10 fresh non-fiction books from which you can learn a lot of interesting things

1. Tipsy, Edward Slingerland

Drinking alcohol is costly. The body throws all resources into removing the toxin. The prefrontal cortex is the first to suffer, and it is to it that we as a species owe our success. Why do people generally like to poison themselves? Why has the labor-intensive process of converting nutritious grains and tasty fruits into low concentration bitter neurotoxins become a ubiquitous practice regardless of culture and geography?

Scientist Edward Slingerland came to this conclusion: alcohol or drug intoxication, any other altered state consciousnesses were supposed to help people survive and prosper throughout evolution, and cultures to survive and spread. We get drunk for very good evolutionary reasons. Without intoxication, we would not have civilization. In the book, the author tells what role the desire to drink played in the emergence of the first large societies.

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2. "Goodbye, sadness! 12 Happiness Lessons from French Literature by Viv Groskop

Journalist and writer Viv Groskop, known in Russia for her book “Self-development according to Tolstoy. Life lessons from 11 works of Russian classics”, this time looking for the origins of joie de vivre - the joy of being - in the literature of France. She lives the works of the classics, analyzing them not as a researcher, but as a thoughtful reader and admirer of the heroes and authors of classic novels.

Books that teach you to be happy in French do not always tell about bright joy: in the works of Zola, Flaubert, Rostand, Colette, Sagan and Camus (yes!) there is a place and betrayal, and breaks, and death. Joy, says Groskop, is hidden in words, in the exposure of "Frenchness", in the lessons taught to us about life. The title of the book refers to the work of Françoise Sagan "Hello, sadness", and one of the most touching chapters is devoted to this writer. The young Viv Groskop idolized her, the adult treats her with compassionate tenderness.

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3. "The main thing in the history of color", Marina Golubeva

Color as a physical phenomenon is light of a certain wavelength that is reflected from the surface of an object. But with the advent of man, color ceases to be a given and turns into real magic. In the book, Marina Golubeva tells how a person learned to comprehend this amazing phenomenon and use it in their rituals, art and everyday life; what colors have been considered sacred since ancient times; how people learned to make dyes; how color painted the gloomy everyday life of the Middle Ages and much more.

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4. "Full story. Walking by Sounds, Lev Gankin

Music journalist Lev Gankin hosted the program of the same name on the Silver Rain radio for six years - a material about music, rarely appearing on the air, has accumulated an impressive book. How is this collection of popular music different from others? First of all, the absence of hierarchies - stylistic, geographical and others. Recordings from Ethiopia or Indonesia are no less interesting and significant than those from England or the USA. Live music is no worse and no better than electronic music. Rock is not superior to hip-hop, but it is not inferior to it.

Gankin's book is stories about music and performers, not only and not so much biographical as revealing the history of time and space, showing the coordinate system in which this or that composition. Here is a man landing on the moon, and the reaction to this is the space funk of George Clinton. Here the Internet makes it easy to share music files, and Moby and Arctic Monkeys use it in their own way. Finally, pop culture is bewitched by its own past, and the musical worlds of Lana Del Rey or the Tame Impala project are built around this.

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5. “Green Therapy. How to Weed the Mind and Cultivate Your Happiness, Sue Stewart-Smith

Gardening can become something more than traditional May help to parents or admiring flowers. The psychiatrist Sue Stewart-Smith, in a wise and gentle book, shows how deep existential processes can be involved in creating a vegetable garden.

The author is convinced that gardening can help us find or rediscover our place in the world when we feel we have lost it. We can sow seeds in the ground, and at the same time, ideas that one day will become solutions that dramatically change our lives. We can get rid of weeds and dried bushes and at the same time “weed out” the anxiety that has settled in the head. The garden is a special area in which you can hear your own thoughts. Such a space becomes the meeting point of our innermost, dreamy self and the real physical world.

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6. “Secret doors of Moscow. Ancient mansions and their stories, Yana Soroka

Welcome to the old mansion! Heavy doors to the past open before readers. Waltz and quadrille music is already heard, chandeliers with many candles are already visible. The guests are dancing, smartly dressed servants carry a sterlet in white wine. The hosts of the evening are invited to the living room, where there is a gambling game of whist. Very soon, fireworks will begin in the luxurious garden ...

Yana Soroka invites you on a journey through time and space. The book contains the stories of 19 Moscow mansions built in the middle of the 18th, as well as in the beginning and second half of the 19th centuries. The author will tell how houses were decorated and solemn meetings were held, what mysteries hide secret doors, how dazzling palaces and classical mansions with columns were replaced by French castles and towers in the neo-Russian style.

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7. "The Life of a Geisha. Memoirs of the most famous geisha in the world, Mineko Iwasaki

You probably remember Arthur Golden's novel "Memoirs of a Geisha", which was based on the film of the same name. It tells the story of the most famous geisha Japan. Golden's book, the heroine of the novel, Mineko Iwasaki, seemed inaccurate, and she decided to restore historical justice by inviting readers to the closed world of geishas.

In Japanese quarters of Karayukai, created solely for aesthetic pleasure, live geisha. They call each other "geiko", women of art. One of the varieties of geiko that has become famous all over the world and has become a symbol of Kyoto is a young dancer "maiko", that is, a woman of dance.

Mineko Iwasaki set herself the goal of becoming the best dancer - and she achieved her goal. It was the dance that supported Mineko when other professional duties became too heavy in in the literal sense of the word: the girl weighed forty-one kilograms, and the kimono with hair ornaments was about eighteen. From the memoirs it will be possible to learn about other secrets of geishas.

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8. "Look at the Pictures" by Kenneth Clark

The British writer and art historian is best known for his TV series Civilization for the BBC. Look at the Paintings is a manual written by a passionate art lover and professional historian. Pure enjoyment of painting brings unconditional pleasure, but lasts no longer than the joy of the scent of a flowering tree. To penetrate deeper, it is necessary to connect research tools, in particular historical criticism.

The sixteen essays that make up the book are devoted to not the most obvious works of art of great authors. So, Leonardo da Vinci represented by the work "Madonna with Saint Anne", William Turner - "Snowstorm", and Sandro Botticelli - "Christmas".

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9. "Water. A Biography Told by Humanity by Giulio Boccaletti

Water is the basis of our existence, without which no form of life on Earth is possible. Its influence on the development of civilization has been enormous at all times: from the first settlements near reservoirs and human attempts to “tame” the elements to fierce wars for regions rich in water resources.

Through the ages water was and remains that same public good, an unknown source of power that drives progress forward and makes us to invent ever new ways of retaining and preserving this mobile formless substance, from which we are completely dependencies. It is impossible to understand the structure of the modern world without knowing and understanding the relationship between man and water.

The book by the British-Italian scientist, physicist and atmospheric researcher Giulio Boccaletti covers history from Antiquity to the XXI century and warns of global irreparable consequences due to changes climate.

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10. “Pop Gapon and Japanese rifles. 15 amazing stories from the times of pre-revolutionary Russia, Andrey Aksyonov

Andrey Aksyonov, popularizer of history and host of the Decline of the Empire podcast, turns dull characters from the pages of textbooks into extraordinary personalities who lived at the turn of the century. The great writer Leo Tolstoy, after a "spiritual upheaval", decided to give up money: his wife barely persuaded him to receive royalties for the novels "War and Peace" and "Anna Karenina". Poets Valery Bryusov and Andrei Bely fought for the heart of the fatal Nina Petrovskaya. Film producers Drankov and Khanzhonkov competed in the newly emerging market.

Against the backdrop of inevitable wars and revolution dramas, scandals unfolded, love stories were born, adventurous crimes were committed. Perhaps, having become better acquainted with the life stories of these and other people, famous and not so famous, readers will be able to understand why the empire nevertheless came to a decline.

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