Top Five (give or take) Non-Fiction Reads of 2022

Um, same intro as the fiction post.

I am so glad we're granted the whole give-or-take aspect because I had thought about this for some time last night and couldn't get it down to the usual five.

Portable Magic - thinking about the printed book as object

Snobbery with Violence - thinking about the Golden Age of British Mysteries. pgmcc and I were chatting about this with MrsLee and the meaning of the phrase Mayhem Parva.

Unpacking the Personal Library - thinking about our own collections of books and how personal libraries come together and then subsequently are dispersed.

Deadlier Than the Male - excellent discussions of Christie, Tey, Allingham, and Sayers. Built on what Colin Watson's Snobbery with Violence was covering

In Praise of Good Bookstores - planing to review this one before the end of 2022, but a worthwhile read.

The Secret Life of Books - a 2019 book that further addresses thinking about the printed volume as object.

I really enjoyed these four this year:

Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World - the book about conserving nature

The Library Book - the LA library fire and libraries in general. Thanks to the GD'ers who suggested it!

Truman by David McCullough

The Battle of New Orleans: Andrew Jackson and America's First Military Victory by Robert Remini

Edited to add 2 more.

I didn't read a lot of very good NF this year. These were the best:

Police Brutality and White Supremacy: the Fight against American Traditions by Etan Thomas

The Atlas of Middle Earth by Karen Wynn Fonstad

It's hard to narrow it down but I have a partial list.

They are:
The Self-Talk Workout by Rachel Goldsmith Turow
Black Love Matters edited by Jessica P. Pryde
Darkly: Black History and America's Gothic Soul by Leila Taylor
The Curse of the Boyfriend Sweater by Alanna Okun
Time to Eat by Nadiya Hussain
honorable mention for Easy Crafts for the Insane by Kelly Williams Brown

As with >5 reconditereader:, there are several others I could have added. More or less in the order I added them to my LT list:

Too Much and Never Enough -- I was struck by the remarkable similarities between the subject of this and our own Jacob Zuma. 'Nuff said.
South African Eden -- Should have read it in May while there, but couldn't wait!
Glass Half Full -- what's not to love about the adventures of a wine farmer in the Dordogne?
Where the hell is Tuvalu? aka The People's Lawyer -- a tropical paradise ... isn't.
Against all odds: the epic story of the Oceanos rescue -- maritime drama; if the captain of the Oceanos had been at all competent, it wouldn't have happened. Hats off to the entertainers, who took over and organised that everybody, including a dog and a canary, were rescued.

PS to #6: Have just finished Journey to the Edge of the World. If I'd read this a few days ago, it would definitely have made the list. Gorgeous pictures, and I love that Billy Connolly's Glaswegian vocabulary breaks through into print from time to time. It shows that the book was written by a real live human being.

I read more non-fiction works this year than I have normally done.

My Name is Philippa by Philippa Ryder
The Pigeon House by John Le Carré
Words Like Loaded Pistols: Rhetoric from Aristotle to Obama by Sam Leith
Secrets of the World's Best-Selling Writer by Francis L. Fugate & Roberta B. Fugate
Introduction of Detection Mystery Horror by Dorothy L. Sayers
Snobbery with Violence by Colin Watson
Howdunit by Martin Edwards

Crying in H Mart: A Memoir by Michelle Zauner
The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times by Michelle Obama
Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art by Rebecca Wragg Sykes
Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America by Maggie Haberman (There were times I didn't want to go back to this book, but it is such in important topic, and it is both well researched and well written.)
The Yellow House by Sarah Broom

And in a category of its own, the hilarious Playing with Myself by Randy Rainbow. I laughed and cried my way through this one.

And I'm sneaking one more in here. This is a collection of essays, many of which were written during the pandemic: The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green

Having just finished The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu, I'd say it definitely belongs on my list too.

I don't anticipate finishing any of my current nonfiction reads before the New Year, so here goes:
Listed in my catalog in this order.
Education of a Wandering Man by Louis L'Amour - 4.5 stars - Very good book about what is behind education, how to get educated and how things were in the early part of the 1900s for people who were wanderers.
The Medusa and the Snail by Lewis Thomas - 4.5 stars. This was a very interesting and fun to read collection of science essays. He induces one to ponder on life and the universe and our place in it.
The 36-Hour Day by Nancy L. Mace and more - 4 stars. Enlightening about caring for someone who has dementia.
The Hinge of Fate by Winston S. Churchill - 4 stars. He manages to pull the reader along into a time gone but still not forgotten. I like his dry sense of humor.
Paradiso by Dante Alighieri, as translated by Dorothy L. Sayers and Barbara Reynolds - 4 stars. Some of this I read as a completist, but in the end I was happy I did read them all, and the translators made the historical part of it very interesting.
The Greek Philosophers: From Thales to Aristotle by W. K. C. Guthrie - 4 stars. I believe this is one of the most interesting books I've read on philosophy or philosophers. That isn't saying much to the population at large, I haven't read many, but this one connected the historical thinking and evolution of philosophy for me in an easy to read and understand way.

For me to give a book 5 stars it must move my soul, be lovely and one I would enjoy reading again. Some of these were close, and all of them taught me things I hadn't known in an enjoyable way, hence the 4.5 and 4 stars. Those are very good ratings in my system.

I don't read a lot of non-fiction but I did record a few this year and these are my favourites:
Still Just a Geek by Wil Wheaton
Playing With Myself by Randy Rainbow
Once Upon a Tome: The misadventures of a rare bookseller by Oliver Darkshire
Weed-Free Gardening : A Comprehensive and Organic Approach to Weed Management by Tasha Greer.

Not a huge reader of non-fiction but these were my best of the year.
All Creatures Great & Small by James Herriot
Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel and
Nala’s World by Dean Nicholson.

I too am not a big reader of non-fiction. These are my 2022 titles...

- The Blind Giant: Being Human in a Digital World - 4 stars
- A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail - 4.5 stars
- Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy - 3.5 stars
- The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream - DNF. (I stopped reading this not because the book is bad or poorly-written. On the contrary, it was quite good. I had to stop because I already knew how the story ends and it was depressing me. I may try again someday if/when the future looks brighter).

>14 ScoLgo: That Bryson is my favorite book of his. I've read it once and listened to it (read by him) twice now.

>15 clamairy: It was my first Bryson. It won't be my last. A friend gifted me A Short History of Nearly Everything a couple of months ago so that will be next up.

>14 ScoLgo: I take your point about The Audacity of Hope. It’s Barack Obama on the campaign trail though, good as it is. His earlier book Dreams from My Father I thought was brilliant. Not going to say any more because if I do I’ll start getting political.

Not five, but three worthies -

Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America by John McWhorter - a rational look at the latest racial reckoning and the real damage it does - just look up soft bigotry of low expectations and you’ll see what it is and how it doesn’t help.

The Great Stewardess Rebellion: How Women Launched a Workplace Revolution at 30,000 Feet by Nell McShane Wulfhart - OMG it never ceases to amaze me how shittily men treat women - when it came right down to it, the airline executives were pimps. Glad there were some brave souls who bucked the system and got the job the respect it deserves.

Rainforest by Ben Morgan & Thomas Marent - amazing analog photography and narrative about their extensive work in rainforests to document the incredible life that co-exists there.

A tale of love and darkness by Amos Oz
Letters of Shirley Jackson
The Penguin Classics book by Henry Eliot
Other colours by Orhan Pamuk
Memoirs of a dutiful daughter by Simone de Beauvoir

I need to read more non-fiction in 2023. I say this every year.

Most of my reading is non-fiction. For last year the three that really stood out were
So Far From God an outstanding history of the US-Mexican war of 1846-49. This war was overshadowed by the U.S. Civil War but the fallout from that conflict is still having an impact today.
Black Sunday: Ploesti! is essentially a plane-by-plane history of the low level raid on the German oil fields on 1 August 1943.
Just my Type a very interesting history of type fonts and the people who invented them.

>20 alco261: That's very specific! I remember reading about the Poesti (Ploiesti) raid ages ago, I may have to look up that book, thanks.

>21 Karlstar: Is there any chance Ploesti by Dugan and Stewart is the book you remember? If it was then I'm sure you will find the book by Hill to you liking. In the forward Hill mentions the initial motivation for doing research on the raid and writing his book was the Dugan and Stewart book which he read when he was young. I've have both books and I think they are excellent reads.

>20 alco261: Just My Type sounds really, really tempting.

>22 alco261: It is entirely likely, as it was a library book from a long time ago.