The world in books : 52 works of great short nonfiction

The world in books 52 works of great short nonfiction

Kenneth C. Davis

Book - 2024

"From ancient times to the present day, The World in Books offers a wide-ranging historical education through pleasure reading-and a fantastic introduction to some of the most thought-provoking, profound, and interesting nonfiction works of all time. From Sun Tzu's The Art of War to bell hooks's All About Love, as well as such recent classics as Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's We Should All Be Feminists, Davis's guide suggests a world of nonfiction books and explains just why they're so historically meaningful and culturally relevant today"--

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Subjects
Best books.
Books and reading.
LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Communication Studies.
Published
New York : Scribner 2024.
Language
English
Main Author
Kenneth C. Davis (author)
Edition
First Scribner hardcover edition
Physical Description
xxvi, 431 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN
9781668015599
9781668015605
  • Introduction: "Books Are Weapons in the War of Ideas"
  • Dated Before the Common Era (BCE)
  • The Epic of Gilgamesh
  • The Book of Genesis
  • Tao Te Ching (The Book of the Way)
  • Stung with Love: Poems and Fragments
  • The Art of War
  • The Symposium
  • The Poetics (How to Tell a Story)
  • The Bhagavad Gita
  • Dated in the Common Era (CE)
  • The Gospel According to Luke
  • Meditations
  • The Qur'an: "The Cow"
  • Vita Nuova
  • Utopia
  • The Prince
  • The Sovereignty and Goodness of God
  • Treatise on Toleration
  • The Age of Reason: Being An Investigation of True and Fabulous Theology
  • Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave
  • The Communist Manifesto
  • Civil Disobedience
  • Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: Written by Herself
  • On Lynchings
  • The Souls of Black Folk
  • The World I Live In
  • A Room of One's Own
  • The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas
  • Homage to Catalonia
  • A Chill in the Air: An Italian War Diary, 1939-1940
  • Under the Sea-Wind
  • The Myth of Sisyphus
  • Hiroshima
  • Man's Search for Meaning
  • Night
  • The Fire Next Time
  • A Very Easy Death
  • A Moveable Feast
  • The Courage to Create
  • On Photography
  • The Gnostic Gospels
  • Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
  • The Writing Life
  • The Journalist and the Murderer
  • All About Love: New Visions
  • Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America
  • Letters to a Young Contrarian
  • Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood
  • The Year of Magical Thinking
  • Food Rules: An Eater's Manual
  • We Should All Be Feminists
  • On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century
  • The Origin of Others
  • Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future
  • Afterword: What Is Not Here and What I Learned
  • Appendix I. My Ten Favorite Great Short Nonfiction Books
  • Appendix II. 52 More of the Great Short Books That Make Us Think
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
Review by Kirkus Book Review

In an age of screens, AI, and shrinking attention spans, a good book is more important and valuable than ever. For the bibliophiles among us, the recurring question is: What should I read next? Davis, a prolific writer and author ofGreat Short Books: A Year of Reading--Briefly, is ready with some 52 recommendations. His list stretches fromThe Epic of Gilgamesh to the current day, and it includes the seminal works of every major faith. Each entry includes an excerpt from the work, a biographical note on the author, and a discussion on its particular value. Davis also provides a recommendation on what to read next, which might be further writing by the same author or material in a related genre. His focus is on short books and essays; wherever possible, he places the piece within the author's larger output. He casts a wide net, from Plato, Sun Tzu, Sappho, and Aristotle to Dante, Machiavelli, Marx, Voltaire, and others. Davis makes a point of including authors of color, such as Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, W.E.B. Du Bois, and James Baldwin, as well as key feminist writers like Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir, and bell hooks. Elie Wiesel, Christopher Hitchens, Joan Didion, and Toni Morrison each find a place on the list. Davis admits that his collection is necessarily arbitrary, and he provides a short afterword to explain the reasons for his selections, as well as an appendix of other choices. One appendix, "My Ten Favorite Great Short Nonfiction Books," includes work by Sappho, Douglass, Thoreau, Orwell, Didion, and Elizabeth Kolbert, in addition to John Hersey's landmarkHiroshima. "I hope I have provided a rich reservoir of contemplation, insight, inspiration, and resistance, and perhaps even a glimmer of truth," Davis writes. In that, he has succeeded. A wealth of succinct, entertaining advice. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Excerpted from The World in Books: 52 Works of Great Short Nonfiction by Kenneth C. Davis All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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