Non-History Non Fiction
5 works · kept by Mine
pretty self explanatory
The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test & The Right Stuff - Tom Wolfe
Two super journalistic near novels by Wolfe. The first follows a group of Hippies rampaging around the west in the late 60s, just as the wave was breaking. The second is about American test pilots competing for positions on the first space flights. They are both exciting, fun, serious works. Wolfe's style is masterful and completely unique and he is worth reading for those reasons alone, but his eye for character and superb, absurd situations are equally fantastic. I think the Right Stuff is better, but go with whichever topic is more interesting to you.
The Making of the Atomic Bomb - Richard Rhodes
Lots of folks are reading this now with an eye to AI, The first third is a history of the physics that paved the way for the bomb. Rhodes, from the perspective of a reader with no scientific background, goes into substantial depth on the science.
A Time of Gifts - Patrick Leigh Fermor
In 1933, at the age of eighteen, the author set out to walk from Rotterdam to Constantinople, following broadly the routes of the Rhine and the Danube. This first volume records the journey as far as Hungary. Aside form being an extraordinary journey it also a world on the edge of Arriving From german woodsmen, hungarian horsemen, dutch barge workers, peasants - perhaps the last generation of Europeans who could be described as such, to Aristocrats, What happened to the witty Jewish baker? The nice young men in the university towns? Fermor has three qualities which make this work. Firstly his adventurousness and openness to experience , memory, style It is certainly the finest travel book I have yet read.
Might be one of the only cases where the TV series is better than the book. When the BBC was moving to colour in the 60s Mr Clarke was given a very long leash and a very large budget to make a series about western culture from the dark ages to the then present. If you're the type to watch youtube while eating, watch this. There is nothing else like it. The book is also fantastic.
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