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destina asked me for my seven favorite non-fiction books, which was a great question, though it turned out to be hard narrowing it down! I’m sure not sure these are my seven absolute favorites—I’ll probably remember something the minute I post this—but these are the seven(non-work) books I remember loving right now (many of them pretty recent).

For a long time the only kind of non-fiction book I really liked was biography and autobiography. I remember reading those “biographies for little kids” of people like Marie Curie and Louis Pasteur when I was really young. I still primarily enjoy books that have the story of a person or people at the center. That means I’m drawn to memoir, personal essays and biography, although with the caveat that I like those genres when they look outward and say something about history, culture or science. Conversely, I usually dislike books that purport to be about something else—history, culture or science—and end up telling us more about the writer than they do about the subject (though not always: I did like Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks).

So, in rough order of publication.

1. The Autobiography of Malcom X, by Malcolm X and Alex Haley (1965).

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2. My Own Country, by Abraham Verghese (1994).

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3. Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science, by Atul Gawande.

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4. The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey, by Candice Millard (2006).

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5. The Good Soldiers, by David Finkel. (2009).

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6. Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest>, by Wade Davis (2011).

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7. Men We Reaped: A Memoir, by Jessmyn Ward (2013).

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Books that almost made the list: Testament of Youth, by Vera Brittain; Retribution: The Battle for Japan 1944-1945, by Max Hastings (2007); The Suicide Index: Putting My Father’s Death in Order, by Joan Wickersham (2008); and Defiance: The Bielski Partisans by Nechama Tec (1994)


So there you go: war, race and medicine. My obsessions, let me show them to you.

I'd love to hear what your favorites are, too!