![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rachelmanija) wrote2017-06-02 01:39 pm
FMK # 3: Misc Nonfiction
The Black Arts, by Richard Cavendish. A history of black magic from 1968. Normally I would think this is total bullshit but it does have footnotes and a bibliography.
Chasing the Scream, by Johann Hari. A history of the US War on Drugs, starting from the death of Billie Holiday. Sounds like it might have a lot of info I didn't already know. By an award-winning British journalist, so probably good; probably also incredibly depressing.
Desert Solitaire, by Edward Abbey. Classic book from 1968 on being a park ranger in Utah; nature writing + politics, I assume. I'll be curious if it's aged well.
Do No Harm, by Henry Marsh. Memoir of a brain surgeon. I really liked some articles I read by him. Unlike the stereotype of surgeons, he seemed humble and compassionate.
A Higher Call, by Adam Makos. Nonfiction about an encounter between two fighter pilots, an American and a German, during WWII. I'm assuming it went a lot farther than one encounter, and no, I don't mean THAT sort of encounter.
A Voyage Long and Strange, by Tony Horwitz. The history of America interspersed with Horowitz's road trip to try re-enactments, go down the Mississippi on a canoe, etc. I've enjoyed some of Horowitz's books and found others forgettable.
Soldiers of the Night, by David Schoenbrun. A history of the French Resistance. Back cover mentions "the bilingual, bisexual American who executed Nazis and collaborators with an ice pick or his bare hands" and "dear little old ladies who became master thieves."
no subject
That 1968 "black arts" book could be lolariously bad (that was the AGE OF ALEISTER CROWLEY being REDISCOVERED sort of), and IMO the best you could get from it would be that it hasn't dated badly. Scholarship in that area has been ongoing. Checking the listings, it seems to have been reprinted regularly since its original appearance, at times by respectable publishing houses, but there is no sign that it was updated. If I ran across it, I'd try a sample chapter and check the notes and bibliography. OTOH, no matter how outdated or silly it may be, as a freewheeling inspiration for fiction, it's probably just fine.