Tomato Nation » The Vine: November 3, 2005

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The Vine: November 3, 2005

Submitted by Sarah D. Bunting on November 3, 2005 – 3:24 PMNo Comment

Ooh! Ooh! Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich by William Shirer! I got into it after reading Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl for the first time a few years back (I know! I thought that was standard curriculum in high school. I guess not when the high school is named…Lindbergh). I won’t say it can’t get dry, but mostly it’s fascinating and, if you didn’t know it was real, you would never believe it could be.

S

Dear S,

I borrowed the Shirer from my dad, like, two years ago and it’s been sitting on a shelf, waiting for me; I was about to return it because I thought I’d never get around to it, but now I’ll save it.

Just got here? Don’t know what’s going on? Yesterday, “Tired of crappy romance novels” asked for some non-fiction recommendations; this is one of them. (I’d add to it The Last Seven Months of Anne Frank; it’s not an easy read, but it’s worthwhile.)

Below, more recs from readers. An asterisk means more than one person suggested the book; a plus sign means I’ve read the book myself and second the suggestion.

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America*

Little Girls in Pretty Boxes

Scurvy: How a Surgeon, a Mariner, and a Gentlemen Solved the Greatest Medical Mystery of the Age of Sail

Mauve: How One Man Invented a Color That Changed the World

The Gangs of Chicago: An Informal History of the Chicago Underworld

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures*

A Short History of Nearly Everything, by Bill Bryson*

anything by Oliver Sacks

In Search of Schrodinger’s Cat: Quantum Physics And Reality

Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage

Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble Players

Lucky: A Memoir, by Alice Sebold