I’m putting together my summer reading list and I’m looking for suggestions. I want to know what people are reading as it’s eventually my goal to write for a broad audience, not just academics. My usual method of going to local book stores and seeing the “top sellers” isn’t possible right now due to mobility issues so I turn to the wonderful CC mind hive :).
I’m looking for anything non-fiction that relates to history in some way. This can be as broad as you want it to be as I’m far more interested in the writing style and research behind it than any one specific topic.
(Though if anyone is curious, my prelim book lists will probably be something like: US History post-1865: Medical/Technology/Science Studies history, YouthFamily/Marriage history, Criminality/Delinquency/Incarceration history, and Gender & Sexuality.)
Also, I did start browsing through the “best book I’ve read…” thread but it’s nearly 300 pages long and it was just kind of overwhelming.
The Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
“The Wright Brothers”; “Dreamland” (about the heroin epidemic); “Just Mercy” (about the author’s work to reduce and overturn prisoners’ sentences); “Ghettoside” (black on black crime in south LA); “The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace” (a young man from a very poor family who went to Yale but whose life then fell apart); “Random Family” (an extended family in the Bronx in the 1980s and 1990s).
I read a lot, fiction and nonfiction. I just want the books to be good.
@rosered55 Dreamland is already on my must-read list and I’ve heard nothing but great things about it. I just read both Happy Pills in America by David Herzberg and Smack: Heroin and the American City by Eric Schneider which may be of interest to you as they address very similar things (especially Smack).
Go to the public library and pick books from the shelves.
Two relatively old but really wonderfully written and still relevant books that deal with medical care in underserved populations that pose many ethical questions are Abraham Verghese’s “My Own Country” and Ann Fadiman’s “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down.” If you haven’t read “The Boys in the Boat” you should check it out too…more of a social history than a book about rowing.
@wis75 I would love to but I literally cannot walk around a library right now. I can’t walk more than a few hundred steps (at the very, very most) before it is physically impossible for me to move anymore and I don’t have access to a wheelchair (and my walker is only so helpful when the pain is excruciating). I do get my books from the U of M library but I have them delivered to me.
Two non-fiction books that I’ve been reading: Ron Chernow, Hamilton (biography) and David McCullough, The Path Between the Seas (building the Panama Canal–I went to Panama recently). A few favorites: Erik Larson, Devil in the White City (about the 1893 World’s Fair), The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, The Emperor of All Maladies (cancer research) by Siddhartha Mukherjee, My Own Country by Abraham Verghese (written by a doctor who treated AIDS patients in a rural setting).
You could look at 2015 (and earlier years’) top 10 book lists by entities such as the New York Times and the Washington Post. Also Pulitzer Prize winners.
Use your computer to look up favorite people and places.
Secret Life of Henrietta Lacks (but I suspect you may have read that one already)
The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America
A Mighty Heart: The Brave Life and Death of My Husband, Danny Pearl
Strength in What Remains: A Journey of Remembrance and Forgiveness
@wis75 I am using my computer… to tap into CC’s knowledge. I like the collective posts of CC because they give me suggestions outside of my comfort zone and ones that I won’t find on typical book lists since I tend to gravitate towards academic book lists. For example, it hadn’t even occurred to me to look at the NY Times (etc) Best Sellers lists (and that’s a wonderful suggestion, thank you rose!)
I’m not sure what the issue is. If you don’t want to give suggestions, you’re welcome not to. I’m sorry if this question is bothersome.
To those who have recommended Secret Life of Henrietta Lacks- yes, it is one of my favorites. It’s always my recommendation to my colleagues’ syllabi when they ask for medical/bioethics suggestions 
In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex
Depending on how old you like your history to be, anything by Jon Krakauer: Under the Banner of Heaven, Missoula, Into Thin Air, Into the Wild
Have you ever utilized Goodreads? It is really helpful for me when I’m looking for a new book. I won’t go into my method of using it, in case you’ve already utilized it. If you haven’t, I’d be glad to share with you my process for finding new books.
Also, “Missoula” by Jon Krakauer (about sexual assaults at the University of Montana); and “On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City,” by Alice Goffman (the relationship between police officers and mostly black low-income residents of a Philadelphia neighborhood).
Excellent book - I never thought I’d like a maritime book, but after reading this one, I was motivated to read another one that I liked just as well: In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette.
Also, be forewarned about Hamilton - it’s over 800 pages! I started it last fall, then we listed our house on the market and all chaos broke loose. By the time it settled down and I was able to start reading again, I’d forgotten the 11% of what I’d read, so I started it over again a couple of weeks ago. I’m 18% through this time!
@romanigypsyeyes I don’t know that my suggestion fits very well with the others but have you read The Secret History of the Mongol Queens: How the Daughters of Genghis Khan Rescued His Empire by Jack Weatherford?
Another I just remembered: The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris
I decided to read it for the artistic and literary references but was fascinated by the medical history.
Here’s a short blurb on it: “The #1 bestseller that tells the remarkable story of the generations of American artists, writers, and doctors who traveled to Paris, the intellectual, scientific, and artistic capital of the western world, fell in love with the city and its people, and changed America through what they learned, told by America’s master historian, David McCullough.”