Books like The Art Book
12 books with a reading profile close to The Art Book by Phaidon Press. Outward-looking and clear-cut; an easy read.
-
1
The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11
Also outward-looking and clear-cut · history, accessible
Garrett M.
-
2
No God but God: The Origins, Evolution and Future of Islam
by Reza Aslan
history, academic
Reza Aslan traces the development of Islam from its beginnings in seventh-century Arabia to its current internal tensions.
-
3
The Gene: An Intimate History
history, academic
Siddhartha Mukherjee traces the biography of the gene, beginning with Aristotelian theories of heredity and moving through Gregor Mendel’s pea plant experiments and Charles Darwin’s missing mechanism for evolution.
-
4
Flags of Our Fathers
Also outward-looking and clear-cut · history, accessible
James Bradley reconstructs the lives of the six men who raised the American flag during the Battle of Iwo Jima in 1945.
-
5
The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II
Also outward-looking and clear-cut · history, accessible
In the early 1940s, the United States government constructed Oak Ridge, Tennessee, a secret city carved out of rural farmland to house seventy thousand residents working on the Manhattan Project.
-
6
SparkNotes for 1984 by George Orwell
by Spark Publishing, SparkNotes
Also outward-looking and clear-cut · academic, accessible
This guide provides a comprehensive breakdown of George Orwell’s dystopian novel, focusing on Winston Smith’s rebellion against the totalitarian regime of Oceania.
-
7
Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania
by Erik Larson
Also outward-looking and clear-cut · history, accessible
Erik Larson reconstructs the final 1915 voyage of the luxury ocean liner Lusitania, tracking its path from New York toward the Irish coast during the early stages of World War I.
-
8
A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them
by Timothy Egan
Also outward-looking and clear-cut · history, accessible
In the early 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan moved beyond the deep South to establish a stronghold in the American Midwest, specifically Indiana.
-
9
Bookclub-In-A-Box Discusses the Novel the Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (Bookclub-in-a-Box)
Also clear-cut · academic, accessible
Marilyn Herbert provides a structured analytical framework for examining Khaled Hosseini’s narrative of betrayal and atonement in Afghanistan.
-
10
A Higher Call: An Incredible True Story of Combat and Chivalry in the War-Torn Skies of World War II
by Adam Makos
Also outward-looking and clear-cut · history, accessible
In December 1943, Second Lieutenant Charlie Brown flew a crippled B-17 bomber over Germany, its fuselage shredded and half its crew wounded.
-
11
The Bookseller of Kabul
Also outward-looking and clear-cut · history, accessible
Following the fall of the Taliban in 2001, Norwegian journalist Åsne Seierstad lived with the family of Sultan Khan, a bookseller in Kabul who risked imprisonment to preserve Afghan literature.
-
12
The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War
by Erik Larson
Also outward-looking and clear-cut · history, accessible
Erik Larson chronicles the five months between Abraham Lincoln’s election and the surrender of Fort Sumter.
Get picks matched to your own reading on papr.
Get papr
