Interesting Books with Boring Classifications

Well, since it's a bit hard to find books based just on dewey decimal numbers at the moment, I've been cross-referencing my nonfiction wishlist with LT. This turned up some interesting books in not-so-interesting categories. I was intrigued, so I started scoring bestseller lists, the new york times notable books of the past few years, and doing some jumping around with LT's recommendations and come up with a nice long list of interesting books mostly for categories that I assume would be filled with boring books. A few of these others have already posted, but I haven't seen a lot of them so far. Hopefully this list will help you along in your challenge.

Now my disclaimer: I haven't read any of these books yet. A lot of them have been wishlisted as a result of recomendations, good reviews, or an interesting mention in the press. I can't personally vouch for the quality of these books, but they are all things I would read in the future.

Now, onto the list!

002 The Book - A gentle madness : bibliophiles, bibliomanes, and the eternal passion for books
003 Systems - The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
011 Bibilographies - Book Lust
069 Museology (Museum Science) - Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder
110 Ontology - I am a strange loop
200 Religion - The Devil is a Gentleman
220 Bible - The Year of Living Biblically or God's Secretaries
228 Revelation - A History of the End of the World
297 Islam and religions originating in it - No god but god
307 Communities - Planet of Slums
338 Production - Candyfreak or McIlhenny's Gold or The Cigarette Century
345 Criminal Law - Tulia : race, cocaine, and corruption in a small Texas town
355 Military Science - The Men Who Stare at Goats
378 Higher Education - Pledged
394 General Customs - Ashes to ashes : America's hundred-year cigarette war, the public health, and the unabashed triumph of Philip Morris or Omnivore's Dilemma
410 Linguistics - The Language Instinct
513 Arithmetic - Flat Land
523 Specific Celestial Bodies and Phenomena - A Briefer History of Time
529 Chronology - Einstein's Clocks, Poincare's Maps
530 Physics - Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman
539 Modern Physics - The Elegant Universe
550 Earth Sciences - The Map that Changed the World
551 Geology, Hydrology, Meterology - Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded
553 Economic Geology - Salt
599 Mammalia - Rats : observations on the history and habitat of the city's most unwanted inhabitants
591 Zoology - The Selfish Gene or Animals in Translation
610 Medical Sciences; Medicine - Mountains Beyond Mountains
613 Promotion of Health - The bloodless revolution : a cultural history of vegetarianism from 1600 to modern times
636 Animal Husbandry - The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill or The Good Good Pig
646 Sewing, Clothing, Personal Living - They Call Me Naughty Lola
652 Processes of Written Communication - The Code Book
658 General Management - The Long Tail
781 General Principles and Musical Forms - Love is a Mix Tape
786 Keyboard and Other Instruments - Chopin's Funeral
795 Games of Chance - Positively Fifth Street
919 Other Areas - In a Sunburned Country
955 General History of Asia; Iran - Persepolis
959 General history of Asia; Southeast Asia - The River of Lost Footsteps: Histories of Burma
976 General history of North America; South central United States - Isaac's Storm or The Great Deluge

Thanks for doing this! I had just been looking at The Year of Living Biblically in the bookstore last week, and it's an added bonus if it fills one of these categories too. I was planning to wait for it to come out in paperback, but maybe not....

I'll look at my own catalogue and see if I can add anything to this.

Just off the top of my head, I think The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat is an interesting one for 616 Diseases.

Here's the list that I came up with. I had two criteria for making it: either the book came from the tagmash of non-fiction and favorite(s), or its most common rating is 5 stars. I don't want to call anyone's favourite categories boring (plus I don't even consider all of these categories boring), so I'm labelling this list "books that are more interesting than the average book in their category".

001 Knowledge: The Demon-Haunted World
031 General encyclopedic works -- American: An Underground Education
070 News media, journalism, publishing: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
153 Mental processes & intelligence: Blink or The Mismeasure of Man
200 Religion: The Battle for God
236 Eschatology: The Great Divorce
273 Heresies in church history: Out of the Flames
277 Christian church in North America: Blue Like Jazz
302 Social interaction: The Tipping Point
304 Factors affecting social behavior: The World Without Us
306 Culture & institutions: The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down
322 Relation of state to organized groups: Them
330 Economics: Freakonomics
508 Natural history: Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science or Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
510 Mathematics: Gödel, Escher, Bach
530 Physics: Flatland and Sphereland
576 Genetics and evolution: The Blind Watchmaker
591 Zoology: Last Chance to See
610 Medical sciences; Medicine: Mountains Beyond Mountains
636 Animal husbandry: Marley and Me
641 Food & drink: Kitchen Confidential
791 Public performances: If Chins Could Kill
796 Athletic & outdoor sports & games: Into Thin Air
798 Equestrian sports & animal racing: Seabiscuit
914 Europe: Round Ireland with a Fridge
915 Asia: Annapurna
926 Not assigned or no longer used: Cheaper by the Dozen
929 Genealogy, names, insignia: Angela's Ashes
967 General history of Africa; Central Africa & offshore islands: Out of Africa
968 General history of Africa; Southern Africa: Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight
973 General history of North America; United States: Assassination vacation
975 General history of North America; Southeastern United States: Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
977 General history of North America; North central United States: A Girl Named Zippy

Here are a few that I've identified or checked out from the library but haven't read yet:

001 Knowledge: Cryptozoology A to Z
022 Administration of the Physical Plant: The Book on the Bookshelf
026 Libraries for specific subjects: Books Afloat and Ashore
081 General collections American: Dancing Naked in the Mind Field (by a man who "may be our quirkiest Nobel Laureate," according to a blurb on the back cover)
658 General management: House of Lies

Also, I've read Them (322 in Zoe's list above), and it's definitely an entertaining read and more interesting than the average book in that category for anyone who isn't into political science. I also enjoyed Round Ireland with a Fridge (914).

Zoe - I loved Jacobs' The Know-It All (which incidentally counts for one of the encyclopedia classifications) and am really looking forward to The Year of Living Biblically. However, I'm stubborn and almost never buy books in hardcover so it will be a while before I get around to it.

Anyway, I was just posting to say that after doing some further I research I realized that some of the books I posted earlier are what are considered "microhistory" or bascially the history of mundane stuff like Salt. This actually was an unkown genre to me at the time, but incidentally a favorite. Anyway, I've been working on covering some more categories and have realized that "microhistories" can cover a lot of the possibly more obscure categories. So if anyone knows of any or has any personal favorites, please let me know!

I'm usually pretty stubborn when it comes to not buying hardcovers, but I think I've been slipping a bit lately.

I've never heard of microhistory either; it's interesting that there's a name for that kind of book. Just following the links from the Salt page, here's what I came up with. I'm not sure they're all technically microhistory (the recommendations sometimes led me astray...), but close enough.

028 Reading, use of other information media: Marginalia
333 Land economics: Cod: A History of the Fish That Changed the World
338 Production: Nathaniel's Nutmeg
384 Communications; Telecommunication: A Thread Across the Ocean
389 Metrology & standardization: Time Lord
413 Dictionaries: Chasing the Sun
526 Mathematical geography: The Measure of All Things
550 Earth sciences: The Map That Changed the World
609 Historical, areas, persons treatment: Zipper
621 Applied physics: One Good Turn: A Natural History of the Screwdriver
635 Garden crops (Horticulture): Tulipomania
641 Food & drink: Caviar: The Strange History and Uncertain Future of the World's Most Coveted Delicacy or Spice or The Potato: How the Humble Spud Rescued the Western World
666 Ceramic & allied technologies: Mauve
668 Technology of other organic products: Plastic
674 Lumber processing, wood products, cork: The Pencil
738 Ceramic arts: The Arcanum
907 Education, research, related topics: The Footnote
912 Graphic representations of earth: The Riddle of the Compass

Thanks, Zoe. That definitely added a few more to the now-completely-daunting wishlist.

Anyway, here's some more books I've found. Not all are microhistories, but a lot are.

025 Library Operations - Double Fold
034 General encyclopedic works in French, Provencal, Catalan - Enlightening the World: Encyclopédie, the book that changed the course of history
154 Subconscious and Altered States - The Interpretation of Dreams
155 Differential and Developmental Psychology - Objects of Our Desire
327 International Relations - The Puzzle Palace
332 Financial Economics - Banker to the Poor
336 Public Finance - Confessions of a Tax Collector
384 Communication; Telecommunication - The Victorian Internet
411 Writing Systems - Alpha Beta
417 Dialectology and Historical Lingusitics - The Power of Babel
512 Algebra and Number Theory - Fermat's Last Theorem
516 Geometry - Euclid's Window
520 Astronomy & Allied Sciences - Galileo's Daughter
526 Mathematical Geography - Longitude: the true story of a lone genius who solved the greatest scientific problem of his time
535 Light and Paraphotic Phenomena - Color: A Natural History of the Palette
537 Electricity and Electronics - Electric Universe
540 Chemistry and Allied Sciences - Napoleon's Buttons: How 17 Molecules Changed the World
595 Other Invertebrates - Journey to the Ants
609 Historical areas, persons, treatment - The Evolution of Useful Things
624 Civil Engineering - The Great Bridge
629 Other Branches of Engineering - A Ball, a Dog, and a Monkey
726 Buildings for Religious Purposes - Brunelleschi's dome
728 Residential and related buildings - Home: A Short History of an Idea
794 Indoor Games of Skill - The Turk : the life and times of the famous eighteenth-century chess-playing machine
796 Athletic & outdoor sports & games - Fever Pitch or How Soccer Explains the World
913 Ancient World - God, Graves, and Scholars: The Story of Archeology
915 Asia - The Great Railway Bazaar
942 General history of Europe; England & Wales - London: The Biography
946 General history of Europe; Iberian Peninsula & adjacent islands - The Basque History of the World
951 General history of Asia; China & adjacent areas - Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China
972 General history of North America; Middle America; Mexico - The Path Between the Seas
974 General history of North America; Northeastern United States - The island at the center of the world : the epic story of Dutch Manhattan and the forgotten colony that shaped America

General encyclopedic works in French, Provencal, Catalan! I'm very glad you found a book in that category, especially one that people seem to really like.

I had been thinking of reading The Turk after I saw a good play about it last year, thanks for reminding me about it! (I'll ignore for now the fact that I already have a book from that category in my TBR pile; I can always use another.)

333 Land economics: Hubbert's Peak: the Impending World Oil Shortage
442 French etymology: Le Franglais: Forbidden English, Forbidden American
491 East Indo-European & Celtic languages: Compulsory Irish
493 Non-Semitic Afro-Asiatic languages: The Keys of Egypt
522 Techniques, equipment, materials (astronomy): Flash! The Hunt for the Biggest Explosions in the Universe
541 Physical and theoretical chemistry: Mr. Tompkins Explores the Atom
618 Gynecology & other medical specialties: The Archaeology of Mothering
629 Other branches of engineering: The Right Stuff or The Spirit of St. Louis
668 Technology of other organic products: The Secret of Scent
946 General history of Europe; Iberian Peninsula & adjacent islands: Homage to Catalonia
978 General history of North America; Western United States: Bad Land: An American Romance

The Keys of Egypt looks quite interesting, and it's in a category I would've assumed I'd never read a book in.

A similar book in the same category is The Linguist and the Emperor.

I found some more while browsing at the library today. (I am actually reading some of these!)

091 Manuscripts: Friar Cipher: Roger Bacon and the Unsolved Mystery of the Most Unusual Manuscript in the World
160 Logic: Being Logical: A Guide to Good Thinking
380 Commerce, communications, transport: 21 Dog Years: Doing Time at Amazon.com
411 Writing systems: Alpha beta
520 Astronomy and allied sciences: The Cosmic Verses: A Rhyming History of the Universe
580 Plants: A Rum Affair: A True Story of Botanical Fraud
660 Chemical engineering: Shrinking the Cat: Genetic Engineering Before We Knew About Genes
937 History of the ancient world; Italy & adjacent islands: The Day of the Barbarians: The Battle that Led to the Fall of the Roman Empire

I just realized that some of my favorite childhood picture books - Cajun Alphabet, Cajun Night Before Christmas - actually count for the 447 French Language Variations.

>12 carlym: Another book like your 091 Manuscripts: Friar Cipher: Roger Bacon and the Unsolved Mystery of the Most Unusual Manuscript in the World is The Voynich Manuscript which is about the same insane manuscript. Having not read both I can't compare them, but I can tell you I thoroughly enjoyed The Voynich Manuscript from a point of view of someone who had never heard of it before picking up the book.

Great. I already got Friar Cipher from the library, but if I like it, I'll know where to go next.

I'd been looking at both of those. I'll be interested to hear your thoughts on Friar Cipher when you get around to reading it, carlym.

I'd like to second The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down (306 Culture & institutions) - this is a wonderfully readable and interesting book about the clash of understandings between a Hmong family in California, and the American doctors trying to treat their severely epileptic child. I can't recommend it highly enough.

Another suggestion for 530 (Physics) is E=MC2 by David Bodanis - atomic energy for beginners...

I just noticed that a group about commodity histories has been created, and already it looks like they have some good suggestions for microhistories. Other than the Mark Kurlansky books, they've so far recommended:

306 Culture & institutions: The Botany of Desire
338 Production: Cotton: The Biography of a Revolutionary Fiber
394 General customs: The Omnivore's Dilemma
553 Economic geology: Diamond: A Journey to the Heart of an Obsession
615 Pharmacology & therapeutics: Opium: a History
633 Field & plantation crops: Vanilla: The Cultural History....

I didn't check whether these had been listed here before, and I excluded 641s since there seem to be plenty of those.

hi, and thanks for the link from the Commodity History group. now i'm thinking i should have titled it "Micro-History + Things Everyone Wants". {smiles}

Some of my faves in these two genres so far:

Caviar: The Strange History and Uncertain Future of the World's Most Coveted Delicacy
Woman, an Intimate Geography
The Beauty of the Beastly

A recent book by Umberto Eco has just come out called "On Ugliness" (Touchstone doesn't work). The LOC record is incomplete, but the Greenwich Public Library has catalogued it as 700.1 (this category is the philosophy and theory of the arts, according to a library in Adeleide, Australia).

I'm about to start A crack in the edge of the world : America and the great California earthquake of 1906 by Simon Winchester in the particularly boring sounding 979 General history of North America; Great Basin & Pacific Slope. I liked one of his other books so I hope this one is as good :)

i liked Crack in the edge of the world very much. Thought it brought the subject of geology alive.

22>

Good to hear; that's on my TBR list as well.

Right now I'm really enjoying Educating Scholars: Doctoral Education in the Humanities for 001 Knowledge. Very readable and interesting--or at least, I think so!

24 - is there something like that for the sciences? There must be some disillusioned grad student who's written a memoir of their trials

I don't personally know of one, but I'm sure it exists. Educating Scholars isn't a personal memoir, though; it's a discussion of the successes and failures of a particular initiative that the Carnegie Mellon foundation undertook to improve graduate education.

25>

I am tempted to plant tongue firmly in cheek and recommend Jorge Cham's Piled Higher and Deeper comics for the "disillusioned techie graduate student" view, but it's fictionalized. Looking at the "grad school" tag doesn't turn up anything obvious, just a bunch of "how to succeed in grad school" advice books and books people used in grad school.

27. Piled Higher and Deeper is hysterically brilliant. I've read most of them -- there was a few days where I just read the entire archive. I have a few printed out and tacked in my office which I felt particularly apt for my situation at the time. Hmm, since these strips have been compiled into book format, I'm going to count the book, even though I read the strip online. I hadn't thought of that before - thanks lorax!

I don't really like the title of this thread, for reasons much like _Zoe_'s in #3, but figured I should keep everything together rather than rebooting it with a title like "Interesting books in difficult classifications". These are classifications where very few people have reported reading books in this group.

I just finished reading Absolute Zero and the Conquest of Cold by Tom Schactman, which is a history-of-science book about low-temperature research and technology, from shipping ice to the tropics to creating a Bose-Einstein condensate. It is 100% history, rather than science, but it's classified as 536 (Heat) anyway. The only books I saw people mention here were my undergraduate thermodynamics textbook, which is hardly a page-turner, and some children's books. The book isn't great -- I wouldn't recommend it unreservedly -- but it's good enough, and thermodynamics isn't an area where lots of pop-science books get written, so there aren't a whole lot of alternatives here.

On my TBR pile is Tuva or Bust, about Feynman's trip to the Siberian region of Tuva (home to the famous Tuvan throat singers); again, I haven't read this, so I can't vouch directly for its interestingness, but Feynman is an interesting guy, Tuva is an interesting place (based on having seen the documentary "Genghis Blues"), and I doubt you'll do better in 957 (History of Siberia).

I also have one

I enjoyed Marriage and Morals by Bertrand Russell for 173 (Ethics of family relationships). Some of the information is dated since it was written in the 20's but on the whole it is a very passionate work on the history and function of marriage and sexual morality. The history is fascinating, and his criticism of flaws of marriage is sharp but humorous as are his arguments against the sex taboo. I found his own suggested improvements to marriage overly reactionary to Victorian sexual morality, but there's still a lot here for someone interested in evaluating what exactly marriage ought to be or just becoming more familiar with the history of the institution itself.

On the whole this book was definitely far ahead of its time and is probably still hard for a lot of people to swallow today.

I think the subplot of my Dewey Challenge is an attempt to read as many Russell books as possible.

Reviving this thread, still with the "difficult-to-fill" interpretation rather than "boring". I actually finished this book a couple weeks ago, but forgot to post about it here since it wasn't a new category for me:

681 (Precision Instruments):

Decoding the Heavens

This is an absolutely fascinating book about the Antikythera mechanism, an amazing device discovered in 1900 in a shipwreck in the Ionian Sea, and dated to the first century BCE, with astonishingly advanced gears. The book covers the history of the interpretation and study of the object and the attempts to determine its provenance; if you have any interest in the history of technology, this is a must-read. (I know a few people on this group have read The Archimedes Codex; this is similarly amazing.)

Okay, I'll add that to the list of books to be read someday. Technology isn't my favourite subject, but it's something I should really know more about, especially since my supervisor is doing a lot of work on the Antikythera mechanism.

I also have The Difference Engine sitting around and mean to read that too. It makes me grumpy that two people gave your recommendation a thumbs-down.

32>

I have recommendation stalkers, or one stalker plus sock-puppets. All of my member recs, no matter how appropriate and no matter how obscure the books, get multiple thumbs-down. Somebody has way too much time on their hands.

>33 lorax: That's so strange. Have you reported it?

That is very strange and rather rude. You should definitely report it. Why do we even have that thumbs up/down option, anyway?

34,35>

I reported it when I first noticed it, and reminded Tim last week when I saw it was still ongoing. I don't expect it to be much of a priority, so I assume he'll look at it when he gets around to it.

I'm still glad we have thumbs-down on member recommendations, though. Yeah, there are a few abuses like this, but mostly it works pretty well. (FWIW, Nickelini, if you see any of my recommendations that you think are good, I'd rather have you give them a thumbs-up than use a couple of anonymous trolls as an excuse to dismiss the whole system.)

>31 lorax:: That is a great find for that category. I think I saw something about that on TV and would definitely like to know more about it.

#31 You come up with the most interesting sounding books. Adding that one to the wishlist, along with the others I've gotten from you over the last (how many?) months.

The situation with your recommendations is upsetting. I'm curious why you suspect the same person or persons intentionally giving you thumbs down? Besides, of course, the unlikely coincidence that every one of your entries would be thumbed down. I love looking at member recs and always give thumbs up or down, depending on my honest opinion, if I'm familiar with both works involved.