All About Nonfiction

TwilightEL

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What kind of nonfiction do you people like to read?

My favorites are books that talk about some specific thing (a person, an invention, a species, a political movement), like the Rats book whose author's name I've forgotten, and tie it in to general history while giving lots of information on it. Recently, I've started a book on Nancy Drew--it elaborates on all her creators and publishers while giving information about the time and place these people lived in.

Another kind of nonfiction book I've been enjoying are math and science books. I'm not that great at calculations, but I love reading about abstract theories like the kind Stephen Hawking describes. I genuinely find reading some mathematical proofs interesting.

I'm not sure that this belongs in this thread, but I also recently read The Feminine Mystique. I didn't like Friedan blaming bad mothering for autism, schizophrenia and homosexuality. She was complaining the pop psychology of Freud in one section, then turns around and does the same thing with these inaccurate theories. Despite this, I really enjoyed the book. The two points I thought were most important were 1) that glorification of mothers can inadvertently hurt women's rights and 2) that all people need to fulfill themselves by finding and pursuing a purpose in life.

When she was talking about number 2, she wrote about how young people in college find it so difficult to describe what they want to do and how scary it is to have to sacrifice things in order to discover who you really are--not just through introspection, but through hard work and creativity. I know I'm just a dumb kid, but I still felt like "Yes, that's exactly what it's like" in that section--having to give up who you used to be in order to become something more.

The Feminine Mystique also sort of fits in to the books I was talking about in the second paragraph. It details the transformation of feminism from its conception to the 60s and how the "feminine mystique" was created.
 
I want to read more biographies about people that interest me. I've recently read King's autobiography thing and a biography on Aleister Crowley. I want to read one on Philip K. Dick, but my library doesn't have any. :(
 
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I've been reading a lot of stuff on religion and spirituality lately. One of the most accessible was The Year of Living Biblically, by A. J. Jacobs. The author describes himself as a "marginal Jew", and he decides he's going to spend a year trying to live his life by as many Biblical teachings as possible. He was to decide which translation of the Bible to use, since different translations change the meanings of certain passages. Then he has to decide whether to live by Old Testament rules, New Testament rules, or both. Then he starts getting together a group of spiritual advisors to help him understand the rules. And on top of all this, he has to get his wife to agree to it all. He visits, among other places, Israel, a fundamentalist Christian museum, and a Pennsylvania Dutch farm.

Parts of this book are laugh-out-loud funny; other portions can inspire a great deal of thought. I don't know if Jacobs really comes up with any deep philosophical insights, but the book is at least entertaining most of the time.
 
I've mentioned before, I'm trying to get through biographies of all the Presidents. So far I read Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Monroe, Madison, Truman, and Eisenhower. I'm currently on Kennedy.

I also got sidetracked and read Alexander Hamilton and the Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.
 
I've mentioned before, I'm trying to get through biographies of all the Presidents. So far I read Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Monroe, Madison, Truman, and Eisenhower. I'm currently on Kennedy.

I also got sidetracked and read Alexander Hamilton and the Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.

Wow. That sounds just terrible.

I'm reading The Great Beast, which is a biography of Aleister Crowley and showed up at my door the same day ProjectX was talking about it (weird, right?). Also, I've been intermittently flipping through a 12 dollar coffee table book on organized crime I got at Barnes and Noble. It's got some nice insets and maps.
 
I am reading Stephen King's Danse Macabre. It is very interesting and he points how out certain mediums that are pretty much ignored (the radio) can do horror better than other mediums (TV, movies) because we get the audio suspense but not the constant visual disappointment.
 
I enjoy biographies of people I like e.g I have Mick foley's , The rock's, Michel J fox's and more

But I also enjoy encyclopaedias of fiction e.g Star wars or a marvel one. Those can be pretty damn cool.
 
I enjoy biographies of people I like e.g I have Mick foley's , The rock's, Michel J fox's and more

But I also enjoy encyclopaedias of fiction e.g Star wars or a marvel one. Those can be pretty damn cool.

The Mick Foley books are awesome and hilarious.

The Rock should be written by The Rock and not ghost written like all the other wrestling biographies. It should of not been written like The Rock was talking either.

Too gimmicky.
 
Yay, nonfiction fans!!!

I read tonnes of nonfiction and usually have very little time for fiction anymore these days. In fact, it might be the only kinds of books I usually post in the What Do You Read thread.

I'll definitely participate in such discussions more often.
 
I finished Don't Panic: The Official Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Companion by Neil Gaiman last night. Douglas Adams sounds like a great bloke. I didn't realise that there were so many versions of the story and that they were all different. It made me want to track down the Douglas Adams stuff I haven't read, like Dirk Gently.
 
I am reading My Booky Wook. I love Russell Brand almost as much as he loves women.
 
Recently, I've started a book on Nancy Drew--it elaborates on all her creators and publishers while giving information about the time and place these people lived in.
Twi, what is the name of this book? It sounds awfully familiar and I think I may have wanted it at one point at a book sale.

I'm currently reading Zoom: The Global Race to Fuel the Car of the Future, which occasionally reads like a very annoyingly optimistic piece that would be featured in Wired Magazine, only in book form.

I'm also reading Alan Weisman's The World Without Us, which is intelligent speculation on what would happen if all of humanity disappeared off the face of the planet in a moment, leaving only its cities and its infrastructure. Its not entirely pessimistic, in fact despite the planet healing in our absence, Weisman strongly suggests that our extinction would be the planet's loss.

And of course, I'm also reading Bowie in Berlin by Thomas Jerome Seabrook, which I mentioned in the Bowie thread. It focuses on Bowie's life and times during the years he produced two Iggy Pop albums and his Berlin Trilogy with Brian Eno (Low, Heroes, Lodger) complete with track by track analysis of each album.
 
Twi, what is the name of this book? It sounds awfully familiar and I think I may have wanted it at one point at a book sale.

Girl Sleuth, Melanie Rehak. Definitely worth it.

I'm also reading Alan Weisman's The World Without Us, which is intelligent speculation on what would happen if all of humanity disappeared off the face of the planet in a moment, leaving only its cities and its infrastructure. Its not entirely pessimistic, in fact despite the planet healing in our absence, Weisman strongly suggests that our extinction would be the planet's loss.

Been "reading" this since last Christmas. Reaaaaally need to work on my book list...
 
I am reading I Am Alive And You Are Dead: A Journey Into The Mind Of Philip K. Dick.
 
At the moment, I'm about halfway through The Gospel According to Science Fiction, by Gabriel McKee. The title sounds like a contradiction in terms, but the book basically examines beliefs from the Judeo-Christian religious traditions as presented in SF movies, books and television series. Chapters cover topics like what is meant by a soul (and how can we tell if anyone/anything has one), sin, creation, the messiah figures, and free will, among others. Examples are taken from Star Trek, Star Wars, various SF television shows like Quantum Leap and Firefly, and from an array of SF novels and short stories.

It's been a great read so far, and sometimes I think the SF writers have a better grasp of spirituality than some of the self-professed spiritual experts....
 
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At the moment, I'm about halfway through The Gospel According to Science Fiction, by Gabriel McKee. The title sounds like a contradiction in terms, but the book basically examines beliefs from the Judeo-Christian religious traditions as presented in SF movies, books and television series. Chapters cover topics like what is meant by a soul (and how can we tell if anyone/anything has one), sin, creation, the messiah figures, and free will, among others. Examples are taken from Star Trek, Star Wars, various SF television shows like Quantum Leap and Firefly, and from an array of SF novels and short stories.

It's been a great read so far, and sometimes I think the SF writers have a better grasp of spirituality than some of the self-professed spiritual experts....

That's because spirituality is fiction.

Ba-Zing!
 
No it isn't.

Spirituality is the desire to and practice of relating to the Divine, in whatever form you perceive It. I think there have been enough books written about, polls taken on, and observations made of this phenomenon that it can be classified as non-fiction. For many of us, at times it's a painful and uncomfortable reality, but a reality nonetheless.

I suppose you can argue that the object(s) of spirituality (God, animals spirits, angels, the Devil, etc.) could be considered fiction, but the acts and motivations of people trying to explain or relate to these concepts are not. Certainly we're all aware of people who take these beliefs seriously, for good or ill -- from the annoying televangelists and fervent jihadists to the strivings of saints and writings of spiritual leaders of many faiths. (I'm also currently reading The Interior Castle, by Teresa of Avila, in which she writes about seeking God internally and the landscape of the soul. Nebulous stuff, in some cases, but intriguing.)

If this subject interests you at all, you might want to track down Like Catching Water in a Net: Human Attempts to Describe the Divine, by Val Webb. The author doesn't push any one particular religious tradition; she's more interested in seeing how different faiths see and talk about their concept of God. (Where's J. Agammenon? He might like this one, too.) The feeling that there's Something Greater out there, however we perceive it, seems to be present in most cultures throughout history.

It reminds me of a story I read once of a man named Francis who was walking along a beach one morning contemplating the nature of God. He looked up and saw a little boy on the sand ahead of him; the boy had dug a hole in the sand with a spoon and was running back and forth from the ocean with spoonfuls of water to pour into the hole. Eventually he filled the hole, but continued to bring spoonfuls of the ocean, causing the water to overflow the edge of the hole. Francis approached the boy and said, "Surely, little boy, you don't expect to be able to pour the entire ocean into this small hole?" The boy looked up at Francis and replied, "Just as you, Francis, should not expect to be able to understand the whole of God with your merely human mind." With that, the boy and spoon disappeared, leaving Francis alone with the ocean and the hole full of water.
 
No it isn't.

Spirituality is the desire to and practice of relating to the Divine, in whatever form you perceive It. I think there have been enough books written about, polls taken on, and observations made of this phenomenon that it can be classified as non-fiction. For many of us, at times it's a painful and uncomfortable reality, but a reality nonetheless.

I suppose you can argue that the object(s) of spirituality (God, animals spirits, angels, the Devil, etc.) could be considered fiction, but the acts and motivations of people trying to explain or relate to these concepts are not. Certainly we're all aware of people who take these beliefs seriously, for good or ill -- from the annoying televangelists and fervent jihadists to the strivings of saints and writings of spiritual leaders of many faiths. (I'm also currently reading The Interior Castle, by Teresa of Avila, in which she writes about seeking God internally and the landscape of the soul. Nebulous stuff, in some cases, but intriguing.)

If this subject interests you at all, you might want to track down Like Catching Water in a Net: Human Attempts to Describe the Divine, by Val Webb. The author doesn't push any one particular religious tradition; she's more interested in seeing how different faiths see and talk about their concept of God. (Where's J. Agammenon? He might like this one, too.) The feeling that there's Something Greater out there, however we perceive it, seems to be present in most cultures throughout history.

It reminds me of a story I read once of a man named Francis who was walking along a beach one morning contemplating the nature of God. He looked up and saw a little boy on the sand ahead of him; the boy had dug a hole in the sand with a spoon and was running back and forth from the ocean with spoonfuls of water to pour into the hole. Eventually he filled the hole, but continued to bring spoonfuls of the ocean, causing the water to overflow the edge of the hole. Francis approached the boy and said, "Surely, little boy, you don't expect to be able to pour the entire ocean into this small hole?" The boy looked up at Francis and replied, "Just as you, Francis, should not expect to be able to understand the whole of God with your merely human mind." With that, the boy and spoon disappeared, leaving Francis alone with the ocean and the hole full of water.

;) I was just kidding.
 
Anyone recommend any good books about comics? I read an excerpt of the Jack Kirby book that was in Wizard about 6 months ago and i wanna read that book.

I read somewhere i think it was prob on wikipedia about a book on the concepts of superheroes being like immortal ideas...outliving their creators and becoming greater. It wasn't animal man.
 

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