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I really feel the need to diversify my reading as well as to expand my worldly views. So having said that I just picked up A Long Way Gone Memoirs Of A Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah and Opium Season by Joel Hafvenstein. Any way, any opinions or comments about either would be appreciated.
which can diversify and elucidate your reading program. Some of the classic non-fiction works I have enjoyed are listed below:
The History of Early Rome - Livy
The Peloponnesion War -Thuycidides
Histories - Herodotus of Hallicarnasus
Chronicles - Froissart
Meditations - Marcus Aurelius
Politics and Poetics - Aristotle
The Prince - Machiavelli
Lives of the Twelve Caesars - Suetonius
Autobiography - Benvenuto Cellini
Autobiography - Benjamin Franklin
I have the Benjamin Franklin and the Prince from that list so I might get to those soon. I also have John Updike's Utilitarianism on my rather long list of books to read soon. I'm starting a class soon that may require readings of the Hawkins Paradox as well as Christopher Hitchins and some other science versus religion type novels. I've also started reading both of the books originally brought up in this thread. They are both very interesting to say the least, in particular the Beah is one of the best written modern books I've read in a while perhaps ever. It's not exactly enjoybable because of course the subject matter is very upsetting but in a sense it's uplifting to read about how humans can go through such misery and come out the other side well adjusted.
Paris 1919 by Margaret Macmillian. I bought it for research use for a history paper for school, but I have found it far too interesting to just skim. A really great book that is a comfortable read for novel lovers- not hard and dry facts for history scholars. Highly recommended for anyone who likes war history.
Joan of Arc by Mark Twain is a great book
So are Gandhi's autobiography, and The Declining Significance of Race by William Wilson
That is about the only reason why I would read a non fiction or more precisely history. That is to enhance some literature, otherwise forget it. Too many people have trampled over the history books, but at least there still is a reason to read them.
I'm still reading the Beah novel. It often makes me extremely sad and angry. I guess that's the point as any one with an ounce of compassion would feel the same way. I knew that things were brutal in that part of Africa but had no idea that things were this horrific. I feel both insulated and I must admit a bit guilty that I'm not doing any thing to help these people. My dear God I've heard some (real) horrific accounts from other places but this might just be the most gut wrenching thing I've ever read. The fact that it's all real and the author wasn't even a teenager during a lot of what he went through is just beyond the pale to say the least.
In other news I meant to write John Stuart Mill regarding On Liberty & Utilitarianism. I'm surprised nobody has pointed that out.
I've just picked up a copy of Andy Orchard's Monsters and Prodigies: Studies in the Monsters of the Beowulf Manuscript, not be cause I agree with Dr Orchard's views but because he's helpfully included a translation into modern English of Wonder of the East and Alexander's Letter to Aristotle as an appendix, both of which are VERY heavygoing in Old English...
Still, owning my own critical texts make me feel like a real academic...:cornut:
The postman just delivered Caliban's Shore: The Wreck of the Grosvenor and the Strange Fate of Her Survivors by Stephen Taylor:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Caliban-Shor...6589099&sr=8-1