Booklist: Travel, Psychology, World history, Food, Anthropology, (Auto)biography, Cults, Religion

More booklists

Travel & Science

A Wulf. The Invention of Nature: The adventures of Alexander von Humboldt, the lost hero of science.
R Conniff. The Species Seekers: Heroes, Fools, and the Mad Pursuit of Life on Earth
R Sapolsky. A Primate’s Memoir
M Owens. Cry of the Kalahari
L Stetson. The Wild Muir: 22 of John Muir’s Greatest Adventures
D Grann. The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon
D Preston. The lost city of the Monkey God: a true story
A Lansing. Endurance. Shackleton’s incredible voyage.
W Carlsen. Jungle of Stone: The Extraordinary Journey of Stephens and Catherwood, & the Discovery of the Lost Civilization of the Maya

Travel

W Ferguson. Hokkaido Highway Blues
A Frater. Chasing the Monsoon: A Modern Pilgrimage through India
JM Troost. Sex Lives of Cannibals. Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific
JM Troost. Getting Stoned with Savages: A Trip Through the Islands of Fiji and Vanuatu
S Orlean. The Orchid Thief. A true story of beauty and obsession.
W Thesiger. Arabian Sands
J Campbell. The Final Frontiersman. Heimo Korth & His Family
B Braverman. Welcome to the goddamn ice cube: chasing fear and finding home in the great white north
E Becker. Overbooked: the exploding business of travel and tourism
F Hatfield. North of the sun. A memoir of the Alaskan Wilderness
T Horwitz. Confederates in the Attic. Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War
C Hoffman. The Last Wild Men of Borneo: A True Story of Death and Treasure
S Gallaher. Sisters. Coming of Age & living dangerously in the Wild Copper river
C Strayed. Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
J Kane. Savages.
S Mehta. Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found
D King. Skeletons on the Zahara: A True Story of Survival
R O’Hanlon. In Trouble Again: A Journey Between Orinoco and the Amazon.
M Tidwell. The Ponds of Kalambayi: An African Sojourn
S Erdman. Nine Hills to Nambonkaha: Two Years in the Heart of an African Village
J McPhee. Coming into the Country
B Bryson. I’m a stranger here myself: notes on returning to America after 20 years away
S Huntington. Shadows on the Koyukuk. An Alaskan Native’s Life along the river
W. Heat-Moon. Blue Highways. A Journey into America.
D Talbot. Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror and Deliverance in the City of Love
P Allison. Don’t Run whatever you do. My adventures as a Safari Guide
G Packer. The Village of Waiting
C Childs. Apocalyptic planet. Field guide to the future of earth.
N Cobb. Arctic homestead. The true story of one family’s survival & courage in the Alaskan wilds
J Campbell. Braving it. A father, a daughter, & an unforgettable journey into the Alaskan wild
P Rivoli. The travels of a t-shirt in the global economy: an economist examines the markets, power, and politics of world trade
RH Dana. Two Years Before the Mast; A Personal Narrative
K Salak. Four Corners: One Woman’s Solo Journey Into the Heart of Papua New Guinea
I Frazier. Travels in Siberia (and Great Plains)
B Hall. The Impossible Country: A Journey Through the Last Days of Yugoslavia
M Adams. Tip of the Iceberg: my 3,000 mile journey around wild Alaska, the last great American frontier

Psychology

M Shermer. The Science of Good and Evil: Why People Cheat, Gossip, Care, Share, and Follow the Golden Rule
M Gelfand. Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: How Tight and Loose Cultures Wire Our World
HA Garcia. Sex, Power, and Partisanship: How Evolutionary Science Makes Sense of Our Political Divide
R Kolker. Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family
J Harris. The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do
J Harris. No Two Alike: Human Nature and Human Individuality
B Ehrenreich. Bright-sided: How relentless promotion of positive thinking undermined America
J Hari. Lost Connections: Why You’re Depressed and How to Find Hope
A Wiener. Uncanny Valley: A Memoir
A Solomon. The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression
P Orenstein. Boys & Sex: Young Men on Hookups, Love, Porn, Consent, and Navigating the New Masculinity
J Keohane. The Power of Strangers: The Benefits of Connecting in a Suspicious World
M Emre. The Personality Brokers: The Strange History of Myers-Briggs and the Birth of Personality Testing
R Baumeister. Willpower: rediscovering the greatest human strength
C Duhigg. The Power of Habit. Why we do what we do in life and business.
J Baraz. Awakening Joy: 10 Steps That Will Put You on the Road to Real Happiness
J Wise. Extreme Fear: The Science of Your Mind in Danger.
B Kipper. 14,000 things to be happy about
P Orenstein. Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture
A. Raine. Anatomy of violence. The biological roots of crime.
S Quartz. Cool. How the brain’s hidden quest for cool drives our economy and shapes our world
D Adam. The man who couldn’t stop: OCD & the true story of a life lost in thought
A Ansari. Modern romance
S Cahalan. Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness
B Brogaard. On romantic love: simple truths about a complex emotion
T Sharot. The Optimism Bias: A Tour of the Irrationally Positive Brain
J Kluger. The Sibling Effect: What the Bonds Among Brothers and Sisters Reveal About Us
J Ronson. The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry

World History

GD Wood. Tambora, the eruption that changed the world.
K Boo. Behind the beautiful forevers. Life, death, & hope in a Mumbai undercity
M Carter. George, Nicholas and Wilhelm. Three royal cousins and the road to WW I
CC Mann. 1491. New revelations of the Americas before Columbus
CC Mann. Uncovering the new world Columbus created
C.Fletcher. The black prince of Florence. The spectacular life and treacherous world of Allesandro de’ Medici
R Winston. Life in the Middle Ages
JR Gillis. The human shore: seacoasts in history
S Winchester (2021) Land: How the Hunger for Ownership Shaped the Modern World.
V Ullrich. Hitler: Downfall: 1939-1945
V Hansen. The Year 1000: When Explorers Connected the World-and Globalization Began
J Steinberg. A Garland of Bones: Child Runaways in India
H Mayhew. London Labour and the London Poor
H Mayhew. The London Underworld In The Victorian Period – Authentic First-Person Accounts By Beggars, Thieves And Prostitutes
J Kreiner. Legions of Pigs in the Early Medieval West
L Picard. Elizabeth’s London: Everyday Life in Elizabethan London

Middle East: two-thirds of conventional oil is there

D Rundell. Vision or Mirage: Saudi Arabia at the Crossroads
KE House. On Saudi Arabia: its people, past, religion, fault lines – and future
W Youngquist: the extraordinary geodestiny of Saudi Arabia and other gulf nations (From his book Geodestinies)
2 books: MR Simmons Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy and P Maass The Breaking Point

Energy and History

R Ennos (2021) The Age of Wood: Our Most Useful Material and the Construction of Civilization.
A Rimas (2010) Empires of Food: Feast Famine and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations.
R Goldman (2020) The Domestic Revolution: How the Introduction of Coal into Victorian Homes Changed Everything.
H Mayhew (2008) London Labour and the London Poor
L Picard. Elizabeths London 1558-1603

Food

M Moss. Salt, Sugar, Fat. How the Food Giants Hooked Us
M Zuk. 2013. Paleofantasy: What Evolution really tells us about sex, diet, and how we live.
D Kessler. The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite
A Bourdain. Kitchen Confidential. Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly
E Schlosser. Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal
B Wilson. Swindled from poison sweets to counterfeit coffee: dark history of food cheats
M Pollan. The Omnivore’s Dilemma. A natural history of four meals.
A Sutherland. Cookoff. Recipe fever in America.
B Lorr. The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket
M Kurlansky. Milk!: A 10,000-Year Food Fracas
B Fagan. Fishing. How the Sea Fed Civilization
D Koeppel. Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World

Anthropology

D Graeber. Dawn of Everything.
NA Chagnon. Noble Savages: My Life Among Two Dangerous Tribes — the Yanomamo and the Anthropologists
J Toth. The Mole People. Life in the Tunnels beneath New York city
C Hoffman. Savage Harvest: A Tale of Cannibals, Colonialism, and Michael Rockefeller’s Tragic Quest for Primitive Art
T Flannery. Throwim’ Way Leg: Tree-Kangaroos, Possums, and Penis Gourds
B Chatwin. The Songlines.
C Boehm. Blood Revenge: Conflict in Montenegro & other Tribal Societies
MF Brown. Upriver: the turbulent life and times of an Amazonian people
A Wearing. Honeymoon in Purdah: An Iranian Journey
S Erdman. Nine Hills to Nambonkaha: Two Years in the Heart of an African Village
M Tidwell. The Ponds of Kalambayi: An African Sojourn
I Fonseca. Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and Their Journey

(Auto)Biography

T Noah. Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood
M Inman. The Oracle of Oil: A Maverick Geologist’s Quest for a Sustainable Future
R Chernow. Grant.
B. White. Mama Makes Up Her Mind: And Other Dangers of Southern Living
J Walls. The Glass Castle: A Memoir.
M Finkel. The stranger in the woods: the extraordinary story of the last true hermit
B MacDonald. The Egg and I
B MacDonald. The Plague and I
F McCourt. Angela’s Ashes. A Memoir.
E Gilbert. The Last American Man.
M Twain. Life on the Mississippi.
B Harris. Mississippi Solo.
D Ackerman. 2013. The Zookeeper’s Wife: A War Story
J Krakauer. Into Thin Air. A personal account of the Mt. Everest disaster.
D Sedaris. Calypso & Let’s explore diabetes with owls
O Sacks. On the move: A life
T Westover. Educated: A memoir
H Jahren. Lab Girl.
D Eggers. A heartbreaking work of staggering genius
J Berendt. Midnight in the garden of good & evil. A Savannah Story.
H Hickam. Rocket Boys
W. Whitman. Leaves of Grass.
T Wolfe. The Electric Kool-aid Acid Test.
J Harr. A Civil Action.
J. Browne. Charles Darwin. Voyaging.
G Grandin. Fordlandia: The Rise & Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City
O Gentile. Life List: A Woman’s Quest for the World’s Most Amazing Birds
H Pearson. Shadow Of The Panther: Huey Newton & the price of black power in America
R Massie. Peter the Great. His life and world
R. Massie. Catherine the Great. Portrait of a woman.
J Herriot. All Creatures Great and Small.
H Macdonald. H is for Hawk.
E Abbey. Desert Solitaire.
D McCullough. Truman.
D Goodwin. No Ordinary Time: Franklin & Eleanor Roosevelt: Home Front in WW II
D Donald. Lincoln.
R Rhodes. John James Audubon: The Making of an American
M Farmanfarmaian. Blood and Oil: memoirs of a Persian Prince
R Hine. Second Sight.
M Swearingen. FBI Secrets. An Agents Expose.
J Chang. Wild Swans. Three daughters of China
H Thompson. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
E Saks. The center cannot hold: my journey through madness
I Beah. A Long Way Gone. Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
F Mayes. Under the Tuscan Sun.
H Jacobs. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.
Malcolm X. The Autobiography of Malcolm X.
M Karr. The Liars’ club. A memoir.
N Evans. The Horse Whisperer.
P. Read. Alive.
C Hoffman. Greetings from Utopia park. Surviving a transcendent childhood
A Sethi. A free man. A true story of life and death in Delhi.
S Stoll. Ramp hollow: the ordeal of Appalachia
L Hillenbrand Unbroken: a world war II story of survival, resilience, and redemption

Religion

K. Kruse. One Nation Under God: How corporate America invented Christian America
T. Heaton. The gospel of self: How Jesus joined the GOP
C. Nixey. The darkening age. The Christian destruction of the classical world
J. Kirsch. God Against the Gods: History of the War Between Monotheism & Polytheism
L. De Camp. The Great Monkey Trial.
V. Bugliosi. Helter Skelter. The true story of the Manson murders.
D. Eagleman. Sum. Forty Tales from the Afterlives [fiction].

Cults

J Reitman. Inside Scientology: The Story of America’s Most Secretive Religion
J Hill. Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape
L Remini. Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology
J Sharlet. The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power
T Kizzia. Pilgrim’s Wilderness: A true story of Faith and Madness on the Alaska Frontier
D Kimbrough. Taking Up Serpents: Snake Handlers of Eastern Kentucky
D Feldman. Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots
A Scorah. Leaving the Witness: Exiting a Religion and Finding a Life
C Hoffman. Greetings from Utopia Park: Surviving a Transcendent Childhood

Miscellaneous

D. Dorsey. The Force.
A. Stewart. Flower Confidential: The Good, Bad, & the Beautiful in the Business of Flowers

I rarely read fiction anymore because there are so many better written, more interesting (auto)biographies, natural history, travel adventures, anthropology, history, science, and other books. Usually I feel like I’ve wasted my time. I have read a lot of fiction because in college I didn’t have time to take English courses so in my free time I worked by way from A to Z through the world’s great literature, especially enjoying Tolstoy and Dostoevsky and finding Thackeray’s “Vanity Fair” the least worthwhile of them all. I prefer poetry because it takes you deep into the soul and world view of the poet, especially when spoken aloud.

Poetry: My favoritey is Marianne Betterly’s “The return of the bees”.

Fiction

M Atwood. The Handmaid’s Tale (on the way to being non-fiction)
T Wolfe. The Bonfire of the Vanities.
S Rushdie. Midnight’s Children.
L Serafini. Codex Seraphinianus.
F Warren. All the Kings Men.
J Smiley. A Thousand Acres.
C Hiaasen. Tourist Season.
I Doig. This House of Sky: Landscapes of a Western Mind
L Tolstoy. War and Peace.
T Pynchon. Gravity’s Rainbow

Book Reviews: Why I Write Them, How I Find Them

Alice Friedemann www.energyskeptic.com Author of Life After Fossil Fuels: A Reality Check on Alternative Energy; When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation”, Barriers to Making Algal Biofuels, & “Crunch! Whole Grain Artisan Chips and Crackers”. Women in ecology Podcasts: WGBH, Jore, Planet: Critical, Crazy Town, Collapse Chronicles, Derrick Jensen, Practical Prepping, Kunstler 253 &278, Peak Prosperity, Index of best energyskeptic posts