/lit/ - Literature

>Does /lit/ concern itself with works of non-fiction?
Yes.

>Any favorites
No, considering the huge spectrum of non-fiction there is. I tend not to think of non-fiction as a genre. I just think of it for what it is: not fiction. I simply think of history books as history books, science books as science books, economics books as economics books, etc.

The Dancing Wu Li Masters is one of my favorite non-fictions.

>>1567114

Ok, then what if I narrowed it down to non-biographical history?

BOOKS LIE

>>1567124
Feel free to specify further. I'll post a random batch of titles I recommend shortly.

>>1567130

Not really a genre description but I like books that really try to examine root causes and why things happen rather than just telling what happened. Guns Germs and Steel being a good example of this.

Reading this at the moment, about two thirds in, it's pretty illuminating. To sum up the premise, it criticises the standard narrative of sexuality and its evolution. If you've ever felt that there's something off about our views on and attitudes towards sexuality but you just can't put your finger on it, I highly recommend this book.

Reading OP's favourite next.

>>1567139

Sounds interesting. What does it consider to be the "standard narrative" of sexuality?

Gulag by Anne Applebaum
A People's Tragedy by Orlando Figes
Natasha's Dance by Orlando Figes
The Whisperers by Orlando Figes
Voices from Chernobyl by Svetlana Alexievich
How the Irish Saved Civilization by Thomas Cahill
The Greeks by H. D. F. Kitto
Ancient Greece by Thomas R. Martin
The Histories by Herodotus
The Romanovs by W. Bruce Lincoln
The Face of Battle by John Keegan
The Mask of Command by John Keegan
The Price of Admiralty by John Keegan
The Second World War by John Keegan
A History of Warfare by John Keegan
The First World War by John Keegan
The American Civil War by John Keegan
Dreadnought by Robert K. Massie
Castles of Steel by Robert K. Massie
Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Twelve Days: The Story of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution by Victor Sebestyen
Revolution 1989: The Fall of the Soviet Empire by Victor Sebestyen

The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England by Ian Mortimer
A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn
The Middle Ages by Morris Bishop
The Pity of War by Niall Ferguson
The Cash Nexus by Niall Ferguson
Colossus by Niall Ferguson
Empire by Niall Ferguson
The War of the World by Niall Ferguson
The Ascent of Money by Niall Ferguson
The Civil War by Shelby Foote [A Series of three books]
The Coming of the Third Reich by Richard J. Evans
The Third Reich in Power by Richard J. Evans
The Third Reich at War by Richard J. Evans
Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era by James M. McPherson
1688 by Steve Pincus
The Red Flag by David Priestland
For All the Tea in China by Sarah Rose
Bloodlands by Timothy Snyder
Annals and Histories by Tacitus
China: A Macro History by Ray Huang
The Fall of Carthage by Adrian Goldsworthy
In the Name of War by Adrian Goldsworthy
The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War by David Halberstam
The Johnstown Flood by David McCullough
The Great Bridge by David McCullough
The Path Between the Seas by David McCullough
1776 by David McCullough
Collapse by Jared Diamond [I won't mention GG&S, which you appear to have already read.]
The Forsaken by Tim Tzouliadis

I'm bound to be forgetting some, but that should hopefully satisfy you (at least for now).

>>1567134
I think most (thought not all) of those books will fit your description - provided you're okay with books that deal with specific events (e.g., WWI, the Russian Revolution, etc.) rather than a broader topic like GG&S.

This book is awesome. Also, while we're talking black history, Malcolm X was just fucking great, every damn page. Fuck.

The World Without Us is my favorite environmental book.

I'd throw in Next of Kin, too. That book is about sign language in primates, totally changed my view about animals.

>>1567139
>Sex @ Dawn
That sounds maybe interesting. Is it of the evolutionary psychology position where women want to be raped and men are either alphas or faggots, or is it more nuanced than that?

>>1567117
>You tripping, pizza!
I really like having food trips around, because whenever they post I can taste their name a bit. That's why I hate shitposters so much WORST JOKE OF THE YEAR COMMITTEE, WE HAVE A CONTENDER FOR 2011!

>>1567179
Frederick Douglass was a fuckin BAMF, man. I loved the part where the guy is giving his wife hell about teaching slaves to read and write and Douglass talks about how that gave him the determination to learn it on his own.

>>1567152
>>1567150
Maybe if you wrote about these books for a sentence or two each, this list would have more value.

I die a little every time somebody posts Jared Diamond.

>>1567193
Most of the titles are self-explanatory.
/lit/ loves Amazon; there are short descriptions there.

I'd love to give a description for each. I usually do when I recommend. But I didn't feel like writing descriptions for every item on that list. If you want some specifics, you may request.
Also, I like Douglass too.

>>1567190
Frederick Douglass was a BAMF, yeah. Every time he talked it was all electric guitar solos and shit, y'know?

My favorite part is when he's sent to that really harsh plantation to break 'uppity' slaves, and he stops working and that dude is about to whip him, and then Frederick Douglass beats the shit out of that dude, and then some other slave owner comes in, and Fred D beats the shit outta that dude too, and then hit continues to beat the them for the course of a few hours.

Man, being poor that shit cheers you up like heroin.

>>1567202
Well yeah, Douglass is pretty fucking amazing.

You know who else is tight, Nat fucking Turner.

>>1567148
Well, there's a lot of stuff: men's and women's warring evolutionary agendas (men's concern for paternity and women's concern for a man providing them with resources), how women are supposedly the sexually passive sex, the universality of marriage and so on. This book really shows how twisted our view on sexuality is overall.

>>1567186
It tackles such evolutionary psychology positions, actually.

This was a very interesting read.

>>1567214
Sounds stupid

>>1567195
What's your problem with Mr. carbon allotrope?

>>1567150
>>1567152
>>1567164

Thanks a lot

Here's a few interesting books that are easily findable online that spring to mind:
Signs: An Introduction to Semiotics - Sebeok
Harmony - Schenker
Nietzsche and Philosophy - Deleuze
Visual Perception: A Clinical Orientation - Schwartz
Knowledge, Representation and the Semantics of Natural Language - Helbig
Chaotic dynamics: an introduction based on classical mechanics - Tamas Gruiz
The Science of Ice Cream - Clarke
The Greek concept of nature - Naddaf

All of these are pretty cool guys that'll change something about how you view the world.

/lit/ likes A Brief History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. At least they did in the last thread like this.

Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid - Douglas Hofstadter

The Selfish Gene - Richard Dawkins

The Extended Phenotype - Richard Dawkins

The Elegant Universe - Brian Greene

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding - David Hume

>>1567301
It's a good one.

>>1567106

Anything by Malcom Gladwell, I think it's fun and interesting.

A Short History of the World - H.G. Wells

A Brief History of Western Philosophy - Bertrand Russell

Excellent introductions to history and philosophy, respectively. Everyone should read them.

>>1567301
anything by Bill Bryson, really.