Great Non-fiction books
Dr. Lynda here,..... I WANT TO KNOW EVERYTHING! I may be the most curious person you will ever know. In my life books equal change and I am perhaps the most comfortable person I know with change. I am passionate about the cumulative advantage of insight that comes from reading a very broad range of subjects. I am constantly amazed by the connections between subjects as diverse as micro-lending and botany, as divergent as Brain physiology and Nation building. At any one time, beside my bed, I might have 3 books on history, 3 humor, 3 on science, and another half dozen on politics, innovation, religion, and economics. . I constantly have a dozen scraps of paper in my purse on which the names of book titles and authors are scrawled.
In our family life, we never drive a mile in our car without a book on tape going for our kids. I don't know who has enjoyed that habit more. We have covered everything from the Peter Pan Prologue series by Dave Barry, to the Harry Potter series, to The Chronicles of Narnia, etc,.. etc.. Very often, Chuck and I get so caught up in these fantasies that we listen ahead even when the kids are not in the car. They have also enjoyed some of our "adult" books like Dreams of My Father by Obama and Hot, Flat and Crowded by Friedman. These are books that put a light in the window for their emerging perspectives and they are often heard to say "Whowa" from the back seat, so we think they are listening. (ha)
For me, everything I read changes my perspective and helps me manage the meaning of the challenging aspect of modern living.
Reading constantly expands my sense of "possibility" and that is the well from which I draw all energy and inspiration.
Here is a reading list of some of my favorite books arranged by subject:
PHILANTHROPY
- THREE CUPS OF TEA - Morrison
- BANKER TO THE POOR - Mutiammad Yunus
- Leaving Microsoft to Change the World - John Wood
- Giving - Bill Clinton
- The Courage to Give - Waldman
POLOTICS/ECONOMICS
- 1. WHERE HAVE ALL THE LEADERS GONE? - LEE JACOCCA
- 2. THE AUDACITY OF HOPE - Barack Obama
- 3. JUST HOW STUPID ARE WE? - Rick Shenkman
- 4. THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS - Jon Ronson
- 5. Fiasco - Ricks
- 6. INFIDEL - Hirsi Ali
- 7. Dreaming up America - Banks
- 8. Descent into Chaos - Rashid
- 9. The Forever War - Filkins
- 10. BAD MONEY - Phillips
- 11. Winning - Jack Welch
- 12. The World is Flat - Friedman
- 13. Kite Runner - Hosseini
- 14. Einstein on Peace - Avenel
- 15. Nuts! - Freigerg
- 16. who's afraid of a Large Black Man - Charles Barkley
- 17. Return to Sodom and Gomorrah - Pellegrino
- 18. A world of Ideas - Bill Moyers
- 19. Viva La Repartee - Grothe
- 20. Leading Minds.. An Anatomy of Leadership - Howard Gardner
MYSTERIES just for fun
- (All in this series) The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency - Alexander McCall Smith
- (All in this series) The Cat who... - Lillian Jackson Braun
INNOVATIVE THINKING
1. BLINK - Malcolm Gladwell
2. The Tipping Point - Gladwell
3. Outliers - Malcolm Gladwell
4. GUT FEELINGS... The Intelligence of the Unconscious - Gigerenzer
5. See Jan Win - Sylvia Rimm
6. The New Birth Order Book - Leman
7. PROTECTING THE GIFT - Gavin Decker
ENVIRONMENT
1. HOT, FLAT, CROWDED - Thomas Friedman
2. LAST CHANCE TO SEE - Douglas Adams
3. The End of Nature - McKibbin
4. Empire of the Scrounge - Ferrell
5. SILENT SPRING - Carson
6. The edge of the Sea - R. Carson
SPORTS
1. Golf and the Spirit - Scott Peck
2. Last Shot - Feinstein
3. You Lose Some, You Lose Some - Furman and Harry
HISTORY
1. HISTORY OF THE WORLD IN 8 GLASSES - Tom Sandages
2. ENDURANCE - Worslly
3. Gandhi & Churchill - Arthur Herman
4. Tried By War - McPherson
5. Lincoln - David Herbert Donald
6. The Chalice and the Blade - Riane Eisler
7. America's Women - Gail Collins
8. Lincoln at Gettysburg - Garry Wills
HUMOR
1. ALL of BILL BRYSON's BOOKS!!
2. HISTORY OF THE MILLENIUM - Dave Barry
3. Way Off the Road - Bill Geist
4. HITCH HIKERS GUIDE TO THE GALLAXY - Douglas Adams
5. A' la Cart - Carlip
6. Kitchen Confidential - Anthony Bourdain
7. I am What I Ate.. And I'm Afraid - Bill Cosby
8. I Feel Bad About My Neck -
RELIGION
1. MYTH OF A CHRISTIAN NATION - Boyd
2. ZEN AND THE ART OF MOTERCYCLE MAINTENACE - Pirsig
2. MISQUOTING JESUS - Ehrman
3. The Gospel of Inclusion - Pearson
4. God's Problem - Ehrman A History of God - Armstrong
5. The Gifts of the Jews - Cahill
SCIENCE
1. ANATOMY OF AN ILLNESS - Cousins
2. Your Inner Fish - Shubin
3. DEEP SURVIVAL - Laurence Ganzales
4. The Botany of Desire - Pollan
5. Reading the Forested Landscape - Wessels
6. Medical Detectives - Berton Roueche
7. Orchid Fever - Hansen
8. The Snoring Bird.. A family's Journey Through a Century of Biology - Bernd Heinfich
9. Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors - Carl Sagan
10. Winter World.. The Ingenuity of Animal Survival - Heinrich
11. Connections - James Burk
12. Generations - William Strauss
13. A Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawking
TRAVEL
1. The Best American Travel Writing - A. Bourdain editor
2. Holy Cow - S. Macdonald
3. AKA - Tristan Jones (All his books about life at sea are fabulous)
4. Slipping into Paradise.. Why I live in New Zealand - Masson
5. Eat, Pray, Love - Gilbert
6. Miles from Nowhere - Barbar Savage
7. The Man who Moved a Mountain - Davids
8. Travels - Michael Crichton
PHILOSOPHY
1. JONATHAN LIVINGSTON SEAGULL - Richard Bach
2. VICTOR FRANKEL"S "MAN'S SEARCHING FOR MEANING" - Victor Frankel
3. MOVE YOUR SHADOW - Joseph Lelyveld
4. Invisible Lines of Connection - Kushner
5. Don't Just Do Something, Sit There - Boorstein
6. Its Easier Than You Think - Boorstein
7. TRAVELS WITH CHARLIE - Steinback
8. There's No Such Place as Far Away - Bach
9.
10. The Missing Piece - Silverstein
11. The Missing Piece meets the Big O - Silverstein
12. How to see yourself as you really are - Dalai Lama
13. THE ONLY DANCE THERE IS - Ram Dass