Never too Late to Read Classics discussion
Archive Non-Fiction
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Non-Fiction Classics
I haven't read many nonfiction classics, but I've read a lot of nonfiction this year. Three that I can heartily recommend are one I finished this year; one I didn't finish this year; and one I borrowed from the library 29 December but will start and finish in January, 2019.The Story of the Goths (1888) by Henry Bradley (1845-1923). A fascinating history of an almost forgotten, warlike people who lived in France, Germany and Italy during the third to eighth centuries CE.
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany (1959, 1960) by William L. Shirer (1904-93). The 1961 US National Book Award winner for history, this Not Safe For Work book (because of the swastika on the cover) is a readable, comprehensive history.
Veeck--As In Wreck: The Autobiography of Bill Veeck (1962) by Bill Veeck (1914-86). Veeck, the owner of the St. Louis Browns (the team that later moved to Maryland and became the modern Baltimore Orioles), is best remembered for sending a midget up to bat in a game against the Detroit Tigers and for inventing the exploding scoreboard. This is widely regarded as one of the best sports books of all time.
Jim, who believes that a bearded psychoanalyst falling on the ice in Vienna, is a Freudian slip.
Re: believes that a bearded psychoanalyst falling on the ice in Vienna, is a Freudian slip .... Boom boom!Doctor Johnson's dictionary.
Non-FictionThe Peloponnesian War Thucydides
The March Up Country Xenophon
In Consolation to His Wife Plutarch
Meditations Marcus Aurelius
The Birth of Tragedy Friedrich Nietzsche
Character and Opinion in the United States George Santayana
The Rebel Albert Camus
The White Goddess Robert Graves
The Gulag Archipelago Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Inside the Whale George Orwell
Mark wrote: "Non-FictionThe Peloponnesian War Thucydides
The March Up Country Xenophon
In Consolation to His Wife Plutarch
Meditations Marcus Aurelius
The Birth of Tragedy Friedrich Nietzsche
Character and O..."
A good list Mark. By coincidence, I am currently reading "Inside the whale".
From the Fair: The Autobiography of Sholom Aleichem - Sholom AleichemBlack Like Me - John Howard Griffin
To Sir, With Love - E.R. Braithwaite
The Road to Wigan Pier - George Orwell
Goodbye to All That - Robert Graves
Childhood, Boyhood, Youth - Leo Tolstoy
Hitchcock/Truffaut: The Definitive Study of Alfred Hitchcock - François Truffaut
Another vote for The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany and Meditations of Marcus Aurelius.I would also recommend
The Longest Day, Cornelius Ryan
The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914, Barbara W. Tuchman
The Guns of August, Barbara W. Tuchman
The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia, Peter Hopkirk
Markings, Dag Hammarskjöld
Testament of Youth, Vera Brittain
The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund FreudEccentrics by David Weeks
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales by Oliver Sacks
Daily Life of the Etruscans by Jacques Heurgon
Pythagoras by Kitty Ferguson
Ritual Magic by Elizabeth M. Butler
The Gnostics by Sean Martin
Bernard wrote: "Mark wrote: "Non-FictionThe Peloponnesian War Thucydides
The March Up Country Xenophon
In Consolation to His Wife Plutarch
Meditations Marcus Aurelius
The Birth of Tragedy Friedrich Nietzsche
Ch..."
Thank you, Bernard. I picked up Orwell’s book specifically for his review of Miller’s Tropic of Cancer.
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Is this something you would like to see in 2020?
A Non-Fiction Classic Read?
Re Tropic of Cancer: What did you think of this (semi) fictional work Mark?
Re Non-Fiction Classic Read: I would vote for this Lesle, but I am not sure how many people would be interested.
Lesle wrote: "All these suggestions makes me wonder if you would like to have a Monthly or Quarterly or another thought of.... Group Read for this topic?Is this something you would like to see in 2020?
A Non-F..."
Orwell’s essay Politics and the English Language might be fun to try.
Bernard wrote: "Re Tropic of Cancer: What did you think of this (semi) fictional work Mark?"I went through a Miller phase somewhere in my late twenties, a long time ago. I thought Tropic was great. Brash and sexy, just right for the times. Who would not want Miller’s life?
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Re: I went through a Miller phase somewhere in my late twenties ...Me too. I bought all his other books, and ploughed through them. Some brilliant passages, but some parts are heavy going.
I read Cancer and Capricorn and Sexus and maybe two pages of Nexus and some of his short stories.
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Bernard what do you think about the read Mark suggested?
and putting it with Rosemarie's suggestion of it being part of the Theme reads (2X a year?)?
There are a few listed that seems really interesting.
I would love to see a classic non-fiction group read in 2020.Others that come to mind:
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Ann Jacobs
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass
The Complete Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S Grant by Ulysses S Grant
The Civil War: A Narrative by Shelby Foote
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
To Be Young, Gifted, and Black: An Informal Autobiography by Lorraine Hansberry
In Praise of Shadows by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki
Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu
The Captive Mind by Czesław Miłosz
The Story of San Michele by Axel Munthe
Black Lamb and Grey Falcon by Rebecca West
That Quail, Robert by Margaret A. Stanger
The Marsh Arabs by Wilfred Thesiger
The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton
The Confession of St. Patrick by Saint Patrick
Hashish: A Smuggler's Tale by Henry de Monfreid
Carol wrote: "I would love to see a classic non-fiction group read in 2020.Others that come to mind:
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Ann Jacobs
[book:Narrative ..."
An interesting mix Carol. I have not read anything by Malcolm X for a long time.
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Described as:
A travelogue in the unique style of Charles Dickens in 1844. Traveling through Italy for almost a year and Pictures from Italy is an illuminating account of his experiences there. He presents the country like a magic-lantern show, as vivid images ceaselessly appear before his - and his readers' - eyes. Italy's most famous sights are all to be found here - St Peter's in Rome, Naples with Vesuvius smoldering in the background, the fairytale buildings and canals of Venice - but Dickens's chronicle is not simply that of a tourist. Avoiding preconceptions and stereotypes, he portrays a nation of great contrasts: between grandiose buildings and squalid poverty, and between past and present, as he observes everyday life beside ancient monuments. Combining thrilling travelogue with piercing social commentary, Pictures from Italy is a revealing depiction of an exciting and disquieting journey.
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Carol I have to say I have really enjoyed this read that you suggested. So much so I am rereading it again and found that I am enjoying the little things that Robert does even more. I was reading it during the Election which was a mistake on my part, my mind was not really in the read at all. Robert's personality is surprising much more than one would expect from a bird!
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At the moment the group is just reading one every other month but there maybe a recommendtion we can squeeze into our own reading schedule that is being offered. Maybe a short read like the one Carol suggested.
I'm currently reading The Land of Little Rain by Mary Hunter Austin, a book of essays about "the people, flora and fauna of the American desert. It's short, only 93 pages, and an ebook is free on Amazon. She was an early advocate of environmental issues.
Lesle wrote: "Carol wrote: "That Quail, Robert by Margaret A. Stanger..."Carol I have to say I have really enjoyed this read that you suggested. So much so I am rereading it again and found that I am enjoying ..."
I'm glad you enjoyed it! I'm hoping to get to it in 2020, but have universally heard good things, so you've confirmed my need to move it up high in my TBR.
Would Baseball Is A Funny Game (1960) by Joe Garagiola (1926-2016) be considered a classic?
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Might be an interesting read too :)
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1960s
1962: The Making of the President 1960 by Theodore White
1963: The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman
1964: Anti-intellectualism in American Life by Richard Hofstadter
1965: O Strange New World by Howard Mumford Jones
1966: Wandering Through Winter by Edwin Way Teale
1967: The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture by David Brion Davis
1968: Rousseau and Revolution, vol. 10 of The Story of Civilization, by Will and Ariel Durant
1969: So Human an Animal by René Jules Dubos
1969: The Armies of the Night by Norman Mailer
1970s
1970: Gandhi's Truth by Erik H. Erikson
1971: The Rising Sun by John Toland
1972: Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911–45 by Barbara W. Tuchman
1973: Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam by Frances FitzGerald
1973: Children of Crisis, vols. 2 and 3, by Robert Coles
1974: The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker
1975: Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
1976: Why Survive? Being Old In America by Robert Neil Butler
1977: Beautiful Swimmers by William W. Warner
1978: The Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan
1979: On Human Nature by Edward O. Wilson
A link for Pulitzer Prize in History:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulitze...
i have just finished Crowds and Power (1960)
by Nobel Laureate Elias Canetti
Wow...everyone should read this.
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The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer (1970)
The Australian feminist’s famous polemic remains a masterpiece of passionate free expression in which she challenges a woman’s role in society.
Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom by Nik Cohn (1969)
This passionate account of how rock’n’roll changed the world was written with the wild energy of its subject matter.
Ariel by Sylvia Plath (1965)
The groundbreaking collection, revolving around the poet’s fascination with her own death, established Plath as one of the last century’s most original and gifted poets.
The Making of the English Working Class by EP Thompson (1963)
This influential, painstakingly compiled masterpiece reads as an anatomy of pre-industrial Britain – and a description of the lost experience of the common man.
A Grief Observed by CS Lewis (1961)
This powerful study of loss asks: “Where is God?” and explores the feeling of solitude and sense of betrayal that even non-believers will recognise.
The Elements of Style by William Strunk and EB White (1959)
Dorothy Parker and Stephen King have both urged aspiring writers towards this crisp guide to the English language where brevity is key.
The Uses of Literacy: Aspects of Working-Class Life by Richard Hoggart (1957) This influential cultural study of postwar Britain offers pertinent truths on mass communication and the interaction between ordinary people and the elites.
Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin (1955)
Baldwin’s landmark collection of essays explores, in telling language, what it means to be a black man in modern America.
The Nude: A Study of Ideal Art by Kenneth Clark (1956)
Clark’s survey of the nude from the Greeks to Picasso foreshadows the critic’s towering claims for humanity in his later seminal work, Civilisation.
The Hedgehog and the Fox by Isaiah Berlin (1953)
The great historian of ideas starts with an animal parable and ends, via a dissection of Tolstoy’s work, in an existential system of thought.
Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett (1952/53)
A bleakly hilarious, enigmatic watershed that changed the language of theatre and still sparks debate six decades on. An absurdist masterpiece.
The Great Tradition by FR Leavis (1948)
The controversial critic’s statement on English literature is an entertaining, often shocking, dissection of the novel, whose effects are still felt to this day.
The Last Days of Hitler by Hugh Trevor-Roper (1947)
The historian’s vivid, terrifying account of the Führer’s demise, based on his postwar work for British intelligence, remains unsurpassed.
Hiroshima by John Hersey (1946)
Hersey’s extraordinary, gripping book tells the personal stories of six people who endured the 1945 atom bomb attack.
The Open Society and Its Enemies by Karl Popper (1945)
The Austrian-born philosopher’s postwar rallying cry for western liberal democracy was hugely influential in the 1960s.
Black Boy: A Record of Childhood and Youth by Richard Wright (1945)
This influential memoir of a rebellious southern boyhood vividly evokes the struggle for African American identity in the decades before civil rights.
The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell (1937)
Orwell’s unflinchingly honest account of three northern towns during the Great Depression was a milestone in the writer’s political development.
The Road to Oxiana by Robert Byron (1937)
Much admired by Graham Greene and Evelyn Waugh, Byron’s dazzling, timeless account of a journey to Afghanistan is perhaps the greatest travel book of the 20th century.
Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain (1933)
Brittain’s study of her experience of the first world war as a nurse and then victim of loss remains a powerful anti-war and feminist statement.
My Early Life: A Roving Commission by Winston Churchill (1930)
Churchill delights with candid tales of childhood and boy’s own adventures in the Boer war that made him a tabloid hero.
Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves (1929)
Graves’s account of his experiences in the trenches of the first world war is a subversive tour de force.
A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf (1929)
Woolf’s essay on women’s struggle for independence and creative opportunity is a landmark of feminist thought.
The Waste Land by TS Eliot (1922)
Eliot’s long poem, written in extremis, came to embody the spirit of the years following the first world war.
Ten Days That Shook the World by John Reed (1919)
The American socialist’s romantic account of the Russian revolution is a masterpiece of reportage.
De Profundis by Oscar Wilde (1905)
There is a thrilling majesty to Oscar Wilde’s tormented tour de force written as he prepared for release from Reading jail.
The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James (1902)
This revolutionary work written by Henry James’s less famous brother brought a democratising impulse to the realm of religious belief.
Brief Lives by John Aubrey, edited by Andrew Clark (1898)
Truly ahead of his time, the 17th-century historian and gossip John Aubrey is rightly credited as the man who invented biography.
Personal Memoirs by Ulysses S Grant (1885)
The civil war general turned president was a reluctant author, but set the gold standard for presidential memoirs, outlining his journey from boyhood onwards.
Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain (1883)
This memoir of Samuel Clemens’s time as a steamboat pilot provides insight into his best-known characters, as well as the writer he would become.
Travels With a Donkey in the Cévennes by Robert Louis Stevenson (1879)
The Scottish writer’s hike in the French mountains with a donkey is a pioneering classic in outdoor literature – and as influential as his fiction.
Nonsense Songs by Edward Lear (1871)
The Victorians loved wordplay, and few could rival this compendium of verbal delirium by Britain’s “laureate of nonsense”.
On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin (1859)
Darwin’s revolutionary, humane and highly readable introduction to his theory of evolution is arguably the most important book of the Victorian era.
On Liberty by John Stuart Mill (1859)
This fine, lucid writer captured the mood of the time with this spirited assertion of the English individual’s rights.
The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands by Mary Seacole (1857)
A gloriously entertaining autobiography by the widely revered Victorian sometimes described as “the black Florence Nightingale”.
The Life of Charlotte Brontë by Elizabeth Gaskell (1857)
Possibly Gaskell’s finest work – a bold portrait of a brilliant woman worn down by her father’s eccentricities and the death of her siblings.
Walden by Henry David Thoreau (1854)
This account of one man’s rejection of American society has influenced generations of free thinkers.
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass (1845)
This vivid memoir was influential in the abolition of slavery, and its author would become one of the most influential African Americans of the 19th century.
Essays by RW Emerson (1841)
New England’s inventor of “transcendentalism” is still revered for his high-minded thoughts on individuality, freedom and nature expressed in 12 essays.
Reflections on the Revolution in France by Edmund Burke (1790)
Motivated by the revolution across the Channel, this passionate defence of the aristocratic system is a landmark in conservative thinking.
The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano by Olaudah Equiano (1789)
The most famous slave memoir of the 18th century is a powerful and terrifying read, and established Equiano as a founding figure in black literary tradition.
The Diary of Fanny Burney (1778)
Burney’s acutely observed memoirs open a window on the literary and courtly circles of late 18th-century England.
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon (1776-1788)
Perhaps the greatest and certainly one of the most influential history books in the English language, in which Gibbon unfolds the narrative from the height of the Roman empire to the fall of Byzantium.
A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift (1729)
The satirist’s jaw-dropping solution to the plight of the Irish poor is among the most powerful tracts in the English language.
A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain by Daniel Defoe (1727) Readable, reliable, full of surprise and charm, Defoe’s Tour is an outstanding literary travel guide.
The Book of Common Prayer by Thomas Cranmer (1662)
Cranmer’s book of vernacular English prayer is possibly the most widely read book in the English literary tradition.
The First Folio by William Shakespeare (1623)
The first edition of his plays established the playwright for all time in a trove of 36 plays with an assembled cast of immortal characters.
King James Bible: The Authorised Version (1611)
It is impossible to imagine the English-speaking world celebrated in this series without the King James Bible, which is as universal and influential as Shakespeare
I got these last week: Vita And Harold: The Letters Of Vita Sackville West And Harold Nicolson, 1910-62
Letters to Sartre - Simone de Beauvoir
Witness to My Life: The Letters of Jean-Paul Sartre to Simone de Beauvoir 1926-39
The last two are great reading side by side.
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Three more from my shelfDiary of a Village Shopkeeper 1754-1765 (1765) - Thomas Turner
My Life: An Attempt at an Autobiography (1970) - Leon Trotsky
A Life in Letters - Anton Chekhov
I also have A Short Residence in Sweden / Memoirs of the Author of 'The Rights of Woman'
by Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin, respectively.
Two books together in one Penguin paperback
The World of Sholom Aleichem (1943) -Maurice Samuel
I also recently read this, which is quite good
Travels in West Africa (1897) - Mary Henrietta Kingsley
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Rosemarie, it is! I have a lovely Folio Edition.
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They were from a list from Guardian. I just picked a few I thought might be of interest. I know we have as a group read some but thought worthy enough to relist.
I left out cook books and a dictionary lol.
Thought it was very interesting the Bible was listed and the version of it.
Which I know is not followed World wide but it can be taken as Non-Fiction or Fiction depends on your upbringing and beliefs.
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Carol because of your recommendations I have read That Quail, Robert at the end of last year and is an adorable read.
I also purchased and as of yet to read Black Lamb and Grey Falcon by Rebecca West
yes I wouldn't have said Shakespeare or the Bible - or some of the others - were non-fiction at all.
oh if you like That Quail, Robert then you might like Ring of Bright Water - Gavin Maxwell
Born Free: The Full Story - Joy Adamson
My Family and Other Animals - Gerald Durrell
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Never too Late to Read Classics
Books mentioned in this topic
My Family and Other Animals (other topics)Born Free: The Full Story (other topics)
Walking Out (other topics)
The Awakening and Selected Short Stories (other topics)
That Quail, Robert (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Joy Adamson (other topics)Gerald Durrell (other topics)
David Quammen (other topics)
Gavin Maxwell (other topics)
Joy Adamson (other topics)
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1. Essays of Michel de Montaigne by Michel de Montaigne:
Essays is the title given to a collection of 107 essays written by Michel de Montaigne that was first published in 1580. Montaigne essentially invented the literary form of essay, a short subjective treatment of a given topic, of which the book contains a large number. Essai is French for "trial" or "attempt".
2. Confessions by Augustine:
Confessions is the name of an autobiographical work, consisting of 13 books, by St. Augustine of Hippo, written between AD 397 and AD 398. Modern English translations of it are sometimes published under the title The Confessions of St. Augustine in order to distinguish the book from other books with similar titles, such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Confessions.
3. The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud:
This book introduces Freud's theory of the unconscious with respect to dream interpretation. Dreams, in Freud's view, were all forms of "wish-fulfillment" — attempts by the unconscious to resolve a conflict of some sort, whether something recent or something from the recesses of the past (later in Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Freud would discuss dreams which did not appear to be wish-fulfillment).
4. The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli:
Il Principe (The Prince) is a political treatise by the Florentine public servant and political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli. Originally called De Principatibus (About Principalities), it was originally written in 1513, but not published until 1532, five years after Machiavelli's death. The treatise is not representative of the work published during his lifetime, but it is the most remembered, and the work responsible for bringing "Machiavellian" into wide usage as a pejorative term.
5. The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin:
Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, published on Thursday 24 November 1859, is a seminal work of scientific literature considered to be the foundation of evolutionary biology. Its full title was On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. For the sixth edition of 1872, the short title was changed to The Origin of Species. Darwin's book introduced the theory that populations evolve over the course of generations through a process of natural selection, and presented a body of evidence that the diversity of life arose through a branching pattern of evolution and common descent.
6. Walden by Henry David Thoreau:
Walden (first published as Walden; or, Life in the Woods) is an American book written by noted transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings.
7. Pensées by Blaise Pascal (1679) Pascal's most influential theological work, referred to posthumously as the Pensées ("Thoughts"), was not completed before his death. It was to have been a sustained and coherent examination and defense of the Christian faith
8. The Republic by Plato:
The Republic is a Socratic dialogue by Plato, written c. 380 B.C.E.. It is one of the most influential works of philosophy and political theory, and Plato's best known work. In Plato's fictional dialogues the characters of Socrates as well as various Athenians and foreigners discuss the meaning of justice and examine whether the just man is happier than the unjust man by imagining a society ruled by philosopher-kings and the guardians.
9. The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels:
Manifesto of the Communist Party (German: Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei), often referred to as The Communist Manifesto, was published on February 21, 1848, and is one of the world's most influential political manuscripts. Commissioned by the Communist League and written by communist theorists Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, it laid out the League's purposes and program. It presents an analytical approach to the class struggle (historical and present) and the problems of capitalism, rather than a prediction of communism's potential future forms.
10. Silent Spring by Rachel Carson:
Silent Spring is a book written by Rachel Carson and published by Houghton Mifflin in September 1962. The book is widely credited with helping launch the environmental movement. When Silent Spring was published, Rachel Carson was already a well-known writer on natural history, but had not previously been a social critic. The book was widely read (especially after its selection by the Book-of-the-Month Club and the New York Times best-seller list), and inspired widespread public concerns with pesticides and pollution of the environment. Silent Spring facilitated the ban of the pesticide DDT in 1972 in the United States. The book documented detrimental effects of pesticides on the environment, particularly on birds. Carson said that DDT had been found to cause thinner egg shells and result in reproductive problems and death. She also accused the chemical industry of spreading disinformation, and public officials of accepting industry claims uncritically.