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What I like about non-fiction is that it covers such a huge territory. The best non-fiction is also creative. - Tracy Kidder.

Nonfiction encompasses a wealth of reading possibilities - history, essays, memoirs, scientific research, travel guides, cookbooks - essentially everything that is based on fact, real events and real people. Recent nonfiction titles for the Kindle that you might have missed:

Maphead, by Ken Jennings. Scribner, 2011. Print Length: 288 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (3 reviews). Kindle edition $11.99; Hardcover $15.00. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.

"It comes as no surprise that, as a kid, Jeopardy! legend Ken Jennings slept with a bulky Hammond world atlas by his pillow every night. Maphead recounts his lifelong love affair with geography and explores why maps have always been so fascinating to him and to fellow enthusiasts everywhere. Jennings takes readers on a world tour of geogeeks from the London Map Fair to the bowels of the Library of Congress, from the prepubescent geniuses at the National Geographic Bee to the computer programmers at Google Earth. Each chapter delves into a different aspect of map culture: highpointing, geocaching, road atlas rallying, even the 'unreal estate' charted on the maps of fiction and fantasy. He also considers the ways in which cartography has shaped our history..." - Publisher.

Is That a Fish in Your Ear?: Translation and the Meaning of Everything , by David Bellos. Penguin, 2011. Print Length: 304 p. Amazon customer rating: none yet. Kindle edition $12.99; Hardcover $16.81. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"People speak different languages, and always have. The Ancient Greeks took no notice of anything unless it was said in Greek; the Romans made everyone speak Latin; and in India, people learned their neighbours' languages - as did many ordinary Europeans in times past. But today, we all use translation to cope with the diversity of languages. Without translation there would be no world news, not much of a reading list in any subject at college, no repair manuals for cars or planes, and we wouldn't even be able to put together flat pack furniture. Is That a Fish in Your Ear? ranges across the whole of human experience, from foreign films to philosophy, to show why translation is at the heart of what we do and who we are. What's the difference between translating unprepared natural speech, and translating Madame Bovary? How do you translate a joke? What's the difference between a native tongue and a learned one? Can you translate between any pair of languages, or only between some? What really goes on when world leaders speak at the UN? Can machines ever replace human translators, and if not, why?" - Publisher.
David Bellos is a professor of French and director of the Program in Translation and Intercultural Communication at Princeton University.

Baseball and Philosophy: Thinking Outside the Batter's Box, edited by Eric Bronson. Open Court, 2011. Print Length: 350 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (7 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99; Paperback $12.32. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"...brings together two high-powered pastimes: the sport of baseball and the academic discipline of philosophy. Eric Bronson asked eighteen young professors to provide their profound analysis of some aspect of baseball. The contributors include many of the leading voices in the burgeoning new field of philosophy of sport, plus a few other talented philosophers with a personal interest in baseball. This volume gives the thoughtful baseball fan substantial material to think more deeply about. What moral issues are raised by the Intentional Walk? Do teams sometimes benefit from the self-interested behavior of their individual members? How can Zen be applied to hitting? Is it ethical to employ deception in sports? Can a game be defined by its written rules or are there also other constraints? What can the U.S. Supreme Court learn from umpiring? Why should baseball be the only industry exempt from antitrust laws? What part does luck play in any game of skill?" - Publisher.

Death in the City of Light: The Serial Killer of Nazi-Occupied Paris, by David King. Crown, 2011. Print Length: 432 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (32 reviews). Kindle edition $12.99; Hardcover $16.63. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"...the gripping, true story of a brutal serial killer who unleashed his own reign of terror in Nazi-Occupied Paris. As decapitated heads and dismembered body parts surfaced in the Seine, Commissaire Georges-Victor Massu, head of the Brigade Criminelle, was tasked with tracking down the elusive murderer in a twilight world of Gestapo, gangsters, resistance fighters, pimps, prostitutes, spies, and other shadowy figures of the Parisian underworld. The main suspect was Dr. Marcel Petiot, a handsome, charming physician with remarkable charisma. When Petiot was finally arrested, the French police hoped for answers. But the trial soon became a circus. Drawing extensively on many new sources, including the massive, classified French police file on Dr. Petiot, Death in the City of Light is a brilliant evocation of Nazi-Occupied Paris and a harrowing exploration of murder, betrayal, and evil of staggering proportions.

Knitting for Peace: Make the World a Better Place One Stitch at a Time, by Betty Christiansen. Abrams, 2011. Print Length: 132 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (55 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled. First published in 2006; Kindle edition 2011.

"All across America, people are knitting for peace. In yarn shops and private homes, churches and synagogues, schools and even prisons, they meet on weekday evenings or weekend afternoons to knit afghans for refugees, mittens for the homeless, socks for soldiers, or preemie caps for AIDS babies. The tradition goes back as far as Martha Washington, who spearheaded knitting efforts for the soldiers of the Revolutionary War, and has seen a recent flourishing in what is nowadays called charity knitting, community knitting, or knitting for others. Knitting for Peace...tells the stories of 28 contemporary knitting-for-peace endeavors, and features patterns for easy-to-knit charity projects such as hats, socks, blankets, and bears, plus a messenger bag emblazoned with the Knitting for Peace logo. Enlivened by anecdotal sidebars and quotations from both knitters and peacemakers, this inspiring book also includes everything readers need to know to start their own knitting-for-peace groups." - Publisher.

Mindhacker: 60 Tips, Tricks, and Games to Take Your Mind to the Next Level, by Ron Hale-Evans and Marty Hale-Evans. Wiley, 2011. Print Length: 408 p. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (1 review). Kindle edition $9.99; Hardcover $16.49. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"Don't you wish you were just a little smarter? Ron and Marty Hale-Evans can help with a vast array of witty, practical techniques that tune your brain to peak performance. Founded in current research, Mindhacker features 60 tips, tricks, and games to develop your mental potential. This accessible compilation helps improve memory, accelerate learning, manage time, spark creativity, hone math and logic skills, communicate better, think more clearly, and keep your mind strong and flexible. The book explains how each technique works, and then tells how to use it in practical, everyday situations." - Publisher.
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Note to readers: The book prices quoted here are the Amazon.com prices in effect at the time of the blog posting. Please follow the links to the individual book to check the current price.