This was such a tough choice--not only did I want to find interesting books, I also wanted to make sure they would be relatively easy to acquire and would be readable by most people within the month. In the end I will nominate the following three books, which I have lettered A, B, and C for your voting pleasure.
Since we have had two straight fiction nominees, I have decided to take us back on a nonfiction tack.
- Witsec: Inside the Federal Witness Protection Program
by Pete Earley and Gerald Shur
This book is co-authored by Gerald Shur, one of the driving forces behind the creating of the Witness Protection Program. It gives an inside (though obviously biased) account of the creation of the program up to the present day, and tells of the many problems and turf issues Shur faced in getting the program up and running.
- Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman
by Jame Gleick
A biography of nobel laureate Feynman. This book gives a fascinating counterpoint to Feynman's own memoirs "Surely you're joking Mr. Feynman" and "What Do You Care What People Think?" As the title indicates, the book discusses Feynman's scientific work along with his personal life, including his time at the Manhattan Project, the Challenger inquiry panel, and the nobel-winning quantum physics work in between. However the level of technical detail is not excessive for a general audience.
- Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping
by Paco Underhill
Underhill is the proprietor of a company that specializes in doing research for retail stores on how to maximize their sales by optimizing the design of their stores. For example, if a drugstore wants to sell more hair coloring products, what part of the store is the best place to put them? This does not sound like a very promising subject for casual reading, but Underhill's wit and liberal use of anecdotes and examples from his past research makes it very readable and thought-provoking for anybody who has ever been frustrated by their shopping experience.
Now, as a special added attraction, because I know many of you will have laid awake at night thinking, "Gee, I wish I could have more than three books picked out for me by SteveDallas," I have listed some favorites (along with typical quotes) that did not make the cut, primarily because they were too much fun, and I wanted to keep things serious. You may wish to check them out on your own time!
- The Mind of Egypt: History and Meaning in the Time of the Pharaohs
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Misfortune lay outside the province of social action, and only this latter was connected by the link between doing and faring, the connective justice of ma'at."
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- A New Firebolt Sweeps Clean: Reflections on Textuality and Intertextuality in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter Series
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Although the romantic[?] "triangle" of Harry, Ron, and Hermione is obvious, the more compelling relationship is that between Harry and Draco Malfoy, with its subtle but omnipresent homoerotic overtones.
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- I Was A Teenage Dominatrix: A Memoir
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I'd always hated my muscular legs but I was grateful to them for the first time.
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- pr0n: A History of Dirty Pictures on the Internet
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As these sample images show (see Figure 1a, "cheerleader" and Figure 1b, "cucumber"), even the most common and innocent search terms can result in image hits of breathtaking audacity and disgust.
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- Techniques for Drawing Female Manga Characters"
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Female [bicycle] riders normally sit on their skirts, so a skirt that flutters behind in the wind is a fictitious manga effect.
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