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100 Best Nonfiction

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100 Best Nonfiction includes The Wealthy Barber (1991), Radical Son (1998), Private Parts (1993), The End of Racism (1995), The Sense of an Ending (2000).

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The Wealthy Barber

by: David Chilton
release date: Jun 20, 1991
The Wealthy Barber
Finally, for the folks on Main Street (not Wall Street)--a simple, sensible, and enjoyable guide to financial planning that shows people how to improve their fortunes by taking a few simple and painless steps.

Radical Son

by: David Horowitz
release date: Apr 21, 1998
Radical Son
This riveting national bestseller is an intimate, uncompromising account of personal and political transformation, documenting David Horowitz's journey from 1960s radical to 1990s conservative. "One of the best political memoirs I have ever read".--P.J. O'Rourke. of photos.

Private Parts

by: Howard Stern
release date: Jan 01, 1993
Private Parts
The King of All Media is back, letting it all hang out in his outrageous new movie! Here's the reader's chance to discover the book that began the phenomenon. Studded throughout with Howard's favorite photos, this is the original, in-your-face manifesto that will once again have fans storming the bookstore--and everyone else running for cover.
Categories: Nonfiction / Memoir, Nonfiction / Humor, Nonfiction / Entertainment

The End of Racism

by: Dinesh D'Souza
release date: Jan 01, 1995
The End of Racism
The End of Racism goes beyond familiar polemics to raise fundamental questions that no one else has asked: Is racial prejudice innate, or is it culturally acquired? Is it peculiar to the West, or is it found in all societies? What is the legacy of slavery, and what does America owe blacks as compensation for it? Did the civil rights movement succeed or fail in its attempt to overcome the legacy of segregation and racism? Is there such a thing as rational discrimination? Can persons of color be racist? Is racism really the most serious problem facing black Americans today, or is it a declining phenomenon? If racism had a beginning, shouldn't it be possible to envision its end? . In a scrupulous and balanced study, D'Souza shows that racism is a distinctively Western phenomenon, arising at about the time of the first European encounters with non-Western peoples, and he chronicles the political, cultural, and intellectual history of racism as well as the twentieth-century liberal crusade against it. D'Souza proactively traces the limitations of the civil rights movement to its flawed assumptions about the nature of racism. He argues that the American obsession with race is fueled by a civil rights establishment that has a vested interest in perpetuating black dependency, and he concludes that the generation that marched with Martin Luther King, Jr. may be too committed to the paradigm of racial struggle to see the possibility of progress. Perhaps, D'Souza suggests, like the Hebrews who were forced to wander in the desert for 40 years, that generation may have to pass away before their descendants can enter the promised land of freedom and equality. In the meantime, however, many race activists are preaching despair and poisoning the minds of a younger generation which in fact displays far less racial consciousness and bigotry than any other in American history. The End of Racism summons profound historical, moral, and practical arguments against the civil rights orthodoxy which holds that "race matters" and that therefore we have no choice but to institutionalize race as the basis for identity and public policy.

The Sense of an Ending

by: Frank Kermode
release date: Apr 06, 2000
The Sense of an Ending
This significant exploration of the relationship of fiction to age-old conception of chaos and crisis brings highly concentrated insights to bear upon some of the most unyielding philosophical and aesthetic enigmas. Mr. Kermode ranges through the works of writers from Plato to Sorokin, showing how men have persistently imposed their "fictions" upon the face of eternity and how these have reflected the apocalyptic spirit. -- back cover.

Anatomy of Criticism

by: Northrop Frye
release date: Feb 17, 2007
Anatomy of Criticism

This volume, the twenty-second in the acclaimed Collected Works of Northrop Frye series, presents Frye's most influential work, Anatomy of Criticism (1957). In four stylish and sweeping essays, Frye attempts to formulate an overall view of the scope, principles, and techniques of literary criticism and the conventions of literature - its modes, symbols, archetypes, and genres. He makes the case for criticism as a legitimate and structured science, a science that he would go on to wield with great influence over the course of his distinguished career.

Robert D. Denham's introduction to this edition examines the book's genesis, its initial reception, and its relation to Frye's other works, particularly Fearful Symmetry (Volume 14 in the series). He highlights the diagrammatic way of thinking that characterizes Frye's brand of structuralism and explores the meaning of the word 'anatomy.' Denham also provides context for the work, considering the critical tradition out of which it emerged, as well as how it relates to some of the movements that appeared after the waning of structuralism. A key volume in the Collected Works series, this annotated and expertly introduced edition of Anatomy of Criticism will be sure to satisfy Frye's many admirers.

But is it True?

by: Aaron Wildavsky
release date: Mar 25, 1997
But is it True?

We've eaten Alar with our apples and PCBs with our fish, drunk arsenic with our water, breathed asbestos in our schools. Someone sounded the alarm, someone else said we were safe, and both had science on their side. Whom are we to trust? How are we to know? Amid this chaos of questions and conflicting information, Aaron Wildavsky arrives with just what the beleaguered citizen needs: a clear, fair, and factual look at how the rival claims of environmentalists and industrialists work, what they mean, and where to start sorting them out.

Working with his students at a risk analysis center, Wildavsky examined all the evidence behind the charges and countercharges in several controversial cases involving environmental health and public safety. Here he lays out these cases in terms an average citizen can understand, weighs the merits of the claims of various parties, and offers reasoned judgments on the government's response. From Love Canal to Times Beach, from DDT to Agent Orange, acid rain, and global warming, from saccharin to asbestos, nuclear waste, and radon, Wildavsky shows how we can achieve an informed understanding of the contentious environmental issues that confront us daily. The book supports the conclusion Wildavsky reached himself, both as a citizen committed to the welfare of the earth and its inhabitants, and as a social scientist concerned with how public policy is made: though it is bad to be harmed, it is worse to be harmed in the name of health.

How to Lie with Statistics

by: Darrell Huff
How to Lie with Statistics
Both charming and informative about how statistics are misused. Published long ago, but the tricks haven't changed.

Storming Heaven

by: Jay Stevens
release date: Sep 02, 1998
Storming Heaven
Storming Heaven digs beneath the headlines to bring an amazing science story in which Harvard professors become holy men, and a generation drops out to seek cosmic bliss--only to find something much darker.

Ways of Seeing

by: John Berger
release date: Jan 01, 1995
Ways of Seeing
How do we see the world around us? The Penguin on Design series includes the works of creative thinkers whose writings on art, design and the media have changed our vision forever."Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before it can speak.""But there is also another sense in which seeing comes before words. It is seeing which establishes our place in the surrounding world; we explain that world with words, but word can never undo the fact that we are surrounded by it. The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled."John Berger's Ways of Seeing is one of the most stimulating and influential books on art in any language. First published in 1972, it was based on the BBC television series about which the (London) Sunday Times critic commented: "This is an eye-opener in more ways than one: by concentrating on how we look at paintings . . . he will almost certainly change the way you look at pictures." By now he has.

Autobiography of a Modern Prophet

by: Harold Klemp
release date: Jun 14, 2010
Autobiography of a Modern Prophet
It's 1970. A dark Wisconsin night. A once-shy farm boy, now in his twenties, stands on a bridge over a river. He's left the farm, studied for the clergy, and done a stint in the air force. He's a proofreader now. He's seen faraway places, but tonight he's in Wisconsin overlooking the dark water. He's about to see the face of God, to become a God-Realized man. From this momentous turning point, Harold Klemp's life would never be the same. His incredible experience that night was simply a prelude to a time of testing, humbling, cleansing, yet blessed experience with the Light and Sound of God. He would emerge as the spiritual leader and modern-day prophet of Eckankar. This is his spiritual autobiography. "This book," he says, "is about God-Realization and the myths that surround the highest state of spiritual realization known to mankind. The first and greatest illusion is that once God-Realization is attained, the battle for higher consciousness is forever won. This oversimplifies things. . . . "The hard part came after God-Realization. Now I had to return to the problems of life and confront them. The specter of God's haunting love was always with me. . . . It carried me beyond the pleasant cooing of belief and faith, thrusting me into a brilliant world of light shorn of all illusion." If a shy Wisconsin farm boy can master his spiritual destiny, why can't we? According to Gallup, 82% of those polled in America alone want to experience spiritual growth. Believe it or not, it is your destiny to discover your godlike nature, your spiritual greatness. "Tucked away in the hidden places of this book are clues as to how you too may reach the glories of God," says Klemp. "Now come with me on my journey." Eckankar is a modern-day spiritual teaching with ancient roots founded in 1965 by Paul Twitchell. Harold Klemp is the current spiritual leader of Eckankar since 1981.

Dumbing Us Down

by: John Taylor Gatto
release date: Feb 01, 2002
Dumbing Us Down
With over 70,000 copies of the first edition in print, this radical treatise on public education has been a New Society Publishers’ bestseller for 10 years! Thirty years in New York City’s public schools led John Gatto to the sad conclusion that compulsory schooling does little but teach young people to follow orders like cogs in an industrial machine. This second edition describes the wide-spread impact of the book and Gatto’s "guerrilla teaching." John Gatto has been a teacher for 30 years and is a recipient of the New York State Teacher of the Year award. His other titles include A Different Kind of Teacher (Berkeley Hills Books, 2001) and The Underground History of American Education (Oxford Village Press, 2000).

Longitude

by: Dava Sobel
release date: Jan 01, 1997
Longitude
The dramatic human story of an epic scientific quest and of one man's forty-year obsession to find a solution to the thorniest scientific dilemma of the day--"the longitude problem." Anyone alive in the eighteenth century would have known that "the longitude problem" was the thorniest scientific dilemma of the day-and had been for centuries. Lacking the ability to measure their longitude, sailors throughout the great ages of exploration had been literally lost at sea as soon as they lost sight of land. Thousands of lives and the increasing fortunes of nations hung on a resolution. One man, John Harrison, in complete opposition to the scientific community, dared to imagine a mechanical solution-a clock that would keep precise time at sea, something no clock had ever been able to do on land. Longitude is the dramatic human story of an epic scientific quest and of Harrison's forty-year obsession with building his perfect timekeeper, known today as the chronometer. Full of heroism and chicanery, it is also a fascinating brief history of astronomy, navigation, and clockmaking, and opens a new window on our world.

Death by Government

by: R. J. Rummel
release date: Jan 01, 1997
Death by Government
This is R. J. Rummel's fourth book in a series devoted to genocide and government mass murder, or what he calls democide. He presents the primary results, in tables and figures, as well as a historical sketch of the major cases of democide, those in which one million or more people were killed by a regime. In Death by Government, Rummel does not aim to describe democide itself, but to determine its nature and scope in order to test the theory that democracies are inherently nonviolent. Rummel discusses genocide in China, Nazi Germany, Japan, Cambodia, Turkey, Yugoslavia, Poland, the Soviet Union, and Pakistan. He also writes about areas of suspected genocide: North Korea, Mexico, and feudal Russia. His results clearly and decisively show that democracies commit less democide than other regimes. The underlying principle is that the less freedom people have, the greater the violence; the more freedom, the less the violence. Thus, as Rummel says, "The problem is power. The solution is democracy. The course of action is to foster freedom." Death by Government is a compelling look at the horrors that occur in modern societies. It depicts how democide has been very much a part of human history. Among other examples, the book includes the massacre of Europeans during the Thirty Years' War, the relatively unknown genocide of the French Revolution, and the slaughtering of American Indians by colonists in the New World. This riveting account is an essential tool for historians, political scientists, and scholars interested in the study of genocide.

The True Believer

by: Eric Hoffer
The True Believer
This book presents ideas about how mass movements work and the psychology of people that awaken/join mass movements. The author uses examples of movements of all types from the past, as well as movements that were current when the book was written; and discusses in great detail many techniques used to form and hold them together, the many motives that draw people to them, and the similarities between movements that appear on the surface to be completely different in nature (e.g., secular vs. religious, communist vs. fascist, radical vs. reactionary movements). The book is well referenced, and uses quotes from secular and religious writings (the Bible, too) associated with mass movements past and (the author's) present. This book will be of great interest to anyone who is interested in: psychology, particularly of fundamentalism and blind faith, why some psychological conditions cause people to behave as they do, and the psychology of groups; the history of change through social upheaval and mass movements; how and why secular and religious extremist/fanatical groups come into being; and why there has been and continues to be so much injustice, violence and depravity on such large scales in "civilization". The book does well at the author's stated intent to not judge the groups and personalities it discusses; however, it describes them so clearly that readers who are not good at honest introspection will probably recognize and judge themselves, and immediately feel an impulse to hate the author or declare him a blasphemer, and/or to ban the book (my local library thought it had the book, but when I wanted to borrow it they couldn't find it - I would not be surprised if a "true believer" started to read it and censored it from the library).

The Road to Serfdom

by: Friedrich A. Hayek
The Road to Serfdom
A classic work in political philosophy, intellectual and cultural history, and economics, The Road to Serfdom has inspired and infuriated politicians, scholars, and general readers for half a century. Originally published in England in the spring of 1944 - when the Labour party ruled in Britain, Eleanor Roosevelt supported the efforts of Stalin, and Albert Einstein subscribed to the socialist program - The Road to Serfdom was seen as heretical for its passionate warning against the dangers of state control over the means of production. For F.A. Hayek, the collectivist idea of empowering government with increasing economic control would inevitably lead not to a utopia but to the horrors of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. After thirty-two printings in the United States, The Road to Serfdom has established itself alongside the works of de Tocqueville, Mill, and Orwell for its timeless meditation on the relation between individual liberty and government authority. This fiftieth anniversary edition, with a new introduction by Milton Friedman, commemorates the enduring influence of The Road to Serfdom on the ever-changing political and social climates of the twentieth century - from the rise of socialism after World War II to the Reagan and Thatcher "revolutions" in the 1980s and the transitions in Eastern Europe from communism to capitalism in the 1990s.

Free to Choose

by: Milton Friedman, Rose Friedman
Free to Choose
In this powerful and persuasive book two distinguished economists, Milton Friedman and his wife, Rose, unravel the mysteries of economics for the man or woman in the street (Wall Street or Main Street). They show us how our freedom has been eroded and our prosperity undermined through the explosion of laws, regulations, agencies, and spending in Washington, how good intentions often produce deplorable results when government is the middleman. And then they tell us what to do if we want to expand our freedom and promote prosperity. If you have ever wondered why you are paying someone else's old-age pension instead of saving for your own old age, why the Federal Reserve doesn't control inflation and recessions as it was set up to do, why some industries and some workers get a better shake than the rest of us, whether equal opportunity for all also has to mean that everyone gets the same income regardless of productivity, this book is for you. Milton and Rose Friedman assert our free society is in danger. Their analysis of what went wrong and how to correct it, so forcefully and clearly expressed in this book, is vital to America's future economic health. - Jacket flap.
Categories: Nonfiction / Politics, Nonfiction / Economics

Fingerprints of the Gods

by: Graham Hancock
release date: Jan 01, 1996
Fingerprints of the Gods
This book is about the beginning of the human race. How perhaps normal history has left things out, or maybe just left things unexplained. **Graham Hancock** explains how certain ancient structures all over the world are much older than originally thought, how civilizations who had no means of travel seemed to have communicated in some way. Hancock tries to answer questions we may have never even thought to ask. Were ancient civilizations visited by a superior race? Were these civilizations taught about technology they wouldn't have had?

More Guns, Less Crime

by: John R. Lott Jr.
release date: Jun 15, 2000
More Guns, Less Crime
Does allowing people to own or carry guns deter violent crime? Or does it simply cause more citizens to harm each other? Directly challenging common perceptions about gun control, legal scholar John Lott presents the most rigorously comprehensive data analysis ever done on crime statistics and right-to-carry laws. This timely and provocative work comes to the startling conclusion: more guns mean less crime. In this paperback edition, Lott has expanded the research through 1996, incorporating new data available from states that passed right-to-carry and other gun laws since the book's publication as well as new city-level statistics.

"Lott's pro-gun argument has to be examined on the merits, and its chief merit is lots of data. . . . If you still disagree with Lott, at least you will know what will be required to rebut a case that looks pretty near bulletproof."--Peter Coy, Business Week

"By providing strong empirical evidence that yet another liberal policy is a cause of the very evil it purports to cure, he has permanently changed the terms of debate on gun control. . . . Lott's book could hardly be more timely. . . . A model of the meticulous application of economics and statistics to law and policy."--John O. McGinnis, National Review

"His empirical analysis sets a standard that will be difficult to match. . . . This has got to be the most extensive empirical study of crime deterrence that has been done to date."--Public Choice

"For anyone with an open mind on either side of this subject this book will provide a thorough grounding. It is also likely to be the standard reference on the subject for years to come."--Stan Liebowitz, Dallas Morning News

"A compelling book with enough hard evidence that even politicians may have to stop and pay attention. More Guns, Less Crime is an exhaustive analysis of the effect of gun possession on crime rates."--James Bovard, Wall Street Journal

"John Lott documents how far 'politically correct' vested interests are willing to go to denigrate anyone who dares disagree with them. Lott has done us all a service by his thorough, thoughtful, scholarly approach to a highly controversial issue."--Milton Friedman

Economics in 1 Lesson

by: Henry Hazlitt
Economics in 1 Lesson
In this presentation you'll hear excerpts from along with quotes from Hazlitt's other works and from the authors who influenced his thought. You'll also hear Hazlitt's account of the fallacies that for decades have corrupted economic insight and understanding.

The Ultimate Resource 2

by: Julian Lincoln Simon
release date: Jul 01, 1998
The Ultimate Resource 2
Arguing that the ultimate resource is the human imagination coupled to the human spirit, Julian Simon has led a vigorous challenge to conventional beliefs about scarcity of energy and natural resources, pollution of the environment, the effects of immigration, and the "perils of overpopulation." The comprehensive data, careful quantitative research, and economic logic contained in the first edition of The Ultimate Resource rebutted widely held professional judgments about the threat of overpopulation. In Simon's view, the key factor in natural and world economic growth is our capacity for the creation of new ideas and contributions to knowledge. The more people alive who can be trained to help solve the problems that confront us, the faster we can remove obstacles, and the greater the economic inheritance we shall bequeath to our descendants. In conjunction with the size of the educated population, the key constraint on human progress is the nature of the economic-political system: Talented people need economic freedom and security to bring their talents to fruition.

Ayn Rand

by: Michael Paxton
release date: Jul 01, 1998
Ayn Rand
This large-format hardback was released in conjunction with the 1998 biographical film from Michael Paxton, "Ayn Rand: A Sense Of Life", the script of which the book follows closely. Currently this volume is out of print but the film has been available in DVD for some time. The book uses many of the photographs and other material of the film, but in book form those graphics are often easier to make out.

The God of the Machine

by: Isabel Paterson
release date: Jan 01, 1993
The God of the Machine
"Orginally published in 1943 by G.P. Putnam"--T.p. verso. Includes bibliographical references and index.

The Virtue of Selfishness

by: Ayn Rand
release date: Dec 01, 2008
The Virtue of Selfishness
Ayn Rand here sets forth the moral principles of Objectivism, the philosophy that holds human life--the life proper to a rational being--as the standard of moral values and regards altruism as incompatible with man's nature, with the creative requirements of his survival, and with a free society.

More than 1.3 million copies sold!

Operating Instructions

by: Anne Lamott
release date: Jan 01, 2005
Operating Instructions
It seems no mother of a newborn has ever been more hilarious, more honest, or more touching than Anne Lamott is in Operating Instructions. A single parent whose baby's father is out of the picture, Lamott struggles not only to support her little family by her wits and her writing but to stay sober at the same time. Faith in God helps; so does her loyal band of helpers, from her childless best friend Pammy to her mother and "Aunt Dudu" to the folks at the La Leche League hotline. And between colic, wheat-free diets, and the triumph of solid food, Lamott learns that blessings and losses come together, and that as our capacity for joy increases, so does our capacity for grief.

The Taming of Chance

by: Ian Hacking
release date: Oct 26, 1990
The Taming of Chance
This book combines detailed scientific historical research with characteristic philosophic breadth and verve.

In Cold Blood

by: Truman Capote
In Cold Blood
On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the Clutter family were savagely murdered by blasts from a shotgun held a few inches from their faces. There was no apparent motive for the crime, and there were almost no clues.

The Power Broker

by: Robert A. Caro
release date: Jan 01, 2011
The Power Broker
Discusses the illusion that is a democracy by pointing out what real power looks like and where it comes from.

Shadow and act

by: Ralph Ellison
Shadow and act
"With the same intellectual incisiveness and supple, stylish prose he brought to his classic novel Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison examines his antecedents and in so doing illuminates the literature, music, and culture of both black and white America. His range is virtuosic, encompassing Mark Twain and Richard Wright, Mahalia Jackson and Charlie Parker, The Birth of a Nation and the Dante-esque landscape of Harlem—“the scene and symbol of the Negro’s perpetual alienation in the land of his birth.” Throughout, he gives us what amounts to an episodic autobiography that traces his formation as a writer as well as the genesis of Invisible Man. On every page, Ellison reveals his idiosyncratic and often contrarian brilliance, his insistence on refuting both black and white stereotypes of what an African American writer should say or be. The result is a book that continues to instruct, delight, and occasionally outrage readers."--Back cover.

The Golden Bough

by: James G. Frazer
The Golden Bough
Wikipedia - "The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion (retitled The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion in its second edition) is a wide-ranging, comparative study of mythology and religion, written by the Scottish anthropologist Sir James George Frazer. The Golden Bough was first published in two volumes in 1890; in three volumes in 1900; and in twelve volumes in the third edition, published 1906–1915. It has also been published in several different one-volume abridgments. The work was for a wide literate audience raised on tales as told in such publications as Thomas Bulfinch's The Age of Fable, or Stories of Gods and Heroes (1855). The influence of The Golden Bough on contemporary European literature and thought has been substantial."
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