Best non-fiction books

[Rev. Rye]

Here are a few:

• The Great Big Book of Horrible Things (aka Atrocities) by Matthew White. A witty look at the 100 deadliest conflicts in human history.
  
• The Battle Cry of Freedom by James McPherson. The best damn book about the American Civil War ever written, including Shelby Foote's trilogy.
  
• Permanent Midnight by Jerry Stahl. Probably the best Hollywood autobiography ever.
  
• The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. Personally, I prefer the Emperor's Handbook translation, but that's just me.
  
• Confessions of a Buddhist Atheist and Buddhism Without Beliefs by Stephen Batchelor. If anyone has any idea why Buddhism holds such an interest in otherwise nontheistic individuals, these two books should explain it.
  
• Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson. This, of course, will depend on your definition of "non-fiction."
  
• An Appetite For Wonder by Richard Dawkins. While a recent reread of the God Delusion reveals a mind less apt for dissecting theology than I first thought, it's a very interesting autobiography.
  
• Quite frankly, anything by Bart Ehrman. He's in a far better position to dissect the flaws of Christianity than Dawkins is.
  [/quote]
  
  I have more picks, but then again, a lot of them are not for everyone, and a lot of them are only non-fiction in the sense that the Dewey Decimal System places them in non-fiction. And some are both.