Non-fiction reading - What books are you tackling?

[Sandernista]

"Madness and Civilization" by Michel Foucault.

Thumbs way up, Foucault is muh man.

Currently rereading Israel/Palestine by Alan Dowty, who I was lucky enough to have a class with last year. Very, very, very good stuff. If you want a crash course in the conflict by someone who has been following it closely for the last fifty years, and is the american authority on the subject, pick it up.

 

[SckizoBoy]

Re Di Militari by Vegetius.

Considering how 'wooden' yet idealised De Re Militari is, it's still a pretty good book. Dinky read, to put it eccentrically...

OT: As much stuff as I could find on the life of Carl von Clausewitz (as opposed to his work). Pretty damned hard...

Worse yet, can't find a damned biography of Gerhard von Scharnhorst or Auguste von Gneisenau in English... anywhere... *grrr*

 

[Beffudled Sheep_v1legacy]

Just picked the Annals by Tacitus up again.
Good read, kinda dry sometimes but its a good way to kill time in College.

 

[Scars Unseen]

The Alexiad [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexiad] by Anna Komnene

It's a historical account of Emperor Alexios I Komnenos of the Byzantine Empire written by his daughter. An interesting read, all the more so because it is a medieval history written by a female author, which was rather rare.

 

[Barbas]

"Achtung - Panzer!" by Heinz Guderian, because beanz meanz Heinz!

Take solace in the fact that, even if it made you want to curl up into the foetal position a la Requiem For A Dream, the joke was even less funny for him.

Max Hastings does a lot of interesting books as well.

 

[Rblade]

"Carthage" by Adrian Goldsworthy, it's a complete description of the 3 punic wars. With details on the political and military structure used by both. Interesting stuff. mostly based on polybious as a source

 

[viranimus]

Nothing NF at the moment (excluding course work)

However last NF subject I worked through was Henry George's Progress and Poverty. The writing is painfully dull, but the ideas presented are quite interesting.

 

[Esotera]

I'd highly recommend Bad Science by Ben Goldacre, it gives a really good overview of the homeopathy and pharmaceutical industry. As for other non-fiction I've just been reading university textbooks & papers. Also I recently read some book about Greek mythology which I think technically counts as non-fiction as it was in a historical context.

 

[IrenIvy]

"The War of the Roses", by Trevor Royle. I like to read books on history but a lot of them quite hard to follow. This one is well-written and gives a great picture of that period. After that I have "Hidden Codes & Grand Designs" about ciphers by Pierre Berloquin to read. Before that it was 'On the Map' by Simon Garfield, about history and evolution of maps. Although it has a couple of pages on Skyrim and GTA maps as examples in it so I'm not sure if it classifies as entirely NF.

 

[HannesPascal]

Hmm, interesting that the author considers governments/militaries that mass murder civilians to put fear into their enemies to be less of a terrorist group than a small guild of assassins who target specific political/military leaders (heck, was it better when the CIA or the KGB did it than when the Hashashin did it?), but I suppose I'd have to read the book before rendering judgment.

The definition I've heard (I know that there is not one clear definition) is that the group of people can't be affiliated with the government. Soldiers committing acts that would otherwise be called terrorism are simply war criminals.

As for non-fiction I'm reading "Applied Thermodynamics for engineering technologists" and "Process risk assessment" a.k.a. course litterature.

 

[OneCatch]

I'm reading A History of the World in 12 Maps [http://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/aug/24/history-world-twelve-maps-review].
It covers, in the author's estimation, 12 of the greatest 'sea changes' in cartographic evolution, from the Babylon map right up to the near present.
It also comments on the influence of dominant social trends and ideologies upon the development of these maps - from theological presumptions to shameless extrapolations to '___-centricism'.

I'm only as far as the Ptolemy Map so far, but it's interesting!


I'm also dipping into 'The Legions of Rome', which is essentially a biography of the various Roman Legions and their movements throughout the empire.

 

[Malty Milk Whistle]

All Hell Let Loose, a nifty book giving a broad overview of WWII
On the non military side, there's also the Etymologicon which is a brilliant and whimsical look at the links between words in the english language. I solidly recommend it to anyone.
Oh, almost forgot, also some of Isaiah Berlin's essays about Machiavelli and his various bits and bobs.

 

[LessThanInformed]

"The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins

 

[evenest]

In my on-going attempt to learn how to draw, I've picked up three books from the library on sketching. I've started with Michael Woods' _Starting Pencil Drawing_. Initially, I had been using a program on my 3DS that has been quite useful; however, I want to keep one foot firmly in the real world, even as I venture into the digital.

I've got a few literary non-fiction works on the list (Bakhtin and Eco), but I haven't actually started them yet.

 

[CloudAtlas]

The last one I read was Poor Economics by Esther Duflo. Imho the best book on development economics available.

 

[Commissar Sae]

Currently reading through "Napoleons Irish Legion" for fun and profit. It is one of the only books on the subject other than the "Memoirs of Miles Byrne" so it makes for an interesting read. I have a fascination with the Napoleonic era and actually have started to collect an entire shelf full of memoirs and books on some of the less known sides of the war.

Basically I am trying to build a better impression of the period from the perspective of the non-major nation players, such as the Irish and the Poles, both of whom were spread out between both sides of the conflict.

 

[MrCaptainA]

Mr Nice by Howard Marks is a good non fiction to read. Currently going through it a second time. It's an autobiography of his life from a small town in Wales to his time in university and eventual incarceration due to his involvement as an international marijuana smuggler

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

What's this "non-fiction" thing you speak of?

Without jest, I really want to get into Legacy of Ashes, seems quite good.

I would also like to get into more philosophical stuff too, I tried reading the Hagakure, but that was me trying to read it.

Tsunemoto knows a thing or two about writing a mental exercise disguised as a book.

Who knows though, I might pick it up again, but I still have two books to read for English Literature, and after I finish them I really want to continue with A Song Of Ice And Fire.

 

[Gxas]

I recently purchased a textbook on my own because I'm learning how to code AI in C++ and Python for a game I am working on.

So that's really as far as I go with non-fiction, I suppose.