Here are five of my favorite non-fiction books, all of them short but overflowing with quality. They have provided continual insight, ideas, and inspiration for my life. I present them in approximately the order in which they entered my reading life.
The True Believer:
Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements
by Eric Hoffer
I have read this book several times over the years, starting the summer before I entered college when it was assigned reading for the incoming Freshman class. It is a classic in the sense that it both retains a freshness upon rereading and succeeds in challenging the reader with the thoughts that it presents. Insightful regarding the nature of those who join mass movements, Hoffer's observations are timeless.
The Immense Journey
by Loren Eiseley
While studying the History of Science as an undergraduate I was introduced to the writings of Loren Eiseley. In this small but profound book he shares personal notes and we slowly come to realize that Eiseley is not just talking about his own life’s journey. Eiseley’s narrator creates a metaphor for the journey of all humankind through the vast dimension of time and space—a journey filled with perplexity, delight, and impermanence.
Man's Unconquerable Mind
by Gilbert Highet
I also discovered the thoughts of Highet while in College. He explores the power, capabilities, and limitations of the human mind throughout the ages, highlighting the wonders created by the great thinkers of the ages, all the while keeping in mind the tortures that Prometheus endured for giving Man the gift of fire.
In Bluebeard's Castle:
Some Notes Towards the Redefinition of Culture
by George Steiner
George Steiner was (he died this month) a protean thinker writing about tragedy, the classics and more over his career. This short book is an intellectual tour de force, that generates both a profound excitement and promotes a profound unease…like the great culturalists of the past. Steiner uses a dense and plural learning to assess his topic: his book has the outstanding quality of being not simply a reflection on culture, but an embodiment of certain contemporary resources within it.
Sailing Alone around the World
by Joshua Slocum
More than one hundred years ago at the end of the century prior to the last a fifty-one year old man set sail for a trip around the world. Joshua Slocum capped his sea-going career with this trip in a sail boat, named "The Spray", that he built himself and, upon his return, he memorialized his trip by writing this narrative. His career had waned with the gradual demise of large sail-going ships and he put all of his years of experience on them, plus some help from friends and strangers along the way, into this voyage. The story he told about it still has power to grip the reader's imagination yet today. The result is one of the most inspirational books I've ever read.
4 comments:
Hi James, True Believer is a book I have been meaning to read for a few years now. Eric Hoffer was such an interesting man and wrote his books while he was working I believe as a long shoreman. He would have free moments and scribble down thoughts in his notebook. True Believer and the Paranoid Style in American Politics by Richard Hofstader, both of which I am embarrassed to say I have yet to read sound like books for our times.
These all sound well worth the read. I tend to like such non fiction books. At the very least, I may try with The Immense Journey this year.
Kathy,
Yes, Hoffer's life was amazing with his work as a longshoreman interspersed with his writing based on both his own experience and wide reading. All of his books are worth reading for his pithy thoughts and, in this case, thought-provoking analysis.
Brian,
Each of these books repays reading and rereading. While they are short they lead you to deep thoughts in consideration of their content. In Eiseley's case this book may lead you to read some of his other short writings on science and life.
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