Reading list (nonfiction)

This article is a to-do list of books which interest me, in some cases referencing the Hennepin County Library system.

See also Category:Books (nonfiction), Category:Writers (nonfiction), Snippets.

Chemical Warfare: Secrets Almost Forgotten

James S. Ketchum (born ca. 1931, Manhattan, New York, New York) is a retired psychiatrist and US Army colonel who worked for almost a decade (1960-1969) on the U.S. military’s top secret psychochemical warfare program at the Edgewood Arsenal, Maryland, which pursued research on chemicals to be used to “incapacitate the minds” of adversaries.

BZ: As described in retired Army psychiatrist James Ketchum's autobiographical book Chemical Warfare: Secrets Almost Forgotten (2006), work proceeded in 1964 when a general envisioned a scheme to incapacitate an entire trawler with aerosolized BZ; this effort was dubbed Project DORK.

Steven Pressfield

Tides of War is a novel by Steven Pressfield, chronicling the Peloponnesian War.

Elizabeth Gilbert

The Signature of All Things is a novel by Elizabeth Gilbert. It was originally published in 2013 and longlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction.

Bruce Chatwin

The Viceroy of Ouidah is a novel published in 1980 by Bruce Chatwin, a British author.

Michael Sipser

The Theory of Computation

Arielle Saiber

... her latest book, Measured Words: Computation and Writing in Renaissance Italy (University of Toronto Press, 2017). These “excellent and varied computers,” she explains, “were the people who calculated quantities, formulated algorithms, proposed new mathematical objects and equations, tested proofs.”

Runaway Horses

Runaway Horses (奔馬 Honba) is a 1969 novel by Yukio Mishima, the second in his Sea of Fertility tetralogy. Mishima did much research to prepare for this novel, including visiting locations recorded in the book and searching for information on the Shinpūren Rebellion (神風連の乱 Shinpūren no Ran).

Stephanie Cowell

Stephanie Cowell’s “Claude & Camille” is both a historical novel and a romance, but Cowell’s graceful, moving treatment of Claude and Camille Monet’s turbulent love defies categorization.

http://archive.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2010/04/11/tragic_families_and_turbulent_love/

Lindsey Davis

Saturnalia is a 2007 historical mystery crime novel by Lindsey Davis and the 18th book of the Marcus Didius Falco Mysteries series. Set in Ancient Rome, the novel stars Marcus Didius Falco, informer and imperial agent.

Steven Millhauser

The Knife Thrower and Other Stories by Steven Millhauser, first published in 1998 by Crown Publishers, Inc., New York City. It is a collection of short stories, some of which were published by various journals, such as The Paris Review, Harper's Magazine, and The New Yorker. It continues in a similar vein to Millhauser's previous efforts that mix the extraordinary into everyday life.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Knife_Thrower_and_Other_Stories

Eamonn McGrath

His second novel, The Charnel House follows life in a TB sanitarium in the 1950s, from where young engineering student Richard Cogley sees little chance of escape. Lyrically written, it is one of few novels that examines the social effects of the white plague in Ireland, a central theme of the book being the indifference of society to the suffering of others.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eamonn_McGrath

Barbara Gowdy

• So Seldom Do We Look On Love (short stories)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Gowdy

Yukio Mishima

The Temple of the Golden Pavilion (金閣寺 Kinkaku-ji) is a novel by the Japanese author Yukio Mishima. It was published in 1956 and translated into English by Ivan Morris in 1959.

Donald MacIntosh

Travels in the White Man's Grave

Ameisen, Olivier

The End of My Addiction

Minneapolis Central (2nd floor Business and Science) Adult Nonfiction Book RC565 .A4685 2009

Jesse Ernest Wilkins Jr.

In 2010 a niece of Wilkins, Carolyn Marie Wilkins, Professor of Music at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, wrote of Wilkins' father and her family more generally in her biography Damn Near White: An African American Family's Rise from Slavery to Bittersweet Success.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Ernest_Wilkins_Jr.

Edmund Bohun

In 1885, Bohun's diary and autobiography were published by S. Wilton Rix.

S. Wilton Rix, The Diary and Autobiography of Edmund Bohun Esq (1885)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Bohun

Tobias Dantzig

Number: The Language of Science: A Critical Survey Written for the Cultured Non-Mathematician is a popular mathematics book written by Russian-American mathematician Tobias Dantzig. The original U.S. publication was by Macmillan in 1930.[1] A second edition (third impression) was published in 1947 in Prague, Czechoslovakia by Melantrich Company. It recounts the history of mathematical ideas, and how they have evolved.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number:_The_Language_of_Science

Fred Chester Bond

Autobiography.

"Bond's autobiography[9] describes life in Colorado in the 1920s and shows some ways in which it was still somewhat pioneering compared with today. It also describes the experience of working as a foreign engineer in South America and some of the poverty encountered, discord argued, friendships made, and mining projects worked on.[9] An interesting account of uranium mining in Canada at Port Radium is given."

• Bond, Fred C. (2011), Bond, Laurie J., ed., It Happened to Me, Bruce F. Bond. Autobiography, published posthumously.
• Bond, Fred C. (2011) [1972], Bond, Bruce F., ed., To Know What We Are (2 ed.), Bond Publishing. Metaphysical work, republished 2011.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Chester_Bond

Gisevius, Hans Bernd

To the Bitter End

Minneapolis Central (4th floor General) Adult Nonfiction Book (Stacks) 943.085 G53

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Bernd_Gisevius

Fred C. Bond

• Bond, Fred C. (2011), Bond, Laurie J., ed., It Happened to Me, Bruce F. Bond. Autobiography, published posthumously.
• Bond, Fred C. (2011) [1972], Bond, Bruce F., ed., To Know What We Are (2 ed.), Bond Publishing. Metaphysical work, republished 2011.

A. V. Christie

Ann Victoria "A V." Christie (February 2, 1963 – April 7, 2016) was an American poet.

Her first poetry collection, Nine Skies, won the 1996 National Poetry Series prize. The poet Henri Cole described it as "hard-bitten, luxuriant and true," and the Philadelphia-area poet Eleanor Wilner called it "diamond-faceted, elliptical." W.S. DiPiero said of her 2014 collection The Wonders that "her poems invoke and respect strangeness and make strangeness feel near."

John Gill Lemmon

John Gill Lemmon, Recollections of Rebel Prisons (Andersonville)

Charles Williams

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Williams_(British_writer)

How Not to Be Wrong

How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking, written by Jordan Ellenberg, is a New York Times Best Selling book that connects various economic and societal philosophies with basic mathematics and statistical principles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Not_to_Be_Wrong

Men of Mathematics

• Men of Mathematics (nonfiction)

Andri Snær Magnason

Andri Snær Magnason (b. 14 July 1973) is an Icelandic writer. He has written novels, poetry, plays, short stories, essays and CDs. His work has been published or performed in more than 30 countries.

His novel, LoveStar, was chosen “Novel of the year” by Icelandic booksellers 2002, received the DV Literary Award and a nomination to the Icelandic Literary Prize, and was awarded the Philip K. Dick Award Special Citation of Excellence in 2013.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andri_Sn%C3%A6r_Magnason

Rudyard Kipling

• With the Night Mail
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_Board_of_Control

Ralph Barton

Bruce Kellner. The Last Dandy: Ralph Barton, American Artist, 1891-1931. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1991. ISBN 0-8262-0774-X

E. T. A. Hoffmann's novella

E. T. A. Hoffmann's novella, Mademoiselle de Scudéri. A Tale from the Times of Louis XIV [Das Fräulein von Scuderi. Erzählung aus dem Zeitalter Ludwig des Vierzehnten].

Jay Hosler

Cartooning entomologist Jay Hosler's forthcoming young adult graphic novel Last of the Sandwalkers masterfully combines storytelling with science; in this essay, he explains how beautifully comics play into the public understanding of science -- and why that understanding is a matter of urgency for all of us.

György Konrád

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gy%C3%B6rgy_Konr%C3%A1d

Though Konrád has frequently portrayed his Berettyóúfalu childhood in his novels, and particularly in The Feast in the Garden, he attempted to present this period in a more precise documentary form in two more recent books, Departure and Return (2001) and Up on the Hill During a Solar Eclipse (2003). The first of these books treats a single year – 1944-45 – while the second covers fifty, after beginning with a reflection on the final years of the twentieth century, more precisely the morning solar eclipse of 1999, experienced from the peak of St. György Hill. These books were published separately in Europe, and together in New York as A Guest in My Own Country (2007).

Czesław Miłosz

Czesław Miłosz (30 June 1911 – 14 August 2004) was a Polish poet, prose writer, translator and diplomat. His World War II-era sequence The World is a collection of twenty "naïve" poems. Following the war, he served as Polish cultural attaché in Paris and Washington, D.C., then in 1951 defected to the West. His nonfiction book The Captive Mind (1953) became a classic of anti-Stalinism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Captive_Mind

Waddington on Art and Science

Behind Appearance; a Study Of The Relations Between Painting And The Natural Sciences In This Century (1960, MIT press)

Conrad Hal Waddington

Diary of a Japanese Military Brothel Manager

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diary_of_a_Japanese_Military_Brothel_Manager

Stephen Budiansky

• Code Warriors: Nsa's Codebreakers and the Secret Intelligence War Against the Soviet Union (2017). ISBN 978-080-417-097-0
• Mad Music: Charles Ives, the Nostalgic Rebel (2014). University Press of New England. ISBN 978-1-61168-399-8
• Blackett's War: The Men Who Defeated the Nazi U-Boats and Brought Science to the Art of Warfare (2013). Knopf. ISBN 978-0307595966, detailing the contributions to the war effort made by Patrick Blackett and his scientific colleagues in the early 1940s.
• Perilous Fight: America's Intrepid War with Britain on the High Seas, 1812–1815 (2011). Knopf. ISBN 978-0-307-27069-6
• Murder, By the Book (2008). Black Sheep Press. ISBN 978-1-4348-3767-7
• The Bloody Shirt: Terror After the Civil War (2007). Viking. ISBN 978-0-452-29016-7
• Her Majesty's Spymaster: Elizabeth I, Sir Francis Walsingham, and the Birth of Modern Espionage (2005). Viking. ISBN 978-0-452-28747-1
• Air Power: The Men, Machines, and Ideas That Revolutionized War, from Kitty Hawk to Iraq (2004). Viking. ISBN 0-14-303474-X
• The Character of Cats (2002). Viking. ISBN 0-670-03093-7
• The Truth About Dogs (2000). Viking. ISBN 0-670-89272-6
• The World According to Horses: How They Run, See, and Think (2000). Henry Holt. ISBN 0-8050-6054-5
• Battle of Wits: The Complete Story of Codebreaking in World War II (2000). Free Press. ISBN 978-0-7432-1734-7
• If A Lion Could Talk: Animal Intelligence and the Evolution of Consciousness (1998). Free Press. ISBN 0-684-83710-2
• The Nature of Horses (1997). Free Press. ISBN 978-0-684-82768-1
• Nature's Keepers (1995). Free Press. ISBN 0-02-904915-6
• The Covenant of the Wild (1992). Yale University Press (reprint ed, 1999). ISBN 978-0-300-07993-7

Spurs

"Spurs" is a short story by Tod Robbins. The story was published in February 1923 in Munsey's Magazine and included in Robbins' 1926 anthology Who Wants a Green Bottle? and Other Uneasy Tales. In 1932 the story became the basis for the Tod Browning produced film Freaks.

You Can't Win

You Can't Win is an autobiography by burglar and hobo Jack Black, written in the early to mid-1920s and first published in 1926. It describes Black's life on the road, in prison and his various criminal capers in the American and Canadian west from the late 1880s to early 20th century. The book was a major influence upon William S. Burroughs and other Beat writers. It was made into a film in 2015.

Carole Morin

Carole Morin is a Glasgow-born novelist who lives in Soho, London. To date she has had four novels published: Lampshades, Penniless in Park Lane, Dead Glamorous, and Spying On Strange Men.

John Calder

• Pursuit: The Uncensored Memoirs of John Calder

Aharon Appelfeld

Aharon Appelfeld

Trevanian

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trevanian
  • The Eiger Sanction (1972)
  • The Loo Sanction (1973)
  • The Main (1976)
  • Shibumi (1979) - meta-spy
  • The Summer of Katya (1983) - psychological horror
  • Incident at Twenty-Mile (1998) - Western
  • Hot Night in the City (2000) - short shorty collection
  • The Crazyladies of Pearl Street (2005) - semi-autobiography

Per Olov Enquist

• The Visit of the Royal Physician
• The Book About Blanche and Marie

Claude Berge

• Who killed the Duke of Densmore? - a murder mystery based on a mathematical theorem

https://jacquerie.github.io/duke/

http://www.cs.kent.edu/~dragan/ST-Spring2016/island-story.pdf

http://kasmana.people.cofc.edu/MATHFICT/mfview.php?callnumber=mf277

Jesse L. Lasky

• I Blow My Own Horn

Zoltán Pál Dienes

• Memoirs of a Maverick Mathematician

Erle Stanley Gardner

• Shills Can't Cash Chips

David Nickle

• Eutopia

Clark R. Mollenhoff

• Washington Cover-Up: How Bureaucratic Secrecy Promotes Corruption and Waste in the Federal Government (1962), Doubleday. ISBN 0548443475 (2007 edition)
• Tentacles of Power: The Story of Jimmy Hoffa (1965), World Publishing
• Despoilers of Democracy: The real story of what Washington propagandists, arrogant bureaucrats, mismanagers, influence peddlers, and outright corrupters are doing to our Federal Government (1965), Doubleday
• The Pentagon: Politics, Profits and Plunder (1967), G.P. Putnam's Sons
• Strike Force: Organized Crime and the Government (1972), Prentice Hall, ISBN 0-13-852772-5
• The Man Who Pardoned Nixon (1976), The K.S. Giniger Company, Inc., ISBN 978-0-900997-89-1
• Game Plan for Disaster (1976), W.W. Norton & Co., ISBN 0-393-05543-4
• Investigative Reporting: From Courthouse to White House (1981), Macmillan, ISBN 0-02-381870-0
• Atanasoff: Forgotten Father of the Computer (1988), ISBN 0-8138-0032-3

I am a Cat

I am a Cat by Natsume Sōseki.

Once an Eagle

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Once_An_Eagle

Killer Angels

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Killer_Angels

Boris Vian

• Mood Indigo - Minneapolis Central (1st floor General) Adult Fiction Book VIAN
• Blues for A Black Cat & Other Stories - Minneapolis Central (1st floor General) Adult Fiction Book VIAN

As Vernon Sullivan:

• J'irai cracher sur vos tombes (I Shall Spit on Your Graves) (Éditions du Scorpion, 1946)
• Les morts ont tous la même peau (The Dead All Have the Same Skin) (Éditions du Scorpion, 1947)
• Et on tuera tous les affreux (To Hell With the Ugly) (Éditions du Scorpion, 1948)
• Elles se rendent pas compte (They Do Not Realize) (1948–50, published 1950 by Éditions du Scorpion)

Nonfiction cross-reference

• Reading at night (nonfiction)