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Beyond Bestsellers - Nonfiction

A list of great nonfiction reads not on the Best Sellers list from Spring 2013

April - June 2013 Issue

See also:

Achebe, Chinua. There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra.
Ackroyd, Peter. Foundation: The History of England from Its Earliest Beginnings to the Tudors.
Anthony, Jason C. Hoosh: Roast Penguin, Scurvy Day, and Other Stories of Antarctic Cuisine.
Applebaum, Anne. Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956.

Bailyn, Bernard. The Barbarous Years: The Peopling of British North America: The Conflict of Civilizations, 1600-1675.
Berlinski, David. The King of Infinite Space: Euclid and His Elements.
Best Food Writing, 2012. Edited by Holly Hughes.
Better Than Fiction: True Travel Tales from Great Fiction Writers. Edited by Don George.
Boot, Max. Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare from Ancient Times to the Present.
Burton, Richard. The Richard Burton Diaries.

Cahalan, Susannah. Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness.
Cahan, Richard. Vivian Maier: Out of the Shadows.
Calasso, Roberto. La Folie Baudelaire.
Chaplin, Joyce E. Round About the Earth: Circumnavigation from Magellan to Orbit.

Daniel, Lillian. When “Spiritual but Not Religious” Is Not Enough: Seeing God in Surprising Places, Even the Church.

Feinstein, Michael. The Gershwins and Me: A Personal History in Twelve Songs.
Fu, Ping. Bend, Not Break: A Life in Two Worlds.

Garfield, Simon. On the Map: A Mind-Expanding Exploration of the Way the World Looks.
Glassie, John. A Man of Misconceptions: The Life of an Eccentric in an Age of Change.
Gompertz, Will. What Are You Looking At?: The Surprising, Shocking, and Sometimes Strange Story of 150 Years of Modern Art.
Greenberg, Andy. This Machine Kills Secrets: How Wikileakers, Cypherpunks, and Hacktivists Aim to Free the World’s Information.

Hale, Sheila. Titian: His Life.
Hamilton, Tyler. The Secret Race: Inside the Hidden World of the Tour de France: Doping, Cover-Ups, and Winning at All Costs.
Hitt, Jack. Bunch of Amateurs: A Search for the American Character.
House, Karen Elliott. On Saudi Arabia: Its People, Past, Religion, Contradictions - And Future.
Huang, Eddie. Fresh Off the Boat: A Memoir.

Irmscher, Christoph. Louis Agassiz: Creator of American Science.
Isherwood, Christopher. Liberation: Diaries, Vol. Three: 1970-1983.

Jenkins, John A. The Partisan: The Life of William Rehnquist.

Kaplan, Robert D. The Revenge of Geography: What the Map Tells Us About Coming Conflicts and the Battle Against Fate.
Kelley, Kitty. Capturing Camelot: Stanley Tretick’s Iconic Images of The Kennedys.
Kohen, Yael. We Killed: The Rise of Women in American Comedy.

LaPlante, Eve. Marmee & Louisa: The Untold Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Mother.
Least Heat-Moon, William. Here, There, Elsewhere: Stories from the Road.
LeDuff, Charlie. Detroit: An American Autopsy.
Light, Alan. The Holy or the Broken: Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley, and the Unlikely Ascent of “Hallelujah.”
Lingeman, Richard. The Noir Forties: the American People from Victory to Cold War.
Lorr, Benjamin. Hell-Bent: Obsession, Pain, and the Search for Something Like Transcendence in Competitive Yoga.

McFarlane, Robert. The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot.
McKinney, Devin. The Man Who Saw a Ghost: The Life and Work of Henry Fonda.
McMurtry, Larry. Custer.
Madden, Thomas F. Venice: Islands of Honor and Profit: A New History.
Mealer, Bryan. Muck City: Winning and Losing in Football’s Forgotten Town.
Montillo, Roseanne. The Lady and Her Monsters: A Tale of Dissections, Real-Life Dr. Frankensteins, and the Creation of Mary Shelley’s Masterpiece.
Mordden, Ethan. Love Song: The Lives of Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya.

Nasaw, David. The Patriarch: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy.
Norman, Philip. Mick Jagger.
Nuzum, Eric. Giving Up the Ghost: A Story About Friendship, 80s Rock, a Lost Scrap of Paper, and What It Means To Be Haunted.

O’Hagan, Andrew. The Atlantic Ocean: Reports from Britain and America.
Owen, Mark. No Easy Day: The Autobiography of a Navy SEAL: The Firsthand Account of the Mission that Killed Osama bin Laden.

Phillips, Kevin. 1775: A Good Year for Revolution.

Ricks, Thomas E. The Generals: American Military Command from World War II to Today.
Roach, Margaret. The Backyard Parables: Lessons on Gardening, and Life.
Ryan, Alan. On Politics: A History of Political Thought from Herodotus to the Present.

Sandlin, Lee. Storm Kings: The Untold History of America’s First Tornado Chasers.
Schwartz, John. Oddly Normal: One Family’s Struggle to Help Their Teenage Son Come to Terms with His Sexuality.
Siegel, Barry. Manifest Injustice: The True Story of a Convicted Murderer and the Lawyers Who Fought for his Freedom.
Sethi, Aman. A Free Man: A True Story of Life and Death in Delhi.
Silber, William L. Volcker: The Triumph of Persistence.
Silver, Nate. The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail - but Some Don’t.
Smith, Ali. Artful.
Solomon, Andrew. So Far From the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity.
Sonnenberg, Susanna. She Matters: A Life in Friendships.
Sotomayor, Sonia. My Beloved World.
Stashower, Daniel. The Hour of Peril: The Secret Plot to Murder Lincoln before the Civil War.
Stern, Gerald. In Beauty Bright. (Poetry)
Stewart, Christopher S. Jungleland: A Mysterious Lost City, A WWII Spy, and a True Story of Deadly Adventure.
Streever, Bill. Heat: Adventures in the World’s Fiery Places.
Stuart, Andrea. Sugar in the Blood: A Family’s Story of Slavery and Empire.

Taylor, Yuval. Darkest America: Black Minstrelsy From Slavery to Hip-Hop.
Thomas, Evan. Ike’s Bluff: President Eisenhower’s Secret Battle To Save the World.
Tomsky, Jacob. Heads in Beds: A Reckless Memoir of Hotels, Hustles, and So-Called Hospitality.

Winchester, Simon. Skulls: An Exploration of Alan Dudley’s Curious Collection.

Young, Neil. Waging Heavy Peace: Hippie Dream.