As much as fiction can be entertaining and self-reflective, I find that nonfiction is just as important in developing our mindset and knowledge. Yet, just like fiction, there are all kinds of nonfiction to choose from—it has as many genres as fictions, actually. Personally, my favourites are those with cold, hard facts in it—anything scientific, historical or cultural.
I mean, I wouldn’t knock a good self-help or a memoir or biography, but as far as keeping my mind sharp and widening my horizon, I often would need to turn to numerical and hard-proven data. And, honestly, books that have evidently been thoroughly researched taught me many new things about and changed the way I see the world. It has opened my eyes to how little I know about this realm I live in.
So I thought today I’d share some of the insightful nonfiction books I’ve read before that will surely enrich your knowledge and knock your horizon wide open. Enjoy!
The Japanese Mind
Edited by Roger J. Davies & Osamu Ikuno
As someone who has always admired Japan and the Japanese for decades, this book is a deeper look into the Japanese anthropology, which is highly interesting. My friend Maya lent it to me back in 2018 and told me it was one of her text books when she was studying in Japan. Just gleaming through the table of contents, you can see a multitude of Japanese life principles that the book covers—starting from familiar things like bushido, senpai-kohai relationships and the rising ikigai, to lesser known ones that I cannot seem to recall at this point in time.
Each topic is comprised of a collection of research from a group of people who are experts on the matter, arranged in such a way to make it easily digestible for scholars and non-scholars alike. Complete with discussion topics and activities, this book is best to be enjoyed with someone else as you can help one another understand each principle easier. The best part is you can read it in random order without fear of losing the thread.
Unhooked
Laura Sessions Stepp
Sex—here’s a word that always garners a reaction, whether you’re comfortable with it, uncomfortable with it or perhaps even really like it. Such a controversial word, it seems, that it often leads to misconceptions and prejudice—especially in regards to young women. In the U.S., for instance, it is often portrayed in the media that young women have so much (unsafe) sex—but is that true? And what is their relationship with sex and love anyway? These are the sorts of questions that Laura Sessions Stepp sets out to answer through her research in this book.
In short, this book sets out to uncover the mystique and enigma around the hookup culture of young generations in the late 2000s. Personally, I absolutely love Stepp’s amazing ability to openly discuss young women’s sexual choices without demeaning them. Although today, this book may already be quite outdated, films and series like Good Boys and Never Have I Ever only prove that sex is no longer a distant word for these young adults.
The Indonesian Language
James Sneddon
Language, for me, is a big deal. It is my number one intelligence—verbal-linguistic, mind you—and now the source of my livelihood. For as long as I could remember, it has always intrigued me one way or another, especially why certain languages are a certain way. My friend Irfan—who studied Linguistics in the Wales—was kind enough to lend me this book back in 2017 and I got to finally find out how the Indonesian language came to be. Let me tell you: it is like nothing I’ve ever known before! It turns out the Indonesian language is as complex as its diverse culture. What! And here I spent several years learning 3 other languages like an idiot.
Not only does this make me understand just where the language comes from, it also taught me the importance of language as a whole—not only as a tool to communicate, but also to bring peace among the people and form a communal identity, per se. Sadly, this whole topic was researched by a foreigner—as you can tell from the name—as very few Indonesians show any interest in it. Such a shame 😞
Yet another book about Indonesia written by a foreigner, as a book locally written is hard to come by. This book tells the story of the author’s journey through the smaller islands and rural areas of Indonesia to learn about the local culture and people. However, Pisani is no stranger to the country as she has come back and forth to the archipelago numerous times as a journalist—suffice to say, she already knows a great deal about Indonesia by the time she took this trip. Being Indonesian, you would think I’d seen it all—but you’d be gravely mistaken. Elizabeth Pisani uncovers a great number of things about the natives that even I had never known about.
This country being so big and centralised at the capital, it should be of no surprise that the terms of independence seem to be spread unevenly throughout—yet it is still a surprise for me. She meets people who cannot even speak the invented mother tongue of Indonesian, or believed the Independence Day to fall on a later date. Best—or worst?—part of all: this book will still remain relevant even today, as you’ll see from the book below.
Masyarakat Adat & Kedaulatan Pangan
Ahmad Arif
Okay, this one was kind of a cheat, as it is actually a three-part bundle—although can definitely be read individually and randomly. You might be familiar with this one if you’ve seen this post from almost a year ago. Well, we’ve got a third one. So, real quick. This series of books actually deals with the native, locally grown food produce of Indonesia that have, unfortunately, gone to the wayside. The first book talks about sagu, which is native to the eastern islands, such as Papua and Maluku, while the second book goes into the details of sorghum, which is actually known across the archipelago, but have recently been reintroduced in Nusa Tenggara Barat. The third book, however, explores more of what it means to be an indigenous people and what their relationship with food looks like. Truth be told, I’ve only recently started on the third one, so I’m not so sure yet. However, I feel like people of Indonesia—and everywhere, really—would do well to read this book and learn about their local produce all over again.
Never Home Alone
Rob Dunn
It was perfect timing that I bought this in the middle of the pandemic and when I was bedridden due to a health condition—not Covid (lol). There is something either terrifying or comforting about the title too, but I choose to see it as the latter. If I’m being honest, what attracted me to this book first is, obviously, the cover. Not only is it beautiful, but it illustrates exactly what this book is about: how many little creatures actually live here with us humans. Not all them is visible too, some are microbes that cannot be seen with naked eyes. No, it doesn’t necessarily have to be scary—a lot of these little guys help our immune system grow stronger.
In fact, the more biodiverse our house is, the bigger chance we have to live a healthy life with a stronger antibody. However, of course, this book only observes houses in certain parts of the world and it may not entirely apply to us. But, hey, it’s a start! It could really inspire us to identify the visible creatures around our house to see what benefits—or danger—they may have in our ecosystem.
How We’re F***ing Up Our Planet
Tony Juniper
For those of you who have always wanted to know exactly what the deal is with climate change, this is the book for you. At first, I bought this book for research on my thesis topic—although, in the end, it turns out it wasn’t very relevant. The book itself, published by DK, is filled from beginning to end by an array of amazing infographics, covering numerous topics on our environment and its relationship with us humans. It is very well-written, adjusted to accommodate beginners and people who are essentially clueless about these issues, so it’s a perfect read to start your reading.
The topics covered include a lot of complicated adult things—such as the Paris Accord, the carbon emission’s relation with a country’s GDP, as well as social and gender inequality—so, while the data becomes easier to digest through the visually enjoyable infographics, the information is still leagues deeper than what kids generally comprehend. That being said, this book will leave you with so much more knowledge on our changing climate.
The Uninhabitable Earth
David Wallace-Wells
Okay, now that you’ve read the book above, you’re well equipped to read this one. Not unlike the one above, this one was also bought with the idea of becoming a reference for my thesis project, but didn’t end up becoming relevant. If the previous book offered all historical and current scientific data with very little opinion involved, this book puts the pressure on with fact-backed reasons for why we need to change fast and what will happen if we don’t.
For me, this book made me realise that a zero-waste lifestyle isn’t a be-all-end-all solution to our deteriorating climate—taking plastic out of the ocean is almost completely separate from reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Sure, they may be remotely connected, but not exclusively. And, ultimately, reducing plastic is just one small step to keeping the earth’s temperature within 2º above normal. Basically, this book is a post-apocalyptic view of our earth if we decide to stay business-as-usual and ignore the facts—truly scarier than any horror story I’ve ever read.
Talking to My Daughter about the Economy
Yanis Varoufakis
Growing up, the economy has always been kind of an enigma for me—and I think most girls too—so when I first read the title to this book, I thought, “Perfect!” All my childhood I don’t think anyone has ever bothered to explain to concept to me—and most of my girlfriends. With that experience, I’ve always hated to know about the economy—and politics, but that’s a whole other topic. Now, though, having grown up and inevitably becoming part of the economy, I’m afraid it is impossible not to try to discern what it is. This book to the rescue!
If you didn’t know, Yanis Varoufakis used to be the finance minister of Greece, and his years of experience shows in his incredible ability to describe economical concepts with almost no use of specific jargons. It’s genius! It makes everything so much easier to understand. Not only that, he covered more than just the economy—taking it a step further to explore anthropology and human history as well, which is obviously connected to the economy itself. Highly recommended to all newbies, not just girls!
The Shock Doctrine
Naomi Klein
Let’s end with a bang and get our mind blown: here is a book that answers to its own title. I found out about this book through another book on this list—care to venture a guest?—and I got really intrigued by it. When I found it for sale at a used bookstore, I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. Suffice to say, reading this book got my jaw was dropped and never picked back up. It shook everything I know about my country’s history, the government and—worst of all—the global economy as a whole. It revealed so many things about how the world works that I cannot believe how this book doesn’t get as much buzz and coverage as it truly deserves.
If you’re a citizen of Chile, Argentina, Indonesia, Uruguay, Bolivia, Brazil, Poland, Russia, China, Sri Lanka, Iraq, the U.K. and the U.S. (specifically New Orleans), I would highly recommend checking out this title as it will uncover so much truth about the country you call home and the world as a whole.
There was a time in my life when I would never have picked up a nonfiction at all. To me, it was fiction all the way. It was since 2016 that I became more and more entranced with nonfiction—and now even enjoy it more than fiction at times. Reading nonfiction has changed the way I read books in general. It’s got me more interested in facts of the world—and it’s certainly changed my mindset a few times as well as widen my horizon. There are now things I’ve never known or thought about before, that I’ve since learnt through books.
As I’ve said, my mindset has been turned and then turned back over and over again. It’s also taught me to read things with a grain of salt—sometimes even a whole tower, if I’m honest—which really helps with reading stuff off the internet as well. If you’ve never read any nonfiction books before, I would definitely recommend up to 5 of the books on this list—the rest is a little too intense, I’m afraid.
What’s the most insightful nonfiction book you’ve ever read?
As much as fiction can be entertaining and self-reflective, I find that nonfiction is just as important in developing our mindset and knowledge. Yet, just like fiction, there are all kinds of nonfiction to choose from—it has as many genres as fictions, actually. Personally, my favourites are those with cold, hard facts in it—anything scientific, historical or cultural.
I mean, I wouldn’t knock a good self-help or a memoir or biography, but as far as keeping my mind sharp and widening my horizon, I often would need to turn to numerical and hard-proven data. And, honestly, books that have evidently been thoroughly researched taught me many new things about and changed the way I see the world. It has opened my eyes to how little I know about this realm I live in.
So I thought today I’d share some of the insightful nonfiction books I’ve read before that will surely enrich your knowledge and knock your horizon wide open. Enjoy!
The Japanese Mind
Edited by Roger J. Davies & Osamu Ikuno
As someone who has always admired Japan and the Japanese for decades, this book is a deeper look into the Japanese anthropology, which is highly interesting. My friend Maya lent it to me back in 2018 and told me it was one of her text books when she was studying in Japan. Just gleaming through the table of contents, you can see a multitude of Japanese life principles that the book covers—starting from familiar things like bushido, senpai-kohai relationships and the rising ikigai, to lesser known ones that I cannot seem to recall at this point in time.
Each topic is comprised of a collection of research from a group of people who are experts on the matter, arranged in such a way to make it easily digestible for scholars and non-scholars alike. Complete with discussion topics and activities, this book is best to be enjoyed with someone else as you can help one another understand each principle easier. The best part is you can read it in random order without fear of losing the thread.
Unhooked
Laura Sessions Stepp
Sex—here’s a word that always garners a reaction, whether you’re comfortable with it, uncomfortable with it or perhaps even really like it. Such a controversial word, it seems, that it often leads to misconceptions and prejudice—especially in regards to young women. In the U.S., for instance, it is often portrayed in the media that young women have so much (unsafe) sex—but is that true? And what is their relationship with sex and love anyway? These are the sorts of questions that Laura Sessions Stepp sets out to answer through her research in this book.
In short, this book sets out to uncover the mystique and enigma around the hookup culture of young generations in the late 2000s. Personally, I absolutely love Stepp’s amazing ability to openly discuss young women’s sexual choices without demeaning them. Although today, this book may already be quite outdated, films and series like Good Boys and Never Have I Ever only prove that sex is no longer a distant word for these young adults.
The Indonesian Language
James Sneddon
Language, for me, is a big deal. It is my number one intelligence—verbal-linguistic, mind you—and now the source of my livelihood. For as long as I could remember, it has always intrigued me one way or another, especially why certain languages are a certain way. My friend Irfan—who studied Linguistics in the Wales—was kind enough to lend me this book back in 2017 and I got to finally find out how the Indonesian language came to be. Let me tell you: it is like nothing I’ve ever known before! It turns out the Indonesian language is as complex as its diverse culture. What! And here I spent several years learning 3 other languages like an idiot.
Not only does this make me understand just where the language comes from, it also taught me the importance of language as a whole—not only as a tool to communicate, but also to bring peace among the people and form a communal identity, per se. Sadly, this whole topic was researched by a foreigner—as you can tell from the name—as very few Indonesians show any interest in it. Such a shame 😞
Yet another book about Indonesia written by a foreigner, as a book locally written is hard to come by. This book tells the story of the author’s journey through the smaller islands and rural areas of Indonesia to learn about the local culture and people. However, Pisani is no stranger to the country as she has come back and forth to the archipelago numerous times as a journalist—suffice to say, she already knows a great deal about Indonesia by the time she took this trip. Being Indonesian, you would think I’d seen it all—but you’d be gravely mistaken. Elizabeth Pisani uncovers a great number of things about the natives that even I had never known about.
This country being so big and centralised at the capital, it should be of no surprise that the terms of independence seem to be spread unevenly throughout—yet it is still a surprise for me. She meets people who cannot even speak the invented mother tongue of Indonesian, or believed the Independence Day to fall on a later date. Best—or worst?—part of all: this book will still remain relevant even today, as you’ll see from the book below.
Masyarakat Adat & Kedaulatan Pangan
Ahmad Arif
Okay, this one was kind of a cheat, as it is actually a three-part bundle—although can definitely be read individually and randomly. You might be familiar with this one if you’ve seen this post from almost a year ago. Well, we’ve got a third one. So, real quick. This series of books actually deals with the native, locally grown food produce of Indonesia that have, unfortunately, gone to the wayside. The first book talks about sagu, which is native to the eastern islands, such as Papua and Maluku, while the second book goes into the details of sorghum, which is actually known across the archipelago, but have recently been reintroduced in Nusa Tenggara Barat. The third book, however, explores more of what it means to be an indigenous people and what their relationship with food looks like. Truth be told, I’ve only recently started on the third one, so I’m not so sure yet. However, I feel like people of Indonesia—and everywhere, really—would do well to read this book and learn about their local produce all over again.
Never Home Alone
Rob Dunn
It was perfect timing that I bought this in the middle of the pandemic and when I was bedridden due to a health condition—not Covid (lol). There is something either terrifying or comforting about the title too, but I choose to see it as the latter. If I’m being honest, what attracted me to this book first is, obviously, the cover. Not only is it beautiful, but it illustrates exactly what this book is about: how many little creatures actually live here with us humans. Not all them is visible too, some are microbes that cannot be seen with naked eyes. No, it doesn’t necessarily have to be scary—a lot of these little guys help our immune system grow stronger.
In fact, the more biodiverse our house is, the bigger chance we have to live a healthy life with a stronger antibody. However, of course, this book only observes houses in certain parts of the world and it may not entirely apply to us. But, hey, it’s a start! It could really inspire us to identify the visible creatures around our house to see what benefits—or danger—they may have in our ecosystem.
How We’re F***ing Up Our Planet
Tony Juniper
For those of you who have always wanted to know exactly what the deal is with climate change, this is the book for you. At first, I bought this book for research on my thesis topic—although, in the end, it turns out it wasn’t very relevant. The book itself, published by DK, is filled from beginning to end by an array of amazing infographics, covering numerous topics on our environment and its relationship with us humans. It is very well-written, adjusted to accommodate beginners and people who are essentially clueless about these issues, so it’s a perfect read to start your reading.
The topics covered include a lot of complicated adult things—such as the Paris Accord, the carbon emission’s relation with a country’s GDP, as well as social and gender inequality—so, while the data becomes easier to digest through the visually enjoyable infographics, the information is still leagues deeper than what kids generally comprehend. That being said, this book will leave you with so much more knowledge on our changing climate.
The Uninhabitable Earth
David Wallace-Wells
Okay, now that you’ve read the book above, you’re well equipped to read this one. Not unlike the one above, this one was also bought with the idea of becoming a reference for my thesis project, but didn’t end up becoming relevant. If the previous book offered all historical and current scientific data with very little opinion involved, this book puts the pressure on with fact-backed reasons for why we need to change fast and what will happen if we don’t.
For me, this book made me realise that a zero-waste lifestyle isn’t a be-all-end-all solution to our deteriorating climate—taking plastic out of the ocean is almost completely separate from reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Sure, they may be remotely connected, but not exclusively. And, ultimately, reducing plastic is just one small step to keeping the earth’s temperature within 2º above normal. Basically, this book is a post-apocalyptic view of our earth if we decide to stay business-as-usual and ignore the facts—truly scarier than any horror story I’ve ever read.
Talking to My Daughter about the Economy
Yanis Varoufakis
Growing up, the economy has always been kind of an enigma for me—and I think most girls too—so when I first read the title to this book, I thought, “Perfect!” All my childhood I don’t think anyone has ever bothered to explain to concept to me—and most of my girlfriends. With that experience, I’ve always hated to know about the economy—and politics, but that’s a whole other topic. Now, though, having grown up and inevitably becoming part of the economy, I’m afraid it is impossible not to try to discern what it is. This book to the rescue!
If you didn’t know, Yanis Varoufakis used to be the finance minister of Greece, and his years of experience shows in his incredible ability to describe economical concepts with almost no use of specific jargons. It’s genius! It makes everything so much easier to understand. Not only that, he covered more than just the economy—taking it a step further to explore anthropology and human history as well, which is obviously connected to the economy itself. Highly recommended to all newbies, not just girls!
The Shock Doctrine
Naomi Klein
Let’s end with a bang and get our mind blown: here is a book that answers to its own title. I found out about this book through another book on this list—care to venture a guest?—and I got really intrigued by it. When I found it for sale at a used bookstore, I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. Suffice to say, reading this book got my jaw was dropped and never picked back up. It shook everything I know about my country’s history, the government and—worst of all—the global economy as a whole. It revealed so many things about how the world works that I cannot believe how this book doesn’t get as much buzz and coverage as it truly deserves.
If you’re a citizen of Chile, Argentina, Indonesia, Uruguay, Bolivia, Brazil, Poland, Russia, China, Sri Lanka, Iraq, the U.K. and the U.S. (specifically New Orleans), I would highly recommend checking out this title as it will uncover so much truth about the country you call home and the world as a whole.
There was a time in my life when I would never have picked up a nonfiction at all. To me, it was fiction all the way. It was since 2016 that I became more and more entranced with nonfiction—and now even enjoy it more than fiction at times. Reading nonfiction has changed the way I read books in general. It’s got me more interested in facts of the world—and it’s certainly changed my mindset a few times as well as widen my horizon. There are now things I’ve never known or thought about before, that I’ve since learnt through books.
As I’ve said, my mindset has been turned and then turned back over and over again. It’s also taught me to read things with a grain of salt—sometimes even a whole tower, if I’m honest—which really helps with reading stuff off the internet as well. If you’ve never read any nonfiction books before, I would definitely recommend up to 5 of the books on this list—the rest is a little too intense, I’m afraid.
What’s the most insightful nonfiction book you’ve ever read?