Nonfiction Books to Be a Better Citizen of the World/Universe

I asked on Facebook what nonfiction books they would recommend for becoming a better citizen of the world/universe.  It sounded like a fun thing to ask; I like to ask for recommendations.

Over a hundred and forty books later…

Please note that I am not a trained bibliographer and you’re lucky you’re not just getting a link to a rambling, cross-commented FB post!  Also, yes.  This list is completely biased–by me, by the people I know, by the people I know on Facebook.  Don’t like it?  Suggest some additions.  I’ll take ’em, unless they’re lame for one reason or another.

The list!

• Acemoglu, Daron and James Robinson. Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty.
• Alexander, Michelle and Cornel West. The New Jim Crow.
• Anderson, Kurt. Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History.
  
• Anonymous. The 36 Strategems.
• Auslander, Shalom. Foreskin’s Lament: A Memoir.
• Bacon, Linda. Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth about Your Weight.
• Bamford, James. The Puzzle Palace: Inside the National Security Agency, America’s Most Secret Intelligence Organization.
• Baptist, Edward E. The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism.
• Beard, Mary. SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome.
• Becker, Ernest. The Denial of Death.
• Berne, Eric. Games People Play: The Basic Handbook of Transactional Analysis.
• Bettelheim, Bruno. The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales.
• Bird, Leonard. Folding Paper Cranes: An Atomic Memoir.
• Bonekemper, Edward H. III. The Myth of the Lost Cause: Why the South Fought the Civil War and Why the North Won.
• Boo, Katherine. Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity.
• Bornstein, Kate. Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us.
• Brach, Tara. Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life with the Heart of a Buddha.
• Brown, Brene. The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are.
• Bryson, Bill. The Mother Tongue: English and How it Got that Way.
• Burke, James. The Pinball Effect: How Renaissance Water Gardens Made the Carburetor Possible–and Other Journeys.
• Burr, Chandler. The Emperor of Scent: A Story of Perfume, Obsession, and the Last Mystery of the Senses.
• Cain, Susan. Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking.
• Chayes, Sarah. Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security.
• Coates, Ta-Nehisi. Between the World and Me.
• Dacyczyn, Amy. The Complete Tightwad Gazette: Promoting Thrift as a Viable Alternative Lifestyle.
• Danner, Mark. The Massacre at El Mozote.
• Dawkins, Richard and Yan Wong. The Ancestor’s Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution.
• Dawkins, Richard. The Selfish Gene.
• de Becker, Gavin. The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals that Protect Us from Violence.
• de Santillana, Giorgio and Hertha von Dechen. Hamlet’s Mill: An Essay Investigating the Origins of Human Knowledge and Its Transmission Through Myth.
• Diamond, Jared. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies.
• Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.
• Dunbar-Ortiz, Roxanne. An Indigenous People’s History of the United States.
• Eliade, Mircea. The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion.
• Fanon, Frantz and Richard Philcox. The Wretched of the Earth.
• Faust, Drew Gilpin. This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War.
• Ferris, Timothy. Coming of Age in the Milky Way.
• Ferris, Timothy. The Whole Shebang: A State-of-the-Universe(s) Report.
• Fisher, M.F.K. The Art of Eating.
• Foer, Joshua, Dylan Thuras, and Ella Morton. Atlas Obscura: An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Hidden Wonders.
• Fouts, Roger, and Stephen Tukel Mills. Next of Kin: My Conversations with Chimpanzees.
• Frank, Anne and Susan Massotty. The Diary of a Young Girl.
• Frankl, Viktor E. Man’s Search for Meaning.
• Friedman, Richard Elliott. Who Wrote the Bible?
• Gay, Roxane. Bad Feminist: Essays.
• Gay, Roxane. Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body.
• Godin, Seth. The Dip: A Little Book that Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick).
• Goldsworthy, Adrian. Ceasar: The Life of a Colossus.
• Gould, Stephen Jay. The Flamingo’s Smile: Reflections in Natural History.
• Graeber, David. Debt: The First 5,000 Years.
• Grandin, Temple. Animals Make Us Human: Creating the Best Life for Animals.
• Griffin, John Howard. Black Like Me.
• Guthrie, Robert V. Even the Rat Was White: A Historical View of Psychology.
• Halberstam, David. The Fifties.
• Halberstam, David. October 1964. (On Baseball)
• Hari, Johann. Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs.
• Haupt, Lyanda Lynn. Crow Planet: Essential Wisdom from the Urban Wilderness.
• Hochschild, Adam. King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa.
• Hochschild, Adam. To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918.
• Hofstadter, Douglas R. Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid.
• hooks, bell. All About Love: New Visions.
• Ifrah, Georges and Lowell Blair. From One to Zero: A Universal History of Numbers.
• Irving, Debbie. Waking up White: Finding Myself in the Story of Race.
• Jacobs, Jane. The Death and Life of Great American Cities.
• Jahren, Hope. Lab Girl.
• Jensen, Barbara. Reading Classes: On Culture and Classism in America.
• Jensen, Robert. Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim our Humanity.
• Johnson, Steven. The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic–and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World.
• Kahneman, Daniel. Thinking, Fast and Slow.
• Kean, Sam. The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements.
• Kean, Sam. The Violinist’s Thumb: And Other Lost Tales of Love, War, and Genius, as Written by Our Genetic Code.
• Keay, John. China: A History.
• Keegan, John. The Face of Battle: A Study of Agincourt, Waterloo, and the Somme.
• Kelman, Ari. A Misplaced Massacre: Struggling over the Memory of Sand Creek.
• Kendi, Ibram X. Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America.
• King, Martin Luther, Jr. and Clayborne Carson. The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Klein, Naomi. This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate.
• Klein, Naomi. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.
• Kohanov, Linda. The Five Roles of a Master Herder: A Revolutionary Model for Socially Intelligent Leadership.
• Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
• Kurlansky, Mark. Salt: A World History.
• Lamott, Anne. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life.
• Levitin, Daniel J. This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession.
• Loewen, James W.  Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong.
• Lovell, Simon. How to Cheat at Everything: A Con Man Reveals the Secrets of the Esoteric Trade of Cheating, Scams, and Hustles.
• Macknick, Stephen, Susana Martinez-Conde, and Sandra Blakeslee. Sleights of Mind: What the Neuroscience of Magic Reveals about Our Everyday Deceptions.
• Mann, Charles C. 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus.
• Mann, Charles C. 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created.
• Manson, Mark. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life.
• Marris, Emma. Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World.
• Mayer, Jane. Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right.
• McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art.
• McGee, Harold. On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen.
• McPherson, James M. Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era.
• Montgomery, David R. and Anne Bikle. The Hidden Half of Nature: The Microbial Roots of Life and Health.
• Montgomery, Sy. The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness.
• Moore, Kate. The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women.
• Moore, Thomas. Care of the Soul: A Guide for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life.
• Mortenson, Greg and David Oliver Relin. Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace…One School at a Time.
• Mukherjee, Siddhartha. The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer.
• Nissenbaum, Stephen. The Battle for Christmas.
• Orenstein, Peggy. Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture.
• Oreskes, Naomi and Erik M. Conway. Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming.
• Perkins, John. Confessions of an Economic Hitman.
• Perkins, John. The Secret History of the American Empire: The Truth About Economic Hit Men, Jackals, and How to Change the World.
• Pollan, Michael. Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals.
• Pressfield, Steven. The War of Art: Break through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles.
• Preston, Richard. The Hot Zone: The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus.
• Rafkin, Louise. Other People’s Dirt: A Housecleaner’s Curious Adventures.
• Reichard, Sarah Hayden. The Conscientious Gardener: Cultivating a Garden Ethic.
• Remen, Rachel Naomi. Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories that Heal.
• Rhodes, Richard. The Making of the Atomic Bomb.
• Roach, Mary. Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal.
• Roach, Mary. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers.
• Ronson, Jon. The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry.
• Rosen, William. The Most Powerful Idea in the World: A Story of Steam, Industry, and Invention.
• Ruhl, Sarah. 100 Essays I Don’t Have Time to Write: On Umbrellas and Sword Fights, Parades and Dogs, Fire Alarms, Children, and Theater.
• Russ, Joanna. How to Suppress Women’s Writing.
• Sagan, Carl. The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence.
• Schalansky, Judith and Christine Lo. Atlas of Remote Islands: Fifty Islands I Have Never Set Foot On and Never Will.
• Sears, Stephen W. Landscape Turned Red: The Battle of Antietam.
• Shetterly, Margot Lee. Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race.
• Shlaes, Amity. The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression.
• Siegel, Daniel J. and Tina Payne Bryson. The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind.
• Silver, Nate. The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail–But Some Don’t.
• Skloot, Rebecca. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.
• Smith, Adam. Wealth of Nations.
• Snyder, Timothy. On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentiety Century.
• Standage, Tom. A History of the World in Six Glasses.
• Stanley, Thomas J. Ph.D. The Millionaire Next Door.
• Stout, Martha, Ph.D. The Sociopath Next Door.
• Tatum, Beverly Daniel. Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?: And Other Conversations About Race.
• Tavris, Carol and Elliot Aronson. Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts.
• Trachtenberg, Alan. The Incorporation of America: Culture and Society in the Gilded Age.
• Tuchman, Barbara W. A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century.
• Warner, William W. Beautiful Swimmers: Watermen, Crabs and the Chesapeake Bay.
• Wasik, Bill and Monica Murphy. Rabid: A History of the World’s Most Diabolical Virus.
• Wells, Jeanette. The Glass Castle: A Memoir.
• Wiesel, Elie. Night: A Memoir.
• Williams, Joseph M. Style: Toward Clarity and Grace.
• Williams, Terry Tempest. When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice.
• Wilson, Edmund. Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War.
• Winchester, Simon. The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary.
• Winik, Jay. The Great Upheaval: America and the Birth of the Modern World, 1788-1800.
• X, Malcom and Alex Haley. The Autobiography of Malcom X.
• Youssef, Bassem. Revolution for Dummies: Laughing Through the Arab Spring.
• Zinn, Howard. A People’s History of the United States.

The I haven’t read these yet but I know I’m coming back to this post so I’ll put them here so I don’t forget sub-list:

• Wigginton, Eliot. The Foxfire Book: Hog Dressing, Log Cabin Building, Mountain Crafts and Foods, Planting by the Signs, Snake Lore, Hunting Tales, Faith Healing, Moonshining, and Other Affairs of Plain Living.

• Greenlee, Sam. The Spook Who Sat by the Door.

• Blum, Deborah. The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York.

• Grossman, Dave. On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society.

• Sacks, Oliver. The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales.

• Grandin, Temple. Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior.