<p>Yes, I meant Kitchen Confidential! It’s a fun, but kind of disturbing read. makes you think twice about eating out!</p>
<p>I also hated Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. My Ap English class (back in the 70’s) spent 3 months disecting that book. This was the begining of the realization that English was not for me. Hence the fact that I didn’t realize that the writing in 3 Cups of Tea was not great…oh well.</p>
<p>So, I’ll try again…
Definitely Non-Fiction
How Soccer explains the World
Seabiscuit </p>
<p>Non Fiction (? - I am not sure)
Roots
Clan of the Cave Bear
Hawaii - Michener</p>
<p>Fiction but reads more like Non-Fiction
The Red Tent
Memoirs of a Geisha</p>
<p>I love reading narrative non-fiction. Here are many of my favorites:</p>
<p>‘Shakespeare’ by Another Name: The Life of Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, the Man Who Was Shakespeare by Mark Anderson
Becoming Jane Austen by Jon Spence
Hunting bin Laden: How al-Qaeda Is Winning the War on Terror by Rob Schultheis
The Road to Ubar: Finding the Atlantis of the Sands by Nicolas Clapp
Tales of a Shaman’s Apprentice: An Ethnobotanist Searches for New Medicines in the Amazon Rain Forest by Mark J. Plotkin
The Wild Trees: A Story of Passion and Daring by Richard Preston
The Hot Zone: A Terrifying True Story by Richard Preston
A Fish Caught in Time: The Search for the Coelacanth by Samantha Weinberg
Song of the Dodo by David Quammen
Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History by Stephen Jay Gould
Unearthing the Dragon by Mark A. Norell
Time Traveler: In Search of Dinosaurs and Other Fossils from Montana to Mongolia by Michael Novacek
Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood by Oliver Sacks
Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
Fermat’s Last Theorem: Unlocking the Secret of an Ancient Mathematical Problem by Amir D. Azcel
Longitude by Dava Sobol
The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology by Simon Winchester
The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester
The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom by Simon Winchester
The Man Who Found Time: James Hutton and the Discovery of the Earth’s Antiquity by Jack Repcheck
Great Discoveries Series:
A Force of Nature: The Frontier Genius of Ernest Rutherford by Richard Reeves
Miss Leavitt’s Stars: The Untold Story of the Woman Who Discovered How to Measure the Universe by George Johnson
The Georgian Star: How William and Caroline Herschel Revolutionized Our Understanding of the Cosmos by Michael D. Lemonick</p>
<p>The official government commission report on 9/11 is fascinating. It is called (duh) “The 9/11 Commission Report”. It was sold at bookstores (B&N, etc.) right after it came out, I don’t know if they would still stock it or not. My guess it that they would, as it sold very well at the time. (Actually, I just did a search, and you can download it in .pdf format, but it is very long, so buying or checking out of the library in book form might be better).</p>
<p>There are lots of really great suggestions here already. I’d add these:</p>
<p>Anything by David Sedaris</p>
<p>Anything by Bill Bryson (you could start with a book about a place you know she’s interested in, e.g., if she likes Australia, find In a Sunburned Country)</p>
<p>Rory Stewart’s The Places in Between - kind of goes near the same territory as Three Cups of Tea, but the writing is superb. (I agree that Mortensen is not a skilled prose stylist, but I’d argue that his book is worth reading anyway.)</p>
<p>And my personal outlier, Alfred Lansing’s Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage. I can’t remember why I picked this up but it is hands down one of the best nf books I’ve read. The prose is absolutely brilliant and the story is riveting. </p>
<p>Maybe Sebastian Junger’s books. </p>
<p>And how about Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood?</p>
<p>Simon Winchester: Krakatoa, The Meaning of Everything, A Crack in the Edge of the World
anything by Robert M Sapolsky
Davo Sobol, Longitude
Harold McGee on food chemistry
EO Wilson The Diversity of Life
Stephen Jay Gould’s collected essays
Darwin The Voyage of the Beagle (19th century exploration diaries)
Bates The Naturalist on the Rivers Amazon (ditto)
Isabella Bird’s travelogues (ditto)</p>
<p>Lots of great suggestions! I’ll just add one more–Goat Song by Brad Kessler. Kessler, a writer, moved with his photographer wife from Manhattan to Vermont to raise goats, make goat cheese, and live a pastoral life. Kessler’s description of his first year as a goat farmer is fascinating. As he tells his story, he includes everything you ever wanted to know about goats–from goats in mythology to their mating rituals. </p>
<p>I would second the recommendation for Bill Bryson’s books–no matter what he writes about, he has me laughing out loud.</p>
<p>"I recommend Jon Krakauer - “Into Thin Air” and “Into the Wild.” </p>
<p>I’ll add another book about humans defying forces of nature - *Swimming to Antarctica *is a fascinating autobiography by Lynne Cox, an open water swimmer. Yes, she did swim in Antarctica without a wet suit!</p>
<p>She may not like sports, but “The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game” is just a wonderful read. I read it before I saw the movie. My husband has read it, my oldest D has read it, as well as her husband. Now, my 2 younger daughters and my 85 year old MIL are reading it. It is a great story.</p>
<p>Lots of good ideas! My kid who loves nonfiction loved Malcolm Gladwell’s books (The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers), as well as Freakanomics/Superfreakanomics.</p>
<p>Other good nonfiction I have read recently includes:
Playing the Enemy by John Carlin – the book that the recent movie Invictus is based on
When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present
Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert</p>
<p>I have also heard good things about Half the Sky, although I have not yet read it.</p>
<p>102 Minutes: The Untold Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers - Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn</p>
<p>The Cat Who Went to Paris - Peter Gethers</p>
<p>Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World - Vicki Myron and Bret Witter</p>
<p>FWIW - I agree with the poster who said to start with easy-to-read books of personal interest to your daughter. A non-reader gains confidence in her reading selections only she actually likes to read them as opposed to feeling she should - obvious, I know; slogging through a difficult reading selection too soon may just reinforce negative feelings.</p>
<p>One of my D’s favorite books is “In Cold Blood.” She read it right before seeing the movie(s) about Capote and found the whole thing fascinating.</p>
<p>Try the Tipping Point or Hot Flat and Crowded-- you can see brief descriptions of them on amazon.com. If there are comprehension issues, you can try my method of trying to get them to read books where they already saw the movie.</p>
<p>Atul Gawande is a great non-fiction writer. I enjoyed both Better and Complications, and he has a new book out, The Checklist Manifesto. He writes about medicine and public health, but you don’t have to be interested or knowledgeable in the two fields to get into the books. </p>
<p>I have also heard good things about Sway, a book examining common irrational behavior.</p>
<p>I was also going to suggest Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat. And how about Marley and Me? I liked the book better than the movie.</p>
<p>I would also encourage you to find books that aren’t too difficult or too long at first. You want your D to get used to successfully finishing books and not to be overwhelmed or discouraged by too many of them.</p>
<p>My son, husband, and I have almost no overlap in our taste in books but we all really enjoyed Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions by Ben Mezrich</p>
<p>Quick and easy to read, and fun.</p>
<p>I don’t read many non-fiction books but I enjoyed The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks</p>