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WANTED: Quality non-fiction book suggestions for December and January!

Collaborate in choosing our next NON-FICTION book for group discussion within this forum. A minimum of 5 posts is necessary to participate here!
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Re: WANTED: Quality non-fiction book suggestions for December and January!

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I might be interested in "A People's History of the United States." :3 We also have quite the eclectic group of options this time around! I'm going to suggest....


A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Link Between Leadership and Mental Illness by Nassir Ghaemi

Here's a (slightly long) description of the book from amazon.
An investigation into the surprisingly deep correlation between mental illness and successful leadership, as seen through some of history's greatest politicians, generals, and businesspeople.

In A First-Rate Madness, Nassir Ghaemi, who runs the Mood Disorders Program at Tufts University Medical Center, draws from the careers and personal plights of such notable leaders as Lincoln, Churchill, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., JFK, and others from the past two centuries to build an argument at once controversial and compelling: the very qualities that mark those with mood disorders- realism, empathy, resilience, and creativity-also make for the best leaders in times of crisis. By combining astute analysis of the historical evidence with the latest psychiatric research, Ghaemi demonstrates how these qualities have produced brilliant leadership under the toughest circumstances.

Take realism, for instance: study after study has shown that those suffering depression are better than normal" people at assessing current threats and predicting future outcomes. Looking at Lincoln and Churchill among others, Ghaemi shows how depressive realism helped these men tackle challenges both personal and national. Or consider creativity, a quality psychiatrists have studied extensively in relation to bipolar disorder. A First-Rate Madness shows how mania inspired General Sherman and Ted Turner to design and execute their most creative-and successful-strategies.

Ghaemi's thesis is both robust and expansive; he even explains why eminently sane men like Neville Chamberlain and George W. Bush made such poor leaders. Though sane people are better shepherds in good times, sanity can be a severe liability in moments of crisis. A lifetime without the cyclical torment of mood disorders, Ghaemi explains, can leave one ill equipped to endure dire straits. He also clarifies which kinds of insanity-like psychosis-make for despotism and ineptitude, sometimes on a grand scale.

Ghaemi's bold, authoritative analysis offers powerful new tools for determining who should lead us. But perhaps most profoundly, he encourages us to rethink our view of mental illness as a purely negative phenomenon. As A First-Rate Madness makes clear, the most common types of insanity can confer vital benefits on individuals and society at large-however high the price for those who endure these illnesses.
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Re: WANTED: Quality non-fiction book suggestions for December and January!

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President Camacho,

What is this "new enlightenment" you speak of?
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President Camacho

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Re: WANTED: Quality non-fiction book suggestions for December and January!

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I think that the protesting is the first sign that America as a nation will start thinking again about what kind of country America should be and new political philosophies may emerge from it. We may start looking at our government and our country with sober, responsible, and attentive eyes.

I'm hoping for impressive political and philosophical discourse rather than the crap we've been fed on bookshelves by authors such as M. Moore and Bill O'Reilly. (Not that these books are totally void of merit)

I'm excited for what I feel may happen. There's definitely the opportunity for it.

I have another suggestion:

Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal [Paperback]
http://www.amazon.com/Fast-Food-Nation- ... 494&sr=8-2

Fast food has hastened the malling of our landscape, widened the chasm between rich and poor, fueled an epidemic of obesity, and propelled American cultural imperialism abroad. That's a lengthy list of charges, but Eric Schlosser makes them stick with an artful mix of first-rate reportage, wry wit, and careful reasoning.

Schlosser's myth-shattering survey stretches from California's subdivisions, where the business was born, to the industrial corridor along the New Jersey Turnpike, where many of fast food's flavors are concocted. Along the way, he unearths a trove of fascinating, unsettling truths -- from the unholy alliance between fast food and Hollywood to the seismic changes the industry has wrought in food production, popular culture, and even real estate.
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Re: WANTED: Quality non-fiction book suggestions for December and January!

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I'll throw in another suggestion if you don't mind, to see if one of them will drum up some interest

Bill Bryson, At Home: A Short History of Private Life
http://www.amazon.com/At-Home-Short-His ... 93ACAPET5P
Amazon Best Books of the Month, October 2010: Bill Bryson (A Short History of Nearly Everything) turns his attention from science to society in his authoritative history of domesticity, At Home: A Short History of Private Life. While walking through his own home, a former Church of England rectory built in the 19th century, Bryson reconstructs the fascinating history of the household, room by room. With waggish humor and a knack for unearthing the extraordinary stories behind the seemingly commonplace, he examines how everyday items--things like ice, cookbooks, glass windows, and salt and pepper--transformed the way people lived, and how houses evolved around these new commodities. "Houses are really quite odd things," Bryson writes, and, luckily for us, he is a writer who thrives on oddities. He gracefully draws connections between an eclectic array of events that have affected home life, covering everything from the relationship between cholera outbreaks and modern landscaping, to toxic makeup, highly flammable hoopskirts, and other unexpected hazards of fashion. Fans of Bryson's travel writing will find plenty to love here; his keen eye for detail and delightfully wry wit emerge in the most unlikely places, making At Home an engrossing journey through history, without ever leaving the house. --Lynette Mong
From Booklist
Bryson, author of A Short History of Nearly Everything (2003) and A Walk in the Woods (2009), lives in a Victorian parsonage built in 1851. He uses the old house with its long history and mundane domestic items to explore the evolution of the home. His detailed tour is a seamless meandering from room to room, subject to subject, with fascinating digressions. He touches on how the hall evolved from a grand room, the most important in the house, to just a place to “wipe feet and hang hats”; how rooms developed based on changing notions of utility and privacy; how the development of the fireplace led to the development of the second floor. He offers historical and cultural origins of the names of rooms and common household items: table, chair, cookware, bedchamber, closet, study. He details how the development of different materials—bricks to make chimneys and coal for fuel—changed housing construction. The chapter on the kitchen prompts a discourse on food contamination, ice and mason jars, cookbooks and measuring utensils. A beautifully written ode to the ordinary and overlooked things of everyday life in the home. --Vanessa Bush
"An exuberant, shared social history. . . . Told with Bryson's habitual brio. . . . A personal compendium of fascinating facts, suggesting how the history of houses and domesticity has shaped our lives, language, and ideas." -The New York Review of Books
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Re: WANTED: Quality non-fiction book suggestions for December and January!

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What do you all think of the suggestions made so far?

Hopefully we can generate more suggestions and more feedback.
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Re: WANTED: Quality non-fiction book suggestions for December and January!

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Please notice the "Guns, Germs and Steels" forum has been pulled out of the Archives forum for a brand new book discussion. :-)

We can still continue this thread and possibly select another non-fiction book for December and January.
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Re: WANTED: Quality non-fiction book suggestions for December and January!

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Only a third of the way through Arguably? I've been debating whether to buy it or not, because its not available at my library
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Re: WANTED: Quality non-fiction book suggestions for December and January!

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Heledd wrote:Only a third of the way through Arguably? I've been debating whether to buy it or not, because its not available at my library
Arguably is definitely worth buying. It is informative, engaging, provocative and entertaining, covering a wide range of interesting topics as listed in the forum. Hitchens is a brilliant and eclectic writer, and never dull.

Most of the essays are available on the internet, and I have linked the ones I like in the threads as we have been discussing them. If you read a few there you can try before you buy. There are still a lot of essays in it that we have not yet discussed, and that would keep us going through December.

Arguably Booktalk Forum: http://www.booktalk.org/arguably-essays ... -f182.html
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Re: WANTED: Quality non-fiction book suggestions for December and January!

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Oh ok. I will try and get it for my Kindle. I assumed the discussion would be almost over. am also waiting for the library to get me The House of the Spirits
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Re: WANTED: Quality non-fiction book suggestions for December and January!

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I sent a message to Chris O'Conner earlier, to see if it's OK to suggest my own book. He assures me it is, so here goes;

My book might be a bit of a change for non-fiction readers here, but I think it would be an interesting possibility. Breaking the Code - a Father's Secret, a Daughter's Journey, and the Question That Changed Everything, just came out on 11/1/11. It is a memoir published by Sourcebooks.

In short, it is about my father, a WWII veteran, who began experiencing flashbacks and nightmares more than 50-years after the war. I began asking him questions, hoping to find a way to help him. What I discovered over the course of several years, is that he hadn't sat behind a desk during the war, as he'd lead me to believe all my life. He'd actually been a top secret code breaker, and was in two major battles of the war. It was this work that laid the foundation for the greatest trauma of his life.

Given the subject of the book, I think this would be a great book to start people talking about story-telling, family secrets, and the power of story to change lives. It's a great discussion book and I'd be happy to participate in any way you all see fit. My hope with the book, is to inspire others to get their own family histories written down. I could also talk about the writing and publishing process.

So, there you have it, for what it's worth. Thank you for considering, Breaking the Code. If you'd like to read an excerpt, click on the link to my website in my signature line. My father and I were also just interviewed on NPR - you can listen to it here; http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlaye ... =142072750 . ~Karen
My website: http://www.storymatters2.com
Breaking the Code - a Father's Secret, a Daughter's Journey,
and the Question That Changed Everything (Sourcebooks) came
out on 11/1/11. Buy at your local bookstore, or on Amazon
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