Books about Nonfiction

This is the story of the men and women whose lives were irrevocably changed by the Chicago World Fair, and of two men in particular: an architect and a serial killer. Spicing the narrative are the stories of a cast of historical characters including Buffalo Bill, Scott Joplin and Theodore Dreiser.

Millions of Americans work full-time, year-round, for poverty level wages. Journalist Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them in order to find out how anyone survives on six dollars an hour. So began a gruelling, hair-raising and darkly funny odyssey though the underworld of working America.

Explores the links between Hollywood and the fast food trade, and the tactics used to target ever younger consumers. This book reveals the full price of our appetite for instant gratification.

When social histories come to be written of the first decade of the 21st century, people will note a turning point in 2003 when declining standards of punctuation were reversed. Linguists will record Lynne Truss as the saviour of the semi-colon and the avenging angel of the apostrophe.

Reconstructs the murder in 1959 of a Kansas farmer, his wife and both their children. The author's comprehensive study of the killings and subsequent investigation explores the circumstances surrounding this terrible crime and the effect it had on those involved.

This work abandons the conventional distinctions between history and science. Diamond focuses on what ancient people were endowed with in the way of land, animals and plants, and on the confrontations between less and more advanced people to see how this led to today's inequalities.

Asking questions about human motivation and living and reaching some conclusions, this book aims to be at the heart of things we see and do and the subjects that bedevil us: from parenting to crime, sport to politics, fat to cheating, fear to traffic jams.

Bill Bryson describes himself as a reluctant traveller, but even when he stays safely in his own study at home, he can't contain his curiosity about the world around him. This book is his quest to understand everything that has happened from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization.

Examines the true story of Chris McCandless, a young man, who in 1992 walked deep into the Alaskan wilderness and whose SOS note and emaciated corpse were found four months later. This book explores the obsession which leads some people to explore the outer limits of self, leave civilization behind and seek enlightenment through solitude.

The inspirational tale of eight women who defied the confines of life in revolutionary Iran through the joy and power of literature.

W.C. Minor was one of the keenest volunteers involved in the making of the Oxford English Dictionary. What the OED's editor, James Murray, didn't realise was that he was also a millionaire American Civil War surgeon turned lunatic, imprisoned in Broadmoor Asylum for murder.

The biography of an idea: that many of the problems we face - from teenage delinquency to traffic jams - behave like epidemics and are capable of sudden and dramatic change due to their inherent volatility. The author explores the ramifications of this, offering a way to view the world.

This style manual offers practical advice on improving writing skills. This 'little' book can help students communicate more effectively, showing them how to enliven their sentences, put statements in the positive form and write in a clear and simple style.

In Amsterdam, in the summer of 1942, the Nazis forced teenager Anne Frank and her family into hiding. For over two years, they, another family and a German dentist lived in a 'secret annexe'. All that time, Anne kept a diary. This dairy is the record of tension and struggle, adolescence and confinement, anger and heartbreak.

Presents the true story of three men and their dreams for a racehorse - Seabiscuit - that symbolised a pivotal moment in American history as modern America was born out of the crucible of the Depression and the dustbowl, as the 20th century's greatest nation found the courage to bet on itself to win against the odds.

Intuition is not some magical property that arises unbidden from the depths of our mind. This book shows us how we can hone our instinctive ability to know in an instant, helping us to bring out the best in our thinking and become better decision-makers in our homes, offices and in everyday life.