Looking for an "interesting" book... (1 Viewer)

[Saponification]

A friend of mine has a birthday coming up and she's into "interesting" stuff. Now I'm into modern lit and could rattle off a few fiction titles such as Fight Club, Black Box and Trainspotting, all of which would easily qualify, but I'm looking at non-fiction mainly.

Essentially, I'm looking for a book about something unusual. She's studying something medical, but I don't fully understand exactly what it is specifically. Either way, she has a fairly dark and random sense of humour - so something like The Undertaking could go down well.

But if anyone has some other suggestions, I'd love to hear them. Something vageuly medical and guiltily funny (such as the afore-mentioned Undertaking) is what I'm leaning towards.

 

[Hodge]

How about America (the book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction by Jon Stewart and the other writers from the The Daily Show?

It's really funny and it looks much more expensive than it really is (it's in textbook format—pretty high quality, too). Not to mention it is non–fiction... Which makes it even funnier!

Study question: "The notion that each individual has worth in society found political expression in the invention of democracy. What's bullshit about this?"

Classroom activity: "Found a country."

 

[Saponification]

Hm sounds interesting. The name suggests it's targetted at US citizens... foreigners wouldn't find it too alienating, would they? Granted in Australia our Government likes to copy a lot of what yours does.

 

[TheUberManlyMan]

One of my friends recommended "The Devil in the White City" to me. It's a nonfiction book written like a mystery novel, and she says it's wonderful. Here's a more thourough description if you'd like:

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbninquiry.asp?pwb=1&ean=9780375725609

 

[Hodge]

Oh hell, you're in Australia... You probably wouldn't get half of the book then. Although they do make some jokes about Australia and how New Zealand is like Australia's Canada...