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Favourite non-fiction reads? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I'm currently reading The Case for Space by Robert Zubrin and it's really good. You can tell the guy dedicated his career and life to really thinking about how humans might live in Space, whether that be on the Moon, Mars or in the Asteroid Belt.

I recently read Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoğlu and that was also very good, it explained the shortcomings of other theories such as the geographic determinism espoused by Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs and Steel although I think Why Nations Fail was a bit repetitive at times.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The first non-fiction book I read for fun is probably still my favorite. I used to hate nonfiction books, but randomly picked up Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident one day. A group of experienced mountain climbers died on a Russian mountain in very mysterious circumstances, leading to all kinds of wild theories from the KGB to the supernatural.

The author essentially becomes a detective, and the book alternates between his experience piecing together the mystery and the journal entries of the group that died. It’s fascinating and was impossible to put down.

It sparked my love of non-fiction and I have since read dozens of others. I left the book a glowing review on goodreads and the author actually liked my review, I fangirled for a bit ngl.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I know the Dyatlov Pass case but that sounds pretty interesting. Does he manage to find out any more about how they died? I understood it was thought to be

spoiler

exposure to the cold, which caused the paradoxical undressing, I can't remember what caused the cold exposure orignally though as there was like a cut in their tent and stuff too, super creepy haha

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

He does! I’m not sure if it’s been widely accepted as I haven’t seen his theory pop up in many places, but he spoke to some scientists and it sounds plausible to me. Explanation below, hopefully the spoiler works.

spoiler

It wasn’t just cold exposure. They unfortunately camped at a point on the mountain that funneled air into a whirlwind that would have sounded like a freight train passing their tent. It would have also created infrasound waves, which at certain frequencies/volumes can make people essentially go temporarily insane. It is the best explanation (imo) for why they would have cut out of their tent, partially undressed, and scattered in random directions. They eventually got far enough away to realize what happened and some of them started trying to salvage the situation, but most of them were too poorly dressed and one or two fell down a ravine to their deaths.