Does anyone else read non-fiction in parallel or in the general course of their fiction reading?

I tend to read a few "popular science" books and also Pet McCarthy/Dave Gorman/Tony Hawkes travelogues at the same time as my normal manly horror/Sci-fi/thriller diet.

To get the ball rolling I'm currently reading "The Ancestors Tale" by Richard Dawkins, Its a trip back through time to various rendezvous where we meet common ancestors to ourselves in evolution. The interesting thing is that though it does consider fossils its main premise is on the basis of molecular genetics. The time scales are mind-boggling - I've just reached the point where all of the mammals meet in one tiny shrew like creature about 150million years ago.

Heres the best "fact" so far to astound your friends - you may think that Hippos are sort of related to Horses as was thought a first. You may have then moved on to read as I did that they are quite closely related to Pigs. Well think again - yes they are from a sort of group which includes those animals but the animal on earth which is their closest molecular cousin is the whale in all its forms :)

I read alot of serial killer and true crime books. I'm not a physco or anything, I am just very interested in the physcological aspect. I have ready the Ted Bundy story and The Shrine of Jeff Dahmer. It is actually very interesting to find out what shapes a person to behave in such a manner.

I collect the true crime mags as well.

I read Abusing Science by Philip Kitcher recently - it's a philosophical-cum-scientific rebuttal of the arguments for creationism. Quite light on the science, but fairly heavy on philosophical reasoning. Oh, and Port Out Starboard Home by Michael Quinion - a look at the etymology of some of the more obscure phrases in use in current English.

I'm reading The Rise and Fall of Modern Medicine by James Le Fanu - the first half details twelve definitive moments (discovery of penicillin, cortisone, first test-tube baby etc..) and goes through how they came about. Then the second half is a look at, well the title pretty much speaks for itself, but the massive advances in medicine in the post-war years up until the '70s, when the innovative period really slowed down. It looks at why that was the case, then looks to the future of medicine... can't really say much about that bit though as I've not read that far yet! It's a really fascinating book, I'd recommend it to everyone :)

Just finished A Brief History of the Hundred Years War by Desmond Seward and though I've read other books about the period it was still very good. It didn't get bogged down with too many details about the combatants and if anyone is interested I'd say it was good place to start. I did enjoy the beginning more than the end though. ;)

I'm reading lots of Freud stuff. Not voluntarily, of course :fear:

xsarahx

Just finished Constantinople The Last Great Siege, 1453. The greatest city of the time destroyed, 30000 people sold into slavery and priceless relics lost forever. :(
Interesting enough but a little hard going at times.

Finished Nelson and the Nile last night, interesting enough and more of a general history which was good.

I finished Seven Million Years the other night - a bit flitty in the writing style but it filled in a lot of gaps in my knowledge about human evolution - especially the more recent stuff (where recent is 100000 years).

I found it interesting how much racism crept into science a couple of hundred years ago as Europeans explored Africa - the desperate need to prove that Africans were a "lesser" species and even the suggestion that they were the offspring of men and monkeys or apes.

It has to be the ultimate anti-racism irony that we are all descended from Africans.

I've now moved on to "The Elegant Universe" which is about string theory. Its interesting here that I re-read A Brief History of Time a short while ago and that now seems "outdated" as this guy sets out to prove that String theory is the elusive unified theory.