I can't really decide, but since I'm into non-fiction these days maybe this will give me some ideas.

This one.

Thanks! keep them coming, i need xmas ideas.

English History 1914 - 1945, AJP Taylor

The Ancestor's Tale, Richard Dawkins

Dreadnought, Robert K Massie

The Pax Britannica trilogy, James Morris

Mother Tongue & Made in America, Bill Bryson

War Memoirs series, Spike Milligan

.... that'll do to be geting on with. Shedloads of history ones.

Something like:

1. The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins
2. Godel, Escher, Bach, Doug Hofstadter
3. The Fatal Shore, Robert Hughes
4. The Language Instinct, Steven Pinker
5. The IRA, Tim Pat Coogan.

But ask me on another day and it'd be different.

I've got the IRA book. Didn't think it was that spectacular. Has it been updated at all, to take account of recent doings?

But while we're on Irish history, In Time Of War, by Robert Fisk, is ace.

Tiny Bulcher wrote:

QUOTE:
I've got the IRA book. Didn't think it was that spectacular. Has it been updated at all, to take account of recent doings?

Ah! Sorry, yes, I meant The Provisionals (I think) by the same author. Got mixed up.

This is impossible, but a momentary top five (not in order) which will change immediately after I hit submit.

E.B. White, Here is New York
Theodore Zeldin, An Intimate History of Humanity
Roger Angell, The Summer Game
Ferdnand Braudel, The Mediterranean
Robert Caro, The Power Broker

As I said on the other thread, Goedel, Escher, Bach.

Then:

Consciousness Explained (Dan Dennett)
The Ape and the Sushi Master (Frans de Waal)
If This Is A Man (Primo Levi)
The Prince (Niccolo Machiavelli)
Guns, Germs and Steel (Jared Diamond)

Among recent books read:

The Siege of Mecca - Yaroslav Trofimov
Imperial Life in the Emerald City - some journalist dude whose name I can't quite recall.
I Didn't Do it For You - Michaela Wrong
Another Day of Life - Ryszard Kapuscinski

If you're feeling ambitious, go for A Terrible Beauty by Peter Watson, an intelletcual history of the 20th century which is flat-out amazing.

Ginger Yellow wrote:

QUOTE:
As I said on the other thread, Goedel, Escher, Bach.

Then:

Consciousness Explained (Dan Dennett)
The Ape and the Sushi Master (Frans de Waal)
If This Is A Man (Primo Levi)
The Prince (Niccolo Machiavelli)
Guns, Germs and Steel (Jared Diamond)

I haven't read de Waal, but excellent call on all the others.

In fact, Levi knocks out Coogan easy.

Imperial Life in the Emerald City is by Rajiv Chandrasekaran (and is very good).

Levi might well be in this instant's top five for me, too.

Wow, that shaped up to be a damn good reading list really quickly. Most of those I haven't "gotten to."

Some random favorites of mine:

old stuff-

Plutarch's Lives (tr. Dryden)
The French Revolution (Carlyle)
Reflections on the Revolution in France (Burke)
Essays of Montaigne
(for GY) Discourses on Livy (Machiavelli)
Decline and Fall (Gibbon)

newer(ish) stuff-

Russian Thinkers (Isaiah Berlin)
Postwar (Tony Judt)
The Metaphysical Club (Louis Menand)
From Dawn to Decadence (Barzun) - great as a reference because he recommends so much source material
The Discarded Image (C.S. Lewis)

That's the chap - thanks!