The Best Modern Non-Fiction Books

[grechzoo]

Yes it’s as broad as it sounds. I’m basically wanting to supplement my fiction reading with some non-fiction audiobooks, (driving a lot) and to be honest I really don't have a preferred sub-genre.

I'm looking for entertaining writing with a lot of personality, and really I just want suggestion of the most enjoyable non-fiction out there in your general opinions.

Really I'm just looking for a good way to use the time I have in the car, so I hope you can help :D

[stlukesguild]

Well... at the top of my list I would place J.L. Borges' Selected Non-Fictions and his Other Inquisitions. Other great examples of Modern (how recent do you define something as "Modern?) Non-Fiction would include:

Octavio Paz- The Double Flame: Love and Eroticism, In Light of India
Andre Malraux- The Voices of Silence
Robert Hughes- The Shock of the New
Gore Vidal- United States
Donald Kuspit- The End of Art
Roberto Manguel- A History of Reading
Peter Ackroyd- Albion, London, Shakespeare, etc...
John Ashberry- Reported Sightings
T.S. Eliot- Selected Essays
Sir Kenneth Clark- The Nude and Civilization
Umberto Eco- The History of Beauty, On Ugliness, Travels in Hyperreality, On Literature, and The Infinity of Lists
Italo Calvino- Six Memos for the Next Millennium, Why Read the Classics?

[grechzoo]

id say last 60 years or so. basically im just not interested in the classical writing style of ran audiobook, i find it really hard to listen to very verbose grandly structured sentenced out loud.

id save those for actually reading.

thanks a lot :D

[Iwanuschka]

Is there a specific topic you want to listen about? I considered R.Dawkins' "The God Delusion" to be pretty entertaining.

[Heteronym]

Sticking to living people only:

Slavenka Drakulic: Croatian novelist and journalist, she's covered such topics as life in communist Yugoslavia, life in Eastern Europe after the fall of the Soviet Union, and the Balkan war crimes.

Mary Midgley: British philosopher, one of the most lucid thinkers of our age, sadly unknown to many. Writes a lot about ethics and morality, the nature of evil and other fascinating topics.

Steven Pinker: besides writing some very accessible books about neuroscience, he's also made Chomsky's fascinating but complicated linguistic theories palatable for laymen.

Jared Diamond: Guns, Germs and Steel should be mandatory reading to understand why the world is as it is now.

Alan Weisman: The World Without Us is an eye-opening account of what we've done to the world and how the world will be after we're gone. I'm sad to say it doesn't have a happy ending for Earth.

[grechzoo]

thanks guys,

as i mentioned in the OP i dont have specifics i just want the most enjoyable books you can think of.

although i will say im not religious really. so books based in religion probably wont appeal,

[Tallon]

A Short History Of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson. One of my favourites.

[Heteronym]

Oh yes, I loved that book by Bill Bryson!

[nandakishore]

I should warn you first that the following is based exclusively on my tastes.

The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell

The Uses of Enchantment by Bruno Bettelheim

Man and His Symbols edited by C.G.Jung