In the main, I read science fiction and fantasy books. Not particularly heavy duty sci-fi, of the sort generally termed hard science fiction for its focus on extrapolating reality on the basis of science, but rather adventures which are set in environments engaging because of their imagination and ideas.

Every now and then, however, I like to read something which is totally off my main-stream literary diet. Generally non-fiction rather than a different sort of fiction (apart from the time I read 17 consecutive Agatha Christie books, stopping only when I finally got one), I pick these books hoping that they'll broaden my horizons somewhat. The following five certainly did that:

Alicia - My Story, by Alicia Appleman-Jurman, is a remarkable true tale of survival in the nazi holocaust. What makes this book so enlightening is that this tale is told through the eyes of the young girl who survived it. There is no attempt at political correctness. Alicia suffered at the hands of ordinary german and polish people, as well as the Nazis, and she tells it like it is, complete with all the strong emotions that such a horrendous experience generated. This is man's inhumanity to man recounted without either embelishment or any sort of holding back.

The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat, by Oliver Sacks, deals with Neurology, not from the scientific point of view, because there doesn't appear to be one, but rather by presenting a list of cases showing what happens to people when their brains, simply, go wrong. Nobody knows why or what is happening inside this incredible organ of ours. All that neurologists can do is try a few things out, compare notes with other neurologists, and basically look for ways of making their patients life as easy as possible. None of these patients are mad, it's just something in their brain doesn't work any more, like their memory, or their sense of left and right, or their ability to differentiate faces, and so on.

Wild Swans, by Jung Chang, tells the story of a people and what happened to them when they became manipulated by a mixture of reactionary ideologies and a man perfectly prepared to twist those in order to gain and maintain power. Unlike Nazi germany, where a mass of people became mobilised by fear, the Chinese were controlled by pride and idealism. The fascinating and frightening thing was the way that the mass took over the individual to the extent that individualism was pretty much outlawed. Unfortunately, this structure in society requires that everybody behave using the same honour and purity of purpose. This never happens, and the most corrupt rise to the top.

The Mismeasure of Man, by Stephen Jay Gould, challenges two key concepts that some of us may well hold as sacrosanct. First, that there is such a thing as intelligence. Second, that there is such a thing as impartial scientific investigation. These two concepts come together when you see how people have used pseudo-science in order to prove their intellectual superiority over others, and hence justify their mistreatment of others. The idea that the most intelligent should somehow have control over other people is still with us now. Intelligence, however, is at best a dubious concept, and the measurement of it more dubious that that.

Denying the Holocaust - The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory, by Deborah Lipstadt, catalogues the attempts and techniques used by the far right to try to show that the Nazi Holocaust didn't happen. Why? Because it tends to give fascism a bad name! This fascinating book shows how people can, by systematically attacking our views on anything we perceive as fact, gradually erode away our beliefs and even switch us around completely. The way it is done is almost a science which Goebbels himself would have been proud of, and it works because most of us are not up on these techniques and also cannot afford the time to examine carefully what we are being told. The fact that a group of people are trying to do this with one of the most horrific events of the last century goes to show what can be done (or, at least, attempted). This book shows you how they work and how to counter these sorts of attacks on the truth. It is also one of the inspirations for my TWOTS series of posts.

Richard