non-fiction

   Since resolving to read more non-fiction I have come across some real stunners, and since I don't want you to miss out, I will share some recommendations with you here.

   Let's get the obvious out of the way first: I recommend Blink / Malcolm Gladwell and Nurtureshock / Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman. Both engaging and informative, with applicable ideas and new ways of looking at things. Bronson, Merryman, and Gladwell are all journalists so their science sometimes gives way to anecdotal evidence, but on the whole their books are worth your time.

   Alone on the Ice / David Roberts. Okay, I know, I love Antarctica and polar exploration and you might not be quite as interested in the subject matter as I am but by Jove, this is a good read. How about we read and learn about real effort and heroism instead of lionizing Robert Falcon Scott's cowardice? Thanks. People I would much rather learn about: Roald Amundsen, Ernest Shackleton, and DOUGLAS MAWSON. There are so many more books about people exploring the far reaches of the south and north; it's a nearly inexhaustible supply and I have zero complaints about that.

   Among my interests that are probably not widely shared is an undying fascination with rabies, and when I saw the cover art for Rabid / Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy, I was powerless to resist. A cultural history of rabies?! Put it in my brain.  Unfortunately for some of my friends my reading of this coincided with a three hour drive, at which time I carried on and on about rabies facts. After I told them about research being done on how the rabies virus crosses the blood-brain barrier, one of them said "I have never met anyone as interested in rabies and Antarctica as you are." A lot of my conversations somehow work their way back to those things and I'm only sort of sorry.

   Another book that I haven't been able to keep to myself while reading is The Poisoner's Handbook / Deborah Blum and I once again apologize for talking about mincing tissue so much. (I just looked up The Poisoner's Handbook on Goodreads and it led me to a book about pin pointing the time of death and one about blood transfusion during the Scientific Revolution. OMGosh.) I learned more about Prohibition from this book than I have from anywhere else, and it is so extremely interesting. Oddly enough, I have now read about the Ruth Snyder/Henry Judd Gray murder case in four different books. They were so spectacularly incompetent that everyone who talks about murder in the 20s talks about them and their sash-weight murder plot. The best-laid schemes of mice and men gang aft agley, am I right?

   And because I love lists: a list of books I haven't read, but I'm not sure why because they are sure to be most excellent:

• In Cold Blood / Truman Capote
• Stiff / Mary Roach
• South / Ernest Shackleton
• What Every Body is Saying / Joe Navarro

two

Charles Norris and Alexander Gettler in the Medical Examiner's Office

   Often, I have several books on the go at once. It's a disease, I'm sure. It simply can't be helped though, new books are always cropping up, begging to be read. "Begin! Begin! Begin!" they say, and who am I to refuse?

   I recently finished a pair of nonfiction books which complimented each other in odd ways that made them all the more interesting. The first is The Drunken Botanist by Amy Stewart, and it is a #1 bestseller in the botany category, if that's a recommendation to you. It's almost exactly what you'd expect from a book about plants and booze, with recipes and anecdotes from history and a really fascinating story of the use of potatoes in vodka. Near the end, the list style of the book can be a bit dry, but there is the occasional oasis of obscure plant history or science to keep you interested. For example, did you know that oranges need to get cold in order to ripen to a familiar orange glow, or they'll just stay greenish? Hence why Florida is more known for orange juice than actual orange exports: their oranges are just green enough to be off-putting. Entirely ripe! Just not orange.

   The real star of this past month, however, has been one I picked up as a break from lists of which berries are best suited to liqueurs. The Poisoner's Handbook by Deborah Blum has an eye-catching title and I jumped right in. What followed is one of the most fascinating books I've ever read; I've been gushing about it to everyone who will listen, and I'm here now to strongly recommend it to you.

   The subtitle is "murder and the birth of forensic medicine in Jazz Age New York" and if that doesn't sound like the best book ever then I don't know what to say to you. This book has it all. Prohibition, toxicology, politics, bootlegging, courtroom drama, inspiring historical figures, detective work, and on and on. Here you'll witness the birth of reliable toxicological evidence, all surrounded by the strange world of Prohibition in the US which lasted from 1920-1933. At the opening of the books the Coroner's Office is a mess of corruption and incompetence, but all that changes in 1918 with the appointment of Charles Norris as Chief Medical Examiner and his overhaul of the system. He hires the first forensic chemist in any US city, Alexander Gettler, and together they change New York.

   I will warn you that this book contains many forays into the often grisly world of autopsies and mincing of organs to extract poisons. If you can't handle reading about the methods for detecting cyanide in a weeks-dead body, then I feel sorry for you, son. I've got ninety-nine problems but that doesn't happen to be one of them.

   In other news: anyone who can recommend a good book on Prohibition or one about the history of absinthe will get a grateful handshake from me.