You Read a Book about What?

A mix of non-fiction books about ONE THING -- singular topics. Your favorites; strangely scientific or weirdly interesting...
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4,046 books · 2,070 voters · list created January 8th, 2011 by Alana (votes) .
1957 likes · 
Lists are re-scored approximately every 5 minutes.


Alana 1816 books
91 friends
Angel 2507 books
115 friends
Ken 3 books
0 friends
James 1 book
0 friends
Kevin 1 book
0 friends
Kelly 1 book
0 friends
Themis-Athena (Lioness at Large) 546 books
365 friends
Bettie 15668 books
19 friends

More voters…


Comments Showing 1-44 of 44 (44 new)

dateUp arrow    newest »

message 1: by Angel (new)

Angel Wow, I thought I knew a good number of microhistories, but this list has a bunch of stuff that looks like good reading. I will be looking some of these up. :)


message 2: by J (new)

J what a great list! :D can't wait to check this out more thoroughly after midterms. :]


message 3: by Hilary "Fox" (new)

Hilary "Fox" Fantastic list!


message 4: by Derek (last edited Nov 29, 2012 10:40PM) (new)

Derek Dewitt I want every single book on this list....


message 5: by Lilac (last edited Dec 27, 2012 02:28PM) (new)

Lilac Haha, great list!
Have you seen number 79?


message 6: by Gabriel (last edited Mar 12, 2013 07:03AM) (new)

Gabriel Derek wrote: "I want every single book on this list...."

Meeeeeeeeeeeeee Toooooooooooooooo


message 7: by Daphne (new)

Daphne This is one of my favorite lists! There are so many on here I want to read already or have already completed.

Guess I know where my preferences lie!


message 8: by Hilary "Fox" (new)

Hilary "Fox" Daphne wrote: "This is one of my favorite lists! There are so many on here I want to read already or have already completed.

Guess I know where my preferences lie!"


Definitely my favorite list as well. Why not find wonder in unexpected places?


message 9: by OddModicum Rachel (last edited Aug 01, 2014 05:42PM) (new)

OddModicum Rachel Oh wow... Brilliant. List. So many of these look outrageously good, and I'm primarily a reader of fiction, even. 'The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York' by Deborah Blum. Oh yes, please! I recently stumbled on a book about the history life and times of Ketchup, of all things, but haven't read it yet. ;)


message 10: by Deborah (new)

Deborah Isn't this supposed to be for non-fiction? Can we delete the fiction books?


message 11: by HeavyReader (new)

HeavyReader Great list! I want to read 85% of books on it.


message 12: by Hilary "Fox" (new)

Hilary "Fox" Deborah wrote: "Isn't this supposed to be for non-fiction? Can we delete the fiction books?"

I think that would be a very good idea.


message 13: by Rashmi Priya (new)

Rashmi Priya thanks to goodreads, that i stumbled upon this list. it contains many quirky/interesting titles out of which each one of us could find something to read for sure.


message 14: by Dana (last edited Mar 21, 2015 10:33PM) (new)

Dana If this List walked into a room, I would have told it, "Shut up. Just...shut up. You had me at hello. [sniffles] You had me...at hello."


message 15: by Dana (last edited Mar 21, 2015 10:34PM) (new)

Dana Fox wrote: "Deborah wrote: "Isn't this supposed to be for non-fiction? Can we delete the fiction books?"

I think that would be a very good idea."


Stand up on your pulpit, and preach, Preach, PREACH.
*raises hand and votes Aye*


message 16: by Steve (last edited Sep 07, 2016 10:59AM) (new)

Steve Martinson Maybe I am a bit slow, but what "fiction" books are you referring to?
Something you don't happen to believe in? Just found this list, and I too, like about 85-90% of it.


message 17: by Deborah (new)

Deborah Steve wrote: "Maybe I am a bit slow, but what "fiction" books are you referring to?
Something you don't happen to believe in? Just found this list, and I too, like about 85-90% of it."


I certainly don't remember the titles, since it has been almost 2 years since I deleted them.


message 18: by BookLovingLady (deceased Jan. 25, 2023...) (last edited Sep 07, 2016 11:23AM) (new)

BookLovingLady (deceased Jan. 25, 2023...) Deborah wrote: "I certainly don't remember the titles, since it has been almost 2 years since I deleted them...."

Maybe it's an idea to mention the books you remove in the comments section, like a lot of librarians do? As far as I can tell, a total of 11 books have been deleted by Spooky, Cindy and yourself, yet no mention is made which books were deleted, which is a bit of a pity really.


message 19: by Deborah (new)

Deborah If the book never had any business being on the list, I see no reason to document it.

I do have a forthcoming list that I maintain (deleting books as they are released) and on that one I post books that have at least five votes before deleting it.


message 20: by Elyse✨ (new)

Elyse✨ I deleted Clan of the Cave Bear #434, Wuthering Heights #535, and Moby Dick #762. All are fiction.


message 22: by BookLovingLady (deceased Jan. 25, 2023...) (last edited Dec 17, 2017 01:11AM) (new)

BookLovingLady (deceased Jan. 25, 2023...) Elyse wrote: "I deleted Clan of the Cave Bear #434, Wuthering Heights #535, and Moby Dick #762. All are fiction."

I've removed Wuthering Heights (#541) and Moby-Dick or, The Whale (#783) again, as I totally agree: They're fiction and as such shouldn't be on this list.

Voter, please read before you decide to add!


message 23: by Jim (new)

Jim Yarin Give Melville credit, he wrote a book that was part fiction and part exactly what this list is about. Described in some places as an "anatomy," after The Anatomy of Melancholia, this type of nonfiction writing is an awesomely entertaining sub-genre, especially in the age of twitter. I think maybe someone needs to list out the chapters in Moby Dick that fit this genre because Moby Dick is a classic that uses this style of writing and does it extremely well.


message 24: by Sara Grace (last edited May 21, 2018 02:18PM) (new)

Sara Grace Please remove The Scarlet Letter (#351) and The Octopus: A Story of California (#417) from the list. Items are fiction. (I also wouldn't mind editing privileges if possible?)


Susanna - Censored by GoodReads You should be able to edit if you're a GR librarian. (There's a little "edit" link at the end of the list description area. Remove books is the bottom-most option on that page.)


message 26: by Greg (new)

Greg Susanna - Censored by GoodReads wrote: "You should be able to edit if you're a GR librarian. (There's a little "edit" link at the end of the list description area. Remove books is the bottom-most option on that page.)"

Interesting discussion about fiction vs. non-fiction. One can learn as many "truths" from fiction as from non-fiction, imo. And, anyway, how much do we now value truth?


message 27: by Julia (new)

Julia LOL Do they all have colons in the titles? :)


message 28: by Kaitlyn (new)

Kaitlyn As this is a list for non-fiction, I removed the following books for being fiction:
Fight Club, Fahrenheit 451, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Next, A Clockwork Orange, Invisible Monsters, American Psycho.

You can play semantic games as to what constitutes a truth criterion but the genre of non-fiction is pretty well defined, and explicitly focus on facts, real events, actual people, etc.


message 29: by Susanna - Censored by GoodReads (last edited Jan 23, 2019 01:37PM) (new)

Susanna - Censored by GoodReads The Elephant Tree (currently #24) is a novel. As is #25, The Wasp Factory, and #26, Factotum. And #29, Scag Boys. #30, Lunar Park. #72, Gashlycrumb Tinies.


message 31: by BookLovingLady (deceased Jan. 25, 2023...) (last edited Mar 17, 2019 04:11AM) (new)

BookLovingLady (deceased Jan. 25, 2023...) Fahrenheit 451 (#23) is a novel, not non-fiction, and shouldn't be on this list. Neither should A Clockwork Orange (#29), One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (#31), The Catcher in the Rye (#116), One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (#117), The Idiot (#128), Moon Tiger (#140), Slaughterhouse-Five (#156), The Brothers Karamazov (#159), Invisible Cities (#164), The Comfort of Strangers (#170), Dubliners (#177), Ulysses (#186), Brave New World (#193), A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (#194), Naked Lunch (#196), and so on and so forth, as they are all fiction and not non-fiction, as the description says... Too many to mention...


message 32: by Sean (new)

Sean Check out all the fiction titles on the front page.


message 33: by BookLovingLady (deceased Jan. 25, 2023...) (last edited Aug 15, 2019 12:50AM) (new)

BookLovingLady (deceased Jan. 25, 2023...) I've deleted the ones mentioned in my earlier message. I urge other librarians to do the same with books they've read and recognize as fiction, maybe together we can clean up this list.


message 34: by Elyse✨ (new)

Elyse✨ Booklovinglady wrote: "I've deleted the ones mentioned in my earlier message. I urge other librarians to do the same with books they've read and recognize as fiction, maybe together we can clean up this list."

Yes, This list has been neglected.... and it's a great list topic. I just deleted one novel off the first page that had 68 votes! So this list hasn't been cleaned up in quite awhile. I deleted a few fiction but there's many more to delete - and easy to find. "Have at it" you fellow librarians.


BookLovingLady (deceased Jan. 25, 2023...) Elyse wrote: "... and it's a great list topic..."

Exactly.


message 36: by Fiona (new)

Fiona Hurley I removed Zoroastrians' Fight for Survival and Females of Valor, both fiction.


message 37: by Gillis (last edited Aug 24, 2022 11:31PM) (new)

Gillis I removed The Martian, Twilight, Outlander, Sourcery, Death on the Nile and Witches Abroad, clearly fiction...


message 38: by Gillis (last edited Sep 10, 2022 12:04AM) (new)

Gillis Removed And Then There Were None, 1984, Fifty Shades of Grey and The Raven Boys, also fiction.
Clearly the concept 'non-fiction' is hard to grasp for a lot of people...


message 39: by Steve (new)

Steve Martinson Yeah, sometimes you've gotta just shake your head.
Keep up the good work! Steve M


message 40: by ROBERT (new)

ROBERT Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void.

Mary Roach has a number of books that could go on this list.


message 41: by Tyler (new)

Tyler reminder to myself to look through this when I have two hours to kill


message 42: by Rachel (new)

Rachel B Half or more of these books aren't at all "strangely scientific" or "weirdly interesting," or even nonfiction. They're just the same books that are on every other list, sadly.


message 43: by Jessica (last edited Apr 22, 2024 03:07PM) (new)

Jessica Fiction on the list:

Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White (#848)
Ian Fleming's You Only Live Twice (around page 11)
The Sign of Four by Arthur Conan Doyle (#1347)
The Hate U Give (#1527) by Angie Thomas
Five books in a row on page 19 (around #1799)
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles #1869
The Paris Wife, there are two other books right below I think are also fiction.
Coraline by Neil Gaiman #2079
The Phantom by Jo Nesbo #2232
Everything I never Told You by Celeste Ng #2274
The Hawthorne Legacy by Jennifer Lyn Barnes, the Marriage Pact, Tom Clancy's Dead or Alive on pg. 25
The Hand on the Wall by Maureen Johnson #2627,
The Bourne Legacy by Eric Lustbader #2717
The Road by Cormac McCarthy #3026


message 44: by Gillian (last edited Jul 08, 2025 07:42PM) (new)

Gillian I love this list, but I do wish we could delete the novels that keep ending up on it.

Fiction that I noticed:
#635: Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk
#676: The 120 Days of Sodom by Marquis de Sade
#700: Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk
#749: Glue by Irvine Welsh
#757: Time's Arrow by Martin Amis
#757: Hope: A Tragedy by Shalom Auslander
#757: Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson
#824: Blindness by Jose Saramago
#849: The Book of Revelation by Rupert Thomson
#878: Under the Skin by Michael Faber
#884: Money by Martin Amis
#888: Her One Mistake by Heidi Perks
#908: Diary of a Drug Fiend by Aleister Crowley
#935: Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg
#939: The Crucible by Arthur Miller
#949: Coraline by Neil Gaiman
#963: Darkness Visible by William Golding
#977: The Coma by Alex Garland
#977: Apathy and Other Small Victories by Paul Neilan
#985: The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs by Irvine Welsh
#985: Delta of Venus by Anais Nin
#985: 1984 by George Orwell
#994: The Need by Helen Phillips
#1003: The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
#1008: The Grifters by Jim Thompson
#1010: Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
#1017: Imperial Bedrooms by Bret Easton Ellis
#1020: The Dice Man by Luke Rhinehart
#1026: Crank by Ellen Hopkins
#1028: Piercing by Ryu Murakami
#1028: The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan
#1064: Sweetheart by Chelsea Cain
#1072: We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
#1074: The Crow Road by Iain Banks
#1085: Naked in Death by J.D. Robb
...


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