John Lanchester
Lanchester, a Brit and writer by trade, started his research into the current financial debacle as background for a novel he was writing. He soon found a mind-boggling story worth telling without any fictional embellishment. His description of credit markets, hedge-funds, mortgages and other financial toys are remarkably …
Chuck Klosterman
What I think I love about Chuck Klosterman most is his ability to make anything (and I mean anything) he writes about interesting. I may not understand a sport, have heard a band or have seen a tv show but he still explains their relevance (as he sees …
(update 1/19/16 ) Looks like Rue Morgue is no longer in business. Boo!
Rue Morgue reprints vintage mystery titles, mostly from the UK. Many are charmingly redolent of early Agatha Christie titles. Sheila Pim’s garden murder titles, set in WWII Ireland, are especially enjoyable. The mysteries are surpassingly complex with …
Sam Macdonald
Sam Macdonald was a fat, broke failure. His social life consisted of sitting on a bar-stool all night. His apartment, he noted, was the “brownest” place he had ever lived. Mustering the reserves of a truly desperate man, he decided to go on a starvation diet to loose …
Victoria Gotti
Victoria Gotti, daughter of mafia boss John Gotti, writes a surprisingly articulate and interesting tell-all about her life in relation to the mafia. She chronicles her father’s early life and his various successes and failures. Some of Gotti’s claims of innocence for her father and brother should be …
Carroll Spinney
Spinney is probably the most famous man no-one has ever heard of. He’s been on the cover of Time, traveled the world and performed with the likes of Bob Hope and the Rockettes, conducted orchestras, appeared as a guest on every late-night talk show and has been …
AJ Jacobs
Jacob’s past books have focused on his year-long experiments – reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica and living “biblically” (kinda). His My Life as an Experiment: One Man’s Humble Quest to Improve Himself by Living as a Woman, Becoming George Washington, Telling No Lies, and Other Radical Tests (formerly …
Don Lattin
What we now associate with Timothy Leary – LSD, Grateful Dead concerts, hippies, tuning in and dropping out, first started out as psychological experiments at Harvard University. Leary, a charismatic and well-liked professor, hoped to help inmates rehabilitate by giving them mystical experiences via LSD. His early partners, …
George McDonald Fraser
Rivaling Terry Pratchett for the king of humorous writing, George McDonald Fraser creates a fictional vision of the pirate life lifted directly from Treasure Island and Basil Rathbone movies with touches of slap-stick (if fruitcart then chase scene). Fraser’s pirates are walking, talking, larger-than-life pirate stereotypes. …
Eyewitness Travel
This is SUCH a dangerous book if you like to travel. Here are a thousand alternative trips and places to visit off the standard tourist trail. Usually less expensive than the big names, much less-visited and often harder to get to, these destinations are so very tempting. Find …
Osa Johnson
Osa and Martin Johnson were once household names. In the 1920s and 30s they brought the wilds of Africa, Micronesia and Borneo to the big screen in little towns. Both were originally from small towns in Kansas. While Martin dreamed of seeing the world and photographing it, Osa …
Hank Stuever
Hank Stuever ventures into the heart of…lightness? Researching his book on Christmas he spends three holiday seasons in Frisco Texas, the home of glitter, country, Jay-szus, more glitter, mega-churches and mega-malls. Stuever follows Tammie, a professional Christmas decorator, trolls the malls daily, befriends a single mom and her …
Matt Latimer
Matt Latimer is one of those fortunates who has a dream, a plan and the ability to reach his goals. Not so fortunately, once he obtained his dream job, he found his dream was not all he had hoped. A political junkie and the only conservative in a …
Wolfgang Stuppy and Rob Kesseler
Kesseler and Stuppy have produced a few of the most beautiful micro-photography books I have ever seen. Focusing on the minutiae of plants – seeds and fruits – they highlight these miniscule life-capsules that we rarely see or think about. Tiny seeds and exotic fruits …
William Lobdell
Lobdell’s journey from non-belief, to fervent Christianity and back again is a surprisingly rational one. With his life falling apart on all fronts, a young Lobdell’s friend and mentor suggests he give Christianity a try. Following a conversion at a retreat, Lobdell reorders his life and soon finds …
Dominic Couzens
Holy heck! Who knew birds were so interesting and diverse? I mean, yes, lots of colors, some in the tundra, some in trees, some in water, big feathers, little bills, twit twit, caw caw. But birds with neurotoxins on their feathers? Or ones that create and use tools? …
