May 13, 2019 at 21:21Non fiction. What to read?
I want to share with you several of the books that I read in recent years in the non fiction genre. However, when compiling the list, an unexpected selection problem arose. Books, as they say, for a wide range that are read by even a completely unprepared reader and can compete with fiction in the sense of an exciting narrative. Books for more thoughtful reading, to understand which you need to slightly strain your brain, and textbooks (lecture collections), for students and those who want to more seriously understand some issues. This list contains exactly the first part - books for the widest possible readership (although this, of course, is very subjective). I intentionally abandoned the idea of giving books my own description and left the original annotations even in those cases when they did not suit me, so as not to affect the selection process for further reading. As usual, if you want to add something to this list - welcome to comment.
1. How music became free [End of the recording industry, technological revolution and the “zero patient” of piracy]
Author. Stephen Witt,
“How Music Gets Free,” is a fascinating story in which obsession, greed, music, crime, and money are intertwined. This story is told through visionaries and criminals, tycoons and adolescents creating a new digital reality. This is the story of the greatest pirate in history, the most influential leader in the music business, a revolutionary invention and an illegal site that was four times the size of the iTunes Music Store.
Journalist Stephen Witt traces the secret history of digital music piracy, beginning with the invention of mp3 audio by German audio engineers, leads the reader through a North Carolina factory where CDs were printed, and from which one of the employees merged approximately 2,000 albums into the network over a decade, the skyscrapers in Manhattan, from where the powerful Dag Morris ruled over the music business, monopolizing the global rap music market, and from there into the depths of the Internet - it’s dark.
2. Phenethylamines that I knew and loved [ЖZЛ]
Author. Alexander Shulgin
An outstanding American chemist-pharmacologist of Russian origin lived an amazing life, the analogue of which can only serve as a feat of Louis Pasteur. But unlike Pasteur, Shulgin did not test on himself new serums, but synthesized compounds, the legal and social status of which is currently problematic - psychoactive drugs. Having challenged the “new Inquisition”, which limited humanity’s right to know itself, Dr. Shulgin, despite all sorts of legal obstacles, continued his research for forty years, making a kind of scientific feat, the significance of which only future generations can appreciate.
3. Revolutionary suicide [ZhZL]
Author. Huey Percy Newton
The legendary hero of the American press, the founder of Black Panther, a philosopher, propagandist, political prisoner and professional revolutionary, Huey Percy Newton, wrote his autobiography shortly before the tragic death. “Revolutionary suicide” is not only a detective story about the life of a rebel who was friends with Cuban revolutionaries, Chinese hunveibins and the scandalous Paris playwright Jean Genet, but also a rare opportunity to feel the atmosphere of those “crazy” years when black riots in the ghetto were captured by university students and actions "against the police were perceived by intellectuals as the beginning of irreversible and long-awaited changes in the structure of Western civilization.
4. Gods, Tombs and Scientists
Author. Kurt Walter Keram
Book of the German writer K.V. Kerama (1915-1973) “Gods, tombs, scientists” won world fame, translated into 26 languages. Based solely on facts, it reads like an exciting 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 19th-20th centuries. This journey through millennia introduces the existence of other, more ancient than Egyptian and Greek civilizations.
5. Signs and Miracles: Stories about how forgotten letters and languages were decrypted
. Author. Ernst Doblhofer edition of 1963 (Unfortunately, only djvu on flibust)
The book tells how forgotten letters and languages were decrypted. In the main part of his book, E. Doblhofer describes in detail the process of deciphering the ancient written systems of Egypt, Iran, the Southern Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, Ugarit, Byblos, Cyprus, Cretan-Mycenaean linear writing and ancient Turkic runic writing. Thus, here we have examined the decryptions of almost all written systems of antiquity forgotten for centuries.
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 laureate, Richard Phillips Feynman. This book will completely change your view of scientists; she tells not about a scientist who seems dry and boring to most people, but about a man: charming, artistic, impudent and far from being as one-sided as he dared to consider himself. A great sense of humor and a light colloquial style of the author will make reading the book not only informative, but also an exciting activity.
7. Death and Life of Big American Cities
Author. Jane jacobs
Written 50 years ago, Jane Jacobs’s book, Death and the Life of Big American Cities, has long become 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 for the first time were consistently formulated against urban planning, guided by abstract ideas and ignoring the daily lives of citizens.
8. About the photograph
. Author. Susan Sontag
Susan Sontag's Essay Collection of Photographs was first published 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 concludes that the wide distribution of photography leads to the establishment of a “chronic voyeurism” relationship between the person and the world, as a result of which everything that happens begins to settle down on the same level and takes on the same meaning.
9. WikiLeaks from the inside
Author. Daniel Domsheit Berg
Daniel Domschait-Berg is a German web designer and computer security specialist, the first and closest ally of Julian Assange, the founder of the world-famous revelatory Internet platform WikiLeaks. “WikiLeaks from the inside” is a detailed story of an eyewitness and an active participant about the history, principles and structure of the most scandalous site of the planet. Domschait-Berg sequentially analyzes important WL publications, their causes, consequences and public outcry, and also draws a lively and vivid portrait of Assange, recalling the years of friendship and the disagreements that arose over time, which ultimately led to a final break. over the creation of the new OpenLeaks platform, wishing to bring the idea of Internet disclosures to perfection and provide the most reliable protection for informants.
All the books listed here are on the filibust.
1. How music became free [End of the recording industry, technological revolution and the “zero patient” of piracy] Author. Stephen Witt,
“How Music Gets Free,” is a fascinating story in which obsession, greed, music, crime, and money are intertwined. This story is told through visionaries and criminals, tycoons and adolescents creating a new digital reality. This is the story of the greatest pirate in history, the most influential leader in the music business, a revolutionary invention and an illegal site that was four times the size of the iTunes Music Store.
Journalist Stephen Witt traces the secret history of digital music piracy, beginning with the invention of mp3 audio by German audio engineers, leads the reader through a North Carolina factory where CDs were printed, and from which one of the employees merged approximately 2,000 albums into the network over a decade, the skyscrapers in Manhattan, from where the powerful Dag Morris ruled over the music business, monopolizing the global rap music market, and from there into the depths of the Internet - it’s dark.
2. Phenethylamines that I knew and loved [ЖZЛ] Author. Alexander Shulgin
An outstanding American chemist-pharmacologist of Russian origin lived an amazing life, the analogue of which can only serve as a feat of Louis Pasteur. But unlike Pasteur, Shulgin did not test on himself new serums, but synthesized compounds, the legal and social status of which is currently problematic - psychoactive drugs. Having challenged the “new Inquisition”, which limited humanity’s right to know itself, Dr. Shulgin, despite all sorts of legal obstacles, continued his research for forty years, making a kind of scientific feat, the significance of which only future generations can appreciate.
3. Revolutionary suicide [ZhZL] Author. Huey Percy Newton
The legendary hero of the American press, the founder of Black Panther, a philosopher, propagandist, political prisoner and professional revolutionary, Huey Percy Newton, wrote his autobiography shortly before the tragic death. “Revolutionary suicide” is not only a detective story about the life of a rebel who was friends with Cuban revolutionaries, Chinese hunveibins and the scandalous Paris playwright Jean Genet, but also a rare opportunity to feel the atmosphere of those “crazy” years when black riots in the ghetto were captured by university students and actions "against the police were perceived by intellectuals as the beginning of irreversible and long-awaited changes in the structure of Western civilization.
4. Gods, Tombs and ScientistsAuthor. Kurt Walter Keram
Book of the German writer K.V. Kerama (1915-1973) “Gods, tombs, scientists” won world fame, translated into 26 languages. Based solely on facts, it reads like an exciting 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 19th-20th centuries. This journey through millennia introduces the existence of other, more ancient than Egyptian and Greek civilizations.
5. Signs and Miracles: Stories about how forgotten letters and languages were decrypted. Author. Ernst Doblhofer edition of 1963 (Unfortunately, only djvu on flibust)
The book tells how forgotten letters and languages were decrypted. In the main part of his book, E. Doblhofer describes in detail the process of deciphering the ancient written systems of Egypt, Iran, the Southern Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, Ugarit, Byblos, Cyprus, Cretan-Mycenaean linear writing and ancient Turkic runic writing. Thus, here we have examined the decryptions of almost all written systems of antiquity forgotten for centuries.
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 laureate, Richard Phillips Feynman. This book will completely change your view of scientists; she tells not about a scientist who seems dry and boring to most people, but about a man: charming, artistic, impudent and far from being as one-sided as he dared to consider himself. A great sense of humor and a light colloquial style of the author will make reading the book not only informative, but also an exciting activity.
7. Death and Life of Big American CitiesAuthor. Jane jacobs
Written 50 years ago, Jane Jacobs’s book, Death and the Life of Big American Cities, has long become 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 for the first time were consistently formulated against urban planning, guided by abstract ideas and ignoring the daily lives of citizens.
8. About the photograph. Author. Susan Sontag
Susan Sontag's Essay Collection of Photographs was first published 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 concludes that the wide distribution of photography leads to the establishment of a “chronic voyeurism” relationship between the person and the world, as a result of which everything that happens begins to settle down on the same level and takes on the same meaning.
9. WikiLeaks from the insideAuthor. Daniel Domsheit Berg
Daniel Domschait-Berg is a German web designer and computer security specialist, the first and closest ally of Julian Assange, the founder of the world-famous revelatory Internet platform WikiLeaks. “WikiLeaks from the inside” is a detailed story of an eyewitness and an active participant about the history, principles and structure of the most scandalous site of the planet. Domschait-Berg sequentially analyzes important WL publications, their causes, consequences and public outcry, and also draws a lively and vivid portrait of Assange, recalling the years of friendship and the disagreements that arose over time, which ultimately led to a final break. over the creation of the new OpenLeaks platform, wishing to bring the idea of Internet disclosures to perfection and provide the most reliable protection for informants.
All the books listed here are on the filibust.