September ClassicsCAT: Nonfiction Classics

In September we will read nonfiction classics. Nonfiction classics were written on various subjects although many of them are autobiographical.

Below are a list of some titles arranged by first date of publication, more recent to older

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (1966)
The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan (1963)
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (1962)
Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck (1962)
Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin (1955)
A Diary of a Young Girl, sometimes called The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank (1947)
Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain (1933)
Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves (1929)
A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf (1929)
Eminent Victorians by Lytton Strachey (1918)

Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain (1883)
On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin (1859)
Walden by Henry David Thoreau (1854)
Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville (1835)

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft (1792)
Common Sense by Thomas Paine (1776)

The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli (written c1513, published 1532)

The Republic by Plato (c375 BCE)

Other titles can be found by searching the web. One must be careful since some of the sites list current books.

Please remember to add your reading to the wiki: https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/ClassicsCAT_2023

I'm planning to read The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank and possibly Walden by Henry David Thoreau.

I have been meaning to read The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano for a while.

I've been meaning to read A Vindication of the Rights of Women by Mary Wollstonecraft so maybe now's its time.

I think I'll finally read A room of one's own.

I think I'll read The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell. I can also recommend The Narrative of Frederick Douglass, an American slave. (autobiography)

I'm thinking of Mission to Tashkent by F. M. Bailey, which I could count for the Central Asia GeoCAT as well. Another book that looks interesting is Eastern Approaches by Fitzroy Maclean.

I've got two choices for 19th century American classic non-fiction:

--How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York by Jacob Riis, is the 1890 landmark journalism about the slums of New York.

--Behind the Scenes: or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House by Elizabeth Keckley (1868) is a memoir by a former slave about her years in the White House as dressmaker to Mary Todd Lincoln.

I am thinking of a Gladys Taber book Stillmeadow Seasons (1948, 1950). I read all her books years ago and this one is due for a re-read.

Ive got several on my shelves that I could reread, including the book of the city of ladies that i read college, but I think a reread might be interesting 50 years later

Ive got several on my shelves that I could reread, including the book of the city of ladies that i read college, but I think a reread might be interesting 50 years later

also got shadows of the sun that i had chosen for the african challenge but never got to . The writier also wrote travels with herodutus which I loved. thats a possiblity

>11 cindydavid4: Did you mean The Shadow of the Sun by Ryzsard Kapuscinski? An excellent book. Well worth reading, but quite young to be a classic. 1998.

I've finished this non-fiction classic early for this challenge but just in time for the August GeoCAT. Mission to Tashkent by F M Bailey is the account of Bailey's dangerous sojourn in Turkestan in 1919, in the early days of the Russian revolution.

>12 pamelad: I know why I thought it was older: he first arrived in Africa in 1957 (when I was born) and so assumed thats when he wrote it. . So yeah Ill pick something else, but Im still reading it anyway. Loved his travels with herodutus.

I can recommend Dutch Girl: Audrey Hepburn and World War II by Robert Matzen.

I read Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing.
Sometimes a book just grabs your attention from the first page and hangs on to it. This is one of those books. I used to work in a polar research library so this is a story I know very well, yet I was completely captivated. It is understandable that it has become a classic since its publication in 1959. It was fabulous, right to the last page when I admit I became a little emotional. This is a strong contender for my book of the year.

And if you haven't come across it yet, this is another book that deserves a mention:
Mrs Chippy's Last Expedition: The Remarkable Journey of Shackleton's Polar-Bound Cat by Caroline Alexander


I was happy that Lansing mentioned the carpenter Harry McNeish known as Chippy and his cat Mrs Chippy. McNeish was buried in Karori Cemetery, Wellington by the New Zealand Antarctic Society with a sculpture of Mrs Chippy on his grave.

I read The Great Fire of London from the diary of S. Pepys.

chose a short history of the world

I read F.A. Hayek's The Road to Serfdom, which I'd consider a classic of political philosophy/economics. Originally published in 1944.

October thread is up: https://www.librarything.com/topic/353639#n8230897

I completed The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell. It was a great book!

I did indeed resad A room of one's own, but didn't really connect with it. Very English in its outlook, I thought.

I finished Behind the Scenes: or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House by Elizabeth Keckley (1868). This memoir covers Keckley's amazing life: her earliest years as a slave; her young adult years as slave and dressmaker in St. Louis; her purchase of her freedom with her dressmaking earnings; her eventual move to Washington, D.C. and being hired as personal dressmaker for Mary Todd Lincoln; and the years after Lincoln's death.

Most of the book is about the White House years and afterwards. She is quite frank about Mrs Lincoln, particularly the years immediately after her husband's death. The book caused quite a scandal at the time because Keckley included transcriptions of letters written to her by Mrs Lincoln circa 1866-68, who was greatly in debt and needed to sell her belongings to raise funds.

This is easy to read and well-written, but it is not as emotionally packed as the autobiography of Frederick Douglass. It is interesting for its perspective on the Lincoln family, in the White House and afterwards.

I finished Letters of a Woman Homesteader by Elinore Pruitt Stewart. It was originally published in 1914. Through her letters, Stewart tells about her adventures homesteading in Wyoming starting in 1909.

Thanks to everyone who participated in this challenge. It looks as if some people enjoyed their reading more than others which is not surprising.

Please remember to list your reading on the wiki if you have not yet done so.

I've had so much to read this month that I'm about half way through with The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank, but definitely plan to finish reading it. This is the first time I haven't finished a book for a challenge for which I'm the host.

I finally finished a book for this challenge: The Conquering Family by Thomas B. Costain. It's the first of a 4-volume set about the Plantagenet kings that's been sitting on my shelves for about 40 years! I enjoyed the book and glad that this challenge motivated me to finally start the series.