Non-fiction/autobiography book suggestions

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Forum -> Hobbies, Crafts, and Collections -> Reading Room

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amother

Ecru

Tue, Apr 24 2018, 12:05 am

The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg. Amazing, instructive, transformative. Well-written and easy to get through. It's about why we do what we do.

PinkFridge

Tue, Apr 24 2018, 10:22 am

amother wrote:

Which of the above are " clean "? Thanx.

If I remember correctly, most of my books are, besides the Ruth Reichl memoirs. If you want squeaky clean, Kosher Chinese may have some language and situations and the Freakonomics books (I read the last one) may discuss some interesting topics.

Mommyg8

Tue, Apr 24 2018, 10:34 am

"Pandora's Lunchbox" by Melanie Warner is an interesting read about the food industry. Read at your peril!

iluvy

Tue, Apr 24 2018, 10:42 am

Kosher Nation
Through the Shadowlands
Weapons of Math Destruction

PinkFridge

Tue, Apr 24 2018, 10:50 am

iluvy wrote:

Weapons of Math Destruction

Like the title! I just looked it up and decided to put it on hold.

PinkFridge

Tue, Apr 24 2018, 11:06 am

American Bee, about the National Spelling Bee. Great read. Will make you look at it very differently.

byisrael

Tue, Apr 24 2018, 2:41 pm

Wild things - about parenting boys

Laiya

Tue, Apr 24 2018, 3:01 pm

Presuasion (not a typo) by Robert Cialdini

The Secret Life of Dictionaries --by a lexicographer about language development; loved it but some bad language ; loved these

cuterpatooter

Fri, Apr 27 2018, 4:09 pm

anything by oliver sacks is excellent. (a neuroscientist who writes fascinating stories about his clients)
I like Malcolm Gladwell a lot as well.
The Surrendered Wife by Laura Doyle is great marriage book. there's one chapter on intimacy that isn't clean.
thing explainer - explains things!
better than before - gretchen rubin

thanks for starting this thread I was wanting to know this too

questioner

Thu, Jun 28 2018, 2:10 pm

Bumping for more recommendations

Here's some that I read:
The Nazi officer's wife : how one Jewish woman survived the Holocaust (fascinating, but has a few overly explicit scenes)
How babies talk : the magic and mystery of language in the first three years of life (Golinkoff, Roberta M.)
The perfect score project : uncovering the secrets of the SAT (Stier, Debbie.) Tiger mom who resolves to get a perfect SAT score in conjunction with her son taking the SAT
The Hot Zone The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus
Fifty inventions that shaped the modern economy (Tim Harford - his other books are interesting also)
The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds (about Kahaneman and Tversky duo)
The inheritance : a family on the front lines of the battle against Alzheimer's disease (very sad - family with gene mutation that indicates early-onset Alzheimers)

anon for this

Thu, Jun 28 2018, 2:20 pm

misrael mentioned Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words by Randall Munroe. It diagrams and describes various items using only the 1,000 (or ten hundred) most common words in the English language. My kids and I enjoyed "reading" this one together on Shabbos. What If, also by Munroe, is a fun read too.

Nechami

Thu, Jun 28 2018, 2:45 pm

If you're looking for memoirs that are well-written and really fascinating as well as entertaining:
"The Prize Winner of Defiance: how my mother raised 10 children on 25 words or less" - highly recommended!! (and at risk of hijacking this thread - can anyone out there recommend something similar ??)
and on a more tragic note:
"Rememberings: The World of a Russian-Jewish Woman in the Nineteenth Century" by Pauline Wengeroff. A memoir giving insight into the challenges during the haskalla movement.

Keep the recommendations coming!

PinkFridge

Thu, Jun 28 2018, 5:05 pm

Nechami wrote:

I'm going to try to get Rememberings out for Tisha B'Av.

amother

Peach

Tue, Nov 13 2018, 10:00 pm

Bumping this thread up in case any one has more book suggestions, as the long Friday nights are now upon us

amother

White

Tue, Nov 13 2018, 10:21 pm

Beverly Cleary wrote 2 volumes of her memoirs of growing up. Very enjoyable, easy read. She came of age in the Depression.

It made me cry a bit, but I thought Lucette Lagnado's memoirs of her Jewish family having to emigrate to America were also excellent (also 2 volumes).

I recently read the book about the battle of Dunkirk by Walter Lord (I think) and it was beyond excellent, I thought. It was recently republished because of the movie Dunkirk coming out last year, so it's an "oldie but goodie" I guess.

I got the recommendation from Mishpacha magazine for the book Crash Course of Jewish History by Ken Spiro and I can only say it is probably the best book on Jewish History I've ever come across, bar none. (Not that I'm a historian, lol, far from it.)

hanna2010

Tue, Nov 13 2018, 11:22 pm

“When breath becomes air”
An amazing bestseller about a neurosurgeon who became sick with lung cancer. He searches to make sense about what makes life worth living. Really took my breath away!!

amother

cornflower

Tue, Nov 13 2018, 11:41 pm

I loved Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen. It's a memoir relating the author's experiences in a psychiatric hospital after she was diagnosed with BPD. I thought it was brilliantly written!

amother

Yellow

Tue, Nov 13 2018, 11:50 pm

Sometimes Amazing Things Happen and Beautiful Boy were two of the most powerful books I ever read.
Not clean enough for an aidel maidel to read, though.

Sleepymama

Wed, Nov 14 2018, 12:03 am

librarygirl wrote:

The spark by Kristine Barnett. Mother raising autistic son who turns out to be genius

I second this recommendation! Amazing book! Also, "My Stroke of Insight" was amazing it changed the way I understand my mind.

amother

Tan

Wed, Nov 14 2018, 12:26 am

Bill oriely has some fabulous reads!!
The latest one ‘killing the ss’ is fascinating about hunting down nazi war criminals
Love all the chicken soup books
In the library I always look for the yellow ‘for dummies’ books or any of the orange ‘for idiots’. Easy to read and so informative!
I’ve learned a lot of things from them!!

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