
15 hell's angels - hunter s thompson
(throw in fear & loathing in las vegas too)
16 the tao of physics - fritjof capra
17 apocalypse - d.h. lawrence
18 easy riders raging bulls - p biskind
(whereas, say, Scorcese on Scorsese is good, Biskind's book is great)
19 seeds - a thomas merton compilation
20 the death of socrates - i.f. stone

everything bad is good for you- steven johnson

right now i'm on a big biology/genetics kick and i've read a few very good books on the subjects but i can't remember their names. check a few out though if you go through the aisle at barnes and noble or something.

DEFINATELY

such a great book

I read a book on Genghis Khan. Bought it out of the blue purely for the same purpose as you-Knowledge.

I was really surprised how good it was. Coming to the end it got a bit boring but most of it was great and also what it boils down to-fascinating.

K - a biography of Kafka
Darwin's dangerous Idea - Daniel C Dennett
Interpretation of dreams - freud
that's my two cents

Beyond Good And Evil - Friederich Nietschze

gee, thanks for reading my post...(sarc)

You really like Kierkegaard. I have The Sickness Unto Death; haven't gotten around to reading it and not really looking forward to it (after scanning the first couple of pages).
Nice list, though. I'll keep some of those in mind next time I'm in a bookstore.

The Dirt - Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band

(the motley crue autobiography coauthored by neil strauss.) anything neil strauss writes is good, but this book is awesome. Each band member tells their side of the story, and sometimes they even conflict. you won't be able to put it down. i read a lot of biographies and this is hands down the best rock book out there.

marilyn manson's is pretty good too, but you'll feel dirty after reading it.

mr. nice is a great read too about howard marks, england's big drug dealer. i bought it mainly because his face on front looked happy and nice in a tony danza kind of way but it was another one i couldn't put down.

i don't read much fiction at all. i much prefer an interesting person's story.

I'm not sure In Cold Blood is totally non - fiction, its too literary to be journalism, it is a great book though.

Other good ones

Globalisation and its Discontents
Head On - Julian Cope
Shakey (the Neil Young biography)
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil - John Berendt
London a Biography - Peter Ackroyd
How to Talk Dirty and Influence People - Lenny Bruce
Fight the Power - Chuck D and Yusef Jah
Fast Food Nation - Eric Schlosser
Sophies World - Jostein Garder (its a story about a girl and her philosophy teacher but also a beginners guide to the history of philosophy)
Love All The People - Collected works of Bill Hicks (terrible title but pretty much indispensable compilation of transcripts and interviews)

i never read fiction anymore...

may i reccomend:
The Adding machine, The Job, and/or My Education - William S. Burroughs
The Search for the Manchurian Candidate - John Marks
The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat - Oliver Sachs
Mass Psychology of Fascism - Wilhelm Reich
UFO's and the National Security State - Richard Dolan
Angels and Aliens - Keith Thompson
Acid Dreams - Martin Schlain
The Men Who Stare At Goats - Jon Ronson
Apocalypse Culture vol.1 or 2 - Adam Parfrey et al

screaming with joy - the life of allen ginsberg
a simple guide to buddhism by steve hagen

something contemporary perhaps..
this one was the last non-fiction book i've read..
pretty intense...

Awakening the Buddha Within - Lama Surya Das
Party of One: The Loner's Manifesto - Anneli Rufus

INT. BOOKSTORE-DAY

Annie and Alvy browsing in crowded bookstore. Alvy, carrying two books,
"Death and Western Thought" and "The Denial of Death", moves over to where
Annie is looking.

ALVY
Hey?

ANNIE
H'm?

ALVY
I-I-I'm gonna buy you these books, I
think, because I-I think you should
read them. You know, instead of that
cat book.

ANNIE
(Looking at the books Alvy
is bolding)
That's, uh ...
(Laughing)
that's pretty serious stuff there.

ALVY
Yeah, 'cause I-I'm, you know, I'm,
I'm obsessed with-with, uh, with death,
I think. Big-

ANNIE
(Overlapping)
Yeah?

ALVY
-big subject with me, yeah.

ANNIE
Yeah?

They move over to the cashier line.

ALVY
(Gesturing)
I've a very pessimistic view of life.
You should know this about me if we're
gonna go out, you know. I-I-I feel that
life is-is divided up into the horrible
and the miserable.

ANNIE
M'hm.

ALVY
Those are the two categories ...

ANNIE
M'hm.

ALVY
... you know, they're- The-the horrible
would be like, uh, I don't know, terminal
cases, you know?

ANNIE
M'hm.

ALVY
And blind people, crippled ...

ANNIE
Yeah.

ALVY
I don't-don't know how they get through
life. It's amazing to me.

ANNIE
M'hm.

ALVY
You know, and the miserable is everyone
else. That's-that's all. So-so when
you go through life you should be thankful
that you're miserable, because that's-
You're very lucky ... to be ...
(Overlapping Annie's laughter)
... to be miserable.

ANNIE
U-huh.

I read mainly non-fiction. Right now I am reading two books, one is a dictionary of word and phrase origins, wreitten in the 1960's and another is a compendium of grafitty from the past 3000 years. half is telling about the different types and the second half of the book is just a listing of all this genius grafitti trhough time.

Hahaha, that book is pretty cool. I have it, and just read it a few months ago.

Tuxedo Park- Jennet Conant
The myth of Sisyphus and The Rebel- Albert Camus
The Most Dangerous Enemy-Stephen Bungay
Republic of Fear-Kenan Makiya
Paris 1919-Margaret MacMillan
Rites of Spring:The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age-Modris Eksteins
The Seven Pillars of Wisdom-T. E. Lawrence
Uptight:The story of the Velvet Underground-Victor Bockris, Gerard Malanga

Is The Rebel not fiction? I haven't read it, I just thought.....
Myth of Sisyphus was to difficult for me. I love Camus works, though.

The Rebel is an essay exploring the logical crime which arises from out of revolution in an age of nihilism. The most common feature of most revolutions since 1789 has been the imposition of state terrorsim in defence of the revolution. This logic inevitably leads to mass murder; the death camp and the gulag, the guillotine and the gas chamber.

The Rebel is less abstract than The Myth of Sisyphus, and you'll probably find it an easier read. Like I did.

Roald Dahl- Boy and Going Solo.

Hanna Arendt - Life of the Mind
Guy debord - Society of the Spectacle
International Situationist Anthology
Martin Heidegger - Letter on Humanism
Paul Ricoeur - Time and Narrative