I want to share with you a few of the non-fiction books I've read in recent years. However, when compiling the list, an unexpected selection problem arose. Books, as they say, for a wide range. Which are read in flight even by a completely unprepared reader and can compete with fiction in the sense of an exciting narrative. Books for more thoughtful reading, for the understanding of which you will need to slightly strain your brain and textbooks (collections of lectures), for students and those who want to understand some issues more seriously. It is the first part that is presented in this list - books for the widest possible range of readers (although this, of course, is very subjective). I deliberately abandoned the idea of giving books my own description and left the original annotations, even in cases where they did not suit me, so as not to influence the selection process for further reading. As usual, if you want to add something to this list - welcome to the comments.
1. How Music Became Free [The End of the Recording Industry, the Technological Revolution, and Piracy's Patient Zero] Author. Stephen Witt
"How Music Went Free" is a gripping story that intertwines obsession, greed, music, crime and money. This story is told through visionaries and criminals, tycoons and teenagers creating a new digital reality. It's the story of the greatest pirate in history, the most powerful executive in the music business, a revolutionary invention, and an illegal site four times the size of the iTunes Music Store.
Journalist Steven Witt traces the secret history of digital music piracy from the invention of the mp3 format by German audio engineers, leads the reader through a North Carolina CD printing plant from which one worker leaked some 2 albums over the course of a decade, to skyscrapers in Manhattan, from where the music business was ruled by the powerful Doug Morris, who monopolized the global rap music market, and from there into the depths of the Internet - the darknet.
2. Phenethylamines I knew and loved [ЖЗЛ] Author. Alexander Shulgin
An outstanding American chemist-pharmacologist of Russian origin lived an amazing life, the analogue of which can only be the feat of Louis Pasteur. But unlike Pasteur, Shulgin tested not new serums, but compounds synthesized by him, the legal and social status of which is currently problematic - psychoactive drugs. Defying the “new inquisition”, which limited the right of mankind to know itself, Dr. Shulgin, despite all sorts of legal obstacles, continued his research for forty years, having accomplished a kind of scientific feat, the significance of which only future generations will be able to appreciate.
3. revolutionary suicide [ЖЗЛ] Author. Huey Percy Newton
The legendary hero of the American press, founder of the Black Panthers, philosopher, propagandist, political prisoner and professional revolutionary Huey Percy Newton wrote his autobiography shortly before his tragic death. “Revolutionary Suicide” is not only a detective story of the life of a rebel who was friends with Cuban revolutionaries, Chinese Red Guards and the scandalous Parisian playwright Jean Genet, but also a rare opportunity to feel the atmosphere of those “crazy” years when black uprisings in the ghetto, the capture of university students and “ actions" against the police were perceived by intellectuals as the beginning of irreversible and long-awaited changes in the structure of the entire Western civilization.
4. Gods, tombs and scientists
Author. Kurt Walter Keram
The book of the German writer K.V. Kerama (1915-1973) "Gods, Tombs, Scholars" won worldwide fame, translated into 26 languages. Based solely on facts, it reads like a gripping novel. The book tells about the secrets of bygone centuries, about amazing adventures, fatal failures and well-deserved victories of people who made the greatest archaeological discoveries in the XNUMXth-XNUMXth centuries. This journey through the millennium introduces the existence of other, more ancient than the Egyptian and Greek civilizations.
5. Signs and Wonders: Tales of how forgotten scripts and languages were deciphered
Author. Ernst Doblhofer edition 1963 (Unfortunately, only djvu on flibust)
The book tells how the forgotten scripts and languages were deciphered. In the main part of his book, E. Doblhofer details the process of deciphering the ancient writing systems of Egypt, Iran, South Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, Ugarit, Byblos, Cyprus, the Cretan-Mycenaean linear writing and the ancient Turkic runic writing. Thus, the decipherments of almost all ancient written systems forgotten over the centuries are considered here.
6. Of course you are joking, Mr. Feynman!
Author. Richard Phillips Feynman.
The book tells about the life and adventures of the famous physicist, one of the creators of the atomic bomb, Nobel Prize winner, Richard Phillips Feynman. This book will completely change the way you look at scientists; she is not talking about a scientist who seems dry and boring to most people, but about a man: charming, artistic, daring and far from being as one-sided as he dared to think of himself. A wonderful sense of humor and easy conversational style of the author will make reading the book not only informative, but also an exciting experience.
7. Death and Life of Great American Cities
Author. Jane Jacobs
Written 50 years ago, The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs has long been a classic, but still has not lost its revolutionary significance in the history of understanding the city and urban life. It was here that the arguments against urban planning, guided by abstract ideas and ignoring the daily life of citizens, were first consistently formulated.
8. About photography
Author. Susan Sontag
Susan Sontag's On Photography collection of essays first saw the light of day as a series of essays published in the New York Review of Books between 1973 and 1977. In the book that made her famous, Sontag comes to the conclusion that the widespread use of photography leads to the establishment of a relationship of “chronic voyeurism” between man and the world, as a result of which everything that happens begins to be located on the same level and acquires the same meaning.
9. Inside WikiLeaks
Author. Daniel Domscheit-Berg
Daniel Domscheit-Berg is a German web designer and computer security specialist, the first and closest associate of Julian Assange, the founder of the world-famous WikiLeaks exposing Internet platform. Inside WikiLeaks is a detailed account by an eyewitness and an active participant about the history, principles and structure of the most scandalous website on the planet. Domscheit-Berg consistently analyzes important WL publications, their causes, consequences and public outcry, and also draws a vivid and vivid portrait of Assange, recalling years of friendship and disagreements that arose over time, which eventually led to a final break. To date, Domscheit-Berg is working on the creation of a new OpenLeaks platform, wanting to bring the idea of Internet disclosures to perfection and provide the most reliable protection for whistleblowers.
All the books listed here are on flibust.
Source: habr.com