Ship of Fools: 100 Best Nonfiction Books of All Time

Thread: 100 Best Nonfiction Books of All Time Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Cottontail (# 12234) on :

After all the lists of '100 best novels', The Guardian has embarked upon compiling a list of the 100 best nonfiction books of all time. They are looking actively for suggestions from the public, and you can make your own on the linked page.

However, I was wondering if we might compile our own list (without worrying about reaching 100). So ... what books would shipmates nominate, and why?

To start things off, I would like to suggest the autobiography, Against the Law (1955) by Peter Wildeblood, who was sent to prison for having a romantic relationship with another man. Not only did it highlight the hypocrisies of the treatment of homosexual men in English law at the time, but also exposed the urgent need for penal reform. I read it last year, and was impressed by his literary skill and his sheer dignity.

Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :

I would put "A Brief History of Time" in, as much for its affect on popularising science as its actual content.

I know it is one of the most bought-but-unread books, but it made a change.

Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on :

Surely The Diary of a Young Girl would be up there. The Seven Story Mountain by Thomas Merton would be among my favorites. I like autobiography. I also enjoyed Jacob Bronowski's The Ascent of Man.

Posted by Cottontail (# 12234) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
Surely The Diary of a Young Girl would be up there. The Seven Story Mountain by Thomas Merton would be among my favorites. I like autobiography. I also enjoyed Jacob Bronowski's The Ascent of Man.

Could you say something more about these, Lyda*Rose? I haven't read, or even heard, of any of them, and would be interested to know more. [Smile]

Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :

I nominate "A Circle of Sisters" by Judith Flanders. It is the biographies of the MacDonald sisters: Alice, the mother of Rudyard Kipling; Georgiana, the wife of Edward Burne-Jones; Agnes, wife of Edward Poynter; and Louisa, mother of Stanley Baldwin. Their interlinked lives cover nearly every aspect of Victorian society; social mobility, the empire, the arts and crafts movement, morality, industrialisation, politics, family life, schools, domestic life. In addition, many famous names are mentioned in passing as friends or acquaintances of the well connected sisters.

The narrative thread of their lives holds it all together and gives context to the disparate topics.

Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :

Cottontail, you will know "The Diary of a Young Girl" as "Anne Frank's Diary". I think the title is a pond difference.

Posted by Hedgehog (# 14125) on :

I would nominate the autobiography Myrna Loy: Being and Becoming by Myrna Loy (duh!) & James Kotsilibas-Davis. It is an excellent autobiography, without undue sentiment or exaggerated claims. It is not a scandal memoir, but a fair depiction of early Hollywood as well as her involvement with political issues (she was on the hate list of both Hitler and Sen. McCarthy...).

Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on :

Not originally written in English, so it probably doesn't qualify for the Guardian's list - Seneca's Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius) never leaves my bedside. It's the pleasantest, most accessible piece of classic "how to live" philosophy I've ever come across. Occasionally pompous, sometimes funny, always wise and humane - I love it. It's somewhere around the top of the list of books I would say everyone should read. I have two English versions - a fully translation by Richard Gummere, and the Penguin Classics version which omits some of the less interesting bits, by Robin Campbell. I usually even take a copy on holiday!

Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
Surely The Diary of a Young Girl would be up there. The Seven Story Mountain by Thomas Merton would be among my favorites. I like autobiography. I also enjoyed Jacob Bronowski's The Ascent of Man.

I don't think I ever read The Ascent of Man, but I did see the TV series, which was superb.

Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :

I was just thinking about the problems in this. If something is a seminal work in its field, but not easily accessible to a general reader, does it qualify? (Keynes' General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money is I beieve an example.)
Also, I think differences in ideological convictions are more likely to have an effect on a list like this. It's easier to think that a piece of nonfiction ought to be on the list merely because you agree with it. And it's probably easier to overrate history, memoirs, and popular science which are factual, over philosophy and other forms of criticism which are matters of interpretation.

That said:
G.K.Chesterton's Orthodoxy ought to be on.
Browne's Religio Medici.
Samuel Johnson's Review of Soame Jenyn's Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Evil. Also, his Preface to Shakespeare. And Lives of the Poets. (The Guardian had a no more than one novel by each author policy when it did novels; I think this would tell against writers who shone in short essays.)

Hobbes's Leviathan, Locke's Essays, Hume's Treatise, Mill's On Liberty are all important. I don't know whether they're accessible to the general reader.

Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :

I'm a Johnson fan, but I don't know his Soames Jenyns piece. Boswell's Life of SJ was a book to be on every library shelf once upon a time.

An important work I basically disagree with would be Gibbon's Decline and Fall, but I love the ironic balanced prose.

I have tried Religio Medici, but it didn't click.

Posted by Sipech (# 16870) on :

I tend to read far more non-fiction that I do fiction. Looking through my book reviews, I would have to nominate:

Das Kapital - Karl Marx
For being a great dissection of Victorian industrialism, as well as an astute analysis on the origins of money and the value & exploitation of labour.

Night - Elie Wiesel
For being a thoroughly humane account of the most inhumane of times.

The Immortal Life on Henrietta Lacks - Rebecca Skloot
A recent work, but absolutely brilliant. A work incorporating modern science while being interlaced with 20th century racial history in America.

The Logic of Scientific Discovery - Karl Popper
A brilliant take on the philosophy of science. If you've not read it yet, when you do, you'll see how Popper's ideas have permeated modern thinking.

Confessions - Augustine of Hippo
An old classic. A must read for all, I'd say.

I would be against the inclusion of A Brief History of Time, purely on the basis that it's just not all that good. Other works cover similar ground and do it far better, notably Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe.

Posted by la vie en rouge (# 10688) on :

I think Primo Levi probably deserves a mention.

For sheer influentialness (sorry, that’s not really English, but you know what I mean), Darwin’s Origin of Species surely needs to be in there.

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

Beat me to Darwin's work, and I endorse the inclusion of both Popper and Bronowski. I'd also include Paxton's book on Vichy France for its demonstration of detailed scholarship.

Posted by Sparrow (# 2458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
Surely The Diary of a Young Girl would be up there.

Is that the Diary of Ann Frank? If not, it should certainly be included.

Posted by Welease Woderwick (# 10424) on :

Lowering my brow a bit I'd nominate Joshua Slocum's Sailing Alone Around the World and also, because of the sheer mind-boggling insanity of the project, John Keay's The Great Arc about the mapping of India.

I'd also like to include a cookery book - how about Madhur Jaffrey's Flavours of India for that one though there are so many more.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

If we're taking of all time seriously, and not just looking at current best seller lists, Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire should probably be included. Unless we're restricting the list to 'first published in English', Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy also should. It's hardly read at all at the moment, but was a staple through the Middle Ages and Renaissance.

My personal plug would probably be for Gilbert White's Natural History of Selborne.

Posted by Sipech (# 16870) on :

I'm going to be a heretic and argue against the inclusion of Darwin. Not because I'm pushing some sort of creationist agenda, but because both Origin of Species and Descent of Man are interminably dull.

I've read both in the last few years and while there can be little doubting Darwin's scope and insight, he writes like the dullest teacher you ever had. Origin of Species could well be renamed 'Everything you ever wanted to know about pigeons, and then way more than that until you fall asleep'.

As for Descent, it is just sidetrack after sidetrack, going on about morphology for hundreds of pages. Plus, there's the highly politically incorrect terms, by modern standards, such as "savage" or other far more racially denigrating terms that one doesn't repeat nowadays.

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

I'd go with cookery books too, unsurprisingly. They are windows into their times, plus if they are written by the likes of Jane Grigson they are enormously readable and still practical.

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :

And The Band Played On by Randy Schiltz. No question. A comprehensive recounting of the early days of the AIDS epidemic. It will probably be the goto resource on AIDS history for a long time.

I don't know if there would be too many candidates for Mary Roach to make the cut, but if so, I would nominate Stiff her thoroughly researched and very entertaining book about the various potential fates of a human corpse.

Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
I'd go with cookery books too, unsurprisingly. They are windows into their times, plus if they are written by the likes of Jane Grigson they are enormously readable and still practical.

But would you go with Jane Grigson or Elizabeth David?
(I want to say Elizabeth David, but I've had more fun reading Grigson.)

Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :

quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
I'm a Johnson fan, but I don't know his Soames Jenyns piece.

Here it is. Also available in all good general selections of the works of Johnson.

quote:
I am always afraid of determining on the side of envy or cruelty. The privileges of education may, sometimes, be improperly bestowed, but I shall always fear to withhold them, lest I should be yielding to the suggestions of pride, while I persuade myself that I am following the maxims of policy; and, under the appearance of salutary restraints, should be indulging the lust of dominion, and that malevolence which delights in seeing others depressed.

Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :

I take it Dr J wouldn't approve of student loans.

Jane Grigson was the nicer person, but I find Elizabeth David more fun. (Rather as I enjoy Gibbon.) But I don't think any would make it to a canon of Anglo-American thought, which is what the Guardian project sets out to achieve.

Posted by TurquoiseTastic (# 8978) on :

I heartily agree with the recommendation of Primo Levi (anything by him, really). Likewise if graphic novels are allowed, then Art Spiegelmann's Maus would be on my list.

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :

Ooh, in that case, Alison Bechdel's Fun Home and Are You My Mother?
Also, Joe Sacco's Palestine.

[ 29. January 2016, 06:48: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

I don't think it possible to nominate just one for reasons others have given above, but I can give a handful that I think provide something unique or special and which I'd recommend to, say, a Godchild wanting a starting point on something:

The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations to answer that nagging question where does that come from/ who said that.

The Music of the English Church (Kenneth Long) which gives a good over-view of the musical history and legacy of music for the liturgy in England & Wales

Parliament of Whores (P J O'Rourke) which combines a crash course in how the US Government is arranged, a vicious critique on its inadequacies and is also very funny.

Cooking for Today published by Good Housekeeping in the 1970s is the best how do you do that cookery book going from really basic techniques to complicated recipes with everything else (catering quantities, food preservation, etc, etc, etc) in between.

Harpo Speaks a fascinating autobiography.

I was going to choose some poetry but I suspect that classifies as fiction, so in place of Palgrave I'd go for The Book of Common Prayer.

Posted by Liopleurodon (# 4836) on :

Books I have read recently which impressed me:

Chasing the Scream, by Johann Hari
Forensics by Val McDermid
I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai

I dunno if they'd make a list of the best 100 of all time (particularly as they're all pretty recent publications) but I certainly enjoyed them. I'll have a think through the more distant past of my library.

Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on :

I'd like to put in a request for Ernst Gombrich's The Story of Art. It approaches the complex subject in the most clear-headed way I've yet come across. It has its faults and biases, of course, but if there was only one book on the history of art on the list, I think this should be it.

Posted by Piglet (# 11803) on :

I'd like to nominate Mendeleyev's Dream by Paul Strathern: it's a very readable history of chemistry and how the Periodic Table came about, and of the people who discovered the elements.

As an avid cookery-book reader, I'd have to include Delia Smith's Cookery Course because the recipes work; and The Sunday Times Cook Book by Arabella Boxer, because it's just a beautiful book.

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

To get a grip on physical science something by Richard P Feynman is essential. Heck, it makes sense to me now and I only got an 'A' level at grade E.

I'll leave it to others to decide on which book.

btw, I agree with L'organist that "Parliament of Whores" should be there. PJ is a heck of a writer.

Posted by Tree Bee (# 4033) on :

Wild Swans by Jung Chang is an excellent memoir. In addition to being an eye opener about China's political systems and history over the last century, its fascinating to read about the sociological changes during her lifetime, and those of her mother and grandmother.

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

Henry Mayhew's "London Labour and the London Poor" is a fascinating (if lengthy) account that gives a very vivid picture of London in the 1840s. The characters are so well described you can almost see them, in his interviews many speak for themselves in their own words, it is as clear a picture as you will get. And often moving. The poverty, the illnesses and disabilities, the ingenuity, the resourcefulness: these are real people hampered by their circumstances, but doing the best they can to survive. In amongst all this, humour, hope, love, faith, and periodic dips back into an earlier London of a few centuries ago.

[ 29. January 2016, 21:17: Message edited by: Ariel ]

Posted by HCH (# 14313) on :

If you want a bit of mathematics:

"Elements" by Euclid

"How to Solve It" by Polya

If you want some general science: any volume of Isaac Asimov's essays from "Analog".

If you want something about software development: "The Mythical Man-Month" by Brooks.

If you want a taste of British history:

"The Steel Bonnets" by Fraser (among many others by various authors)

I also suggest "The Boy Scout Fieldbook" and
"The Merck Manual".

I'm not sure all of these, except for Euclid, are "top 100" material, but I like them.

Posted by crunt (# 1321) on :

Birds and People by Mark Cocker with photography by David Tipling
Fascinating and beautiful.

Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on :

Do the books have to be real?

The Junior Woodchucks Guidebook

How I Rose From The Dead In My Spare Time And So Can You

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
Do the books have to be real?

Well, it is about non-fiction, so they wouldn't count. Also, it would be difficult for people to read them if they were interested. But feel free to start a thread on fictional non-fiction if you want, there's room for that.

Posted by Eigon (# 4917) on :

I agree with Ariel about Mayhew - there's an interview with a little girl working as a crossing sweeper that I particularly remember. Most people gave her a penny or tuppence for sweeping the way clear as they crossed the roads, but one man had given her sixpence - "I should know him again!"

Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :

Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.

Sorry? No, don't tell me that. No - I hate you. that cannot be true.

My world has collapsed.

Posted by Bene Gesserit (# 14718) on :

The map that changed the world - Simon Winchester

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Eigon:
I agree with Ariel about Mayhew - there's an interview with a little girl working as a crossing sweeper that I particularly remember. Most people gave her a penny or tuppence for sweeping the way clear as they crossed the roads, but one man had given her sixpence - "I should know him again!"

Yes, and what a life for a child, out in all weathers sweeping horse manure off a crossing in the hope of a penny from a passerby. A never-ending task with all the vehicles that passed by throughout the day and the ever-present danger of being knocked down by the traffic. How many years did she do that for, you wonder. The book does give you pause for thought.

Posted by Cottontail (# 12234) on :

I suppose I like best books that tell a story, true or otherwise. And I have read some great nonfiction books, and recall loving them, but have little recollection now of what happens in them. Into that category falls Ten Days that Shook the World by John Reed, which I remember as gripping, but don't remember why. I suppose it has just become part of my knowledge of the Russian Revolution. Similarly with Goodbye To All That by Robert Graves - I enjoyed it very much, and I am sure I learned a lot, but I couldn't extract my remembrance of that book from my general impressions of WWI. This doesn't tend to happen with fiction, I suppose because the stories there are naturally stronger. As Norman Maclean once observed, it is rare that real life events take on the neat shape of a story.

But one book I did enjoy and have retained is Frauen (1995) by Alison Owings. She is an American academic who interviewed German women who had lived through the Third Reich, and she reproduces 29 of these interviews in this book along with her own observations. The range of experiences and personalities is fascinating, and the moral ambiguities of survival are presented honestly, even if Owings sometimes comes across as rather naive.

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

quote:
Originally posted by venbede:

Jane Grigson was the nicer person, but I find Elizabeth David more fun. (Rather as I enjoy Gibbon.) But I don't think any would make it to a canon of Anglo-American thought, which is what the Guardian project sets out to achieve.

Not having met either, I could not say who was the nicer person. But seriously, Elizabeth David was by far the better cook and author. More importantly for this list, A Book of Mediterranean Food followed by French Country Cooking had a social impact in the UK that none of Jane Grigson's works approached.

The same can be said for the Beck, Bertholle and Child masterpiece Mastering the Art of French Cooking particularly in the US, to the extent that the cookery it espoused came to be called its own style. Then of course there are the works of M F K Fisher, but it's hard to choose any one of them to make this list.

Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :

I have waiting on my to be read pile Brittain's Testament of Youth. Any takers for this?

I'd like to include Dalrymple's From the Holy Mountain.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I have waiting on my to be read pile Brittain's Testament of Youth. Any takers for this?

I'd almost go as far as to say that it ought to be compulsory reading.

Posted by TurquoiseTastic (# 8978) on :

I second Dalrymple's "From the Holy Mountain" and would also suggest something by Oliver Sacks - my favourite is "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat".

Posted by Aravis (# 13824) on :

Definite yes to Oliver Sacks, though it would be hard to choose which.
Bill Bryson should be on the list, but again, which one? A Short History of Nearly Everything? At Home?
Jung's Memories, Dreams, Reflections.
I'm sure there are more - may post again later.

Posted by Sipech (# 16870) on :

Might have to check out Primo Levi. His is a name I've heard of, but never paid any attention to.

Might the Encyclopaedia Britannica count?

To my earlier post, I ought to have added a disclaimer to my recommendation for Popper's The Logic of Scientific Discovery as the company I work for publishes it, so I have a commercial interest in it, as well my personal recommendation.

Posted by Hilda of Whitby (# 7341) on :

Son of the Morning Star by Evan Connell. It's about Custer's Last Stand. (For Shipmates not from the USA who don't know about this event, General George Armstrong Custer and his calvary regiment were massacred by a huge army of Native American warriors in a very one-sided battle on June 25-26, 1876. The whole debacle was due almost 100% to Custer's hubris and gross underestimation of his opponents.) Connell was known primarily as a poet and a novelist. The Custer book is beautifully written and very psychologically astute.

For me, Etty: the letters and diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941-1943 is the most moving writing by a Holocaust victim that I have ever read. Etty was very intelligent, free-thinking, sexually adventurous and somewhat emotionally unstable young Jewish woman in Amsterdam. She met a very unorthodox mentor/teacher in 1941 and began keeping a journal. You see Etty's enormous spiritual growth through her diaries. She refused to go into hiding and ended up at Westerbork transit camp in the Netherlands. She wanted to be "the thinking heart of the camp", at which she succeeded, according to testimony by survivors. She and her parents and brothers were on the last transport from Westerbork to Auschwitz--the same one that Anne Frank's family was on--and Etty died in Auschwitz in November 1943. Etty is one of my spiritual heroines. I think her writings are absolutely remarkable.

Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda. I first read it when I was 18 and it is the most-read spiritual book I own. The sheer richness and number of India's saints and holy people is staggering.

Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :

Darwin's Origin of Species qualifies because it changed the understanding of life. I would also nominate Freud's Interpretation of Dreams because it discovered the unconscious mind and hidden motivations. Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology proved that the earth is subject to the same processes today as was in the past, and proved the earth is older than biblical ideas.

Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
I would also nominate Freud's Interpretation of Dreams because it discovered the unconscious mind and hidden motivations.

The Guardian I think is restricting itself to books originally written in English, although there are hints it may let the King James Bible in. So Freud is out.

There are those who would say that while Freud certainly qualifies for a 100 best books of all time, he doesn't qualify when it's restricted to non-fiction.

Posted by Piglet (# 11803) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Aravis:
... Bill Bryson should be on the list, but again, which one? A Short History of Nearly Everything? ...

Yes. And Mother Tongue.

Posted by Jack the Lass (# 3415) on :

I love Bill Bryson, and really enjoyed "A Short History of Nearly Everything", but I don't know that it should be counted as a classic 100 Best of All Time. I think that whilst it has its place, if you're going to include something that popularises science (or whatever) you would be better off with something that covers a smaller subject in more detail.

I think I would second the suggestion for something by Oliver Sacks. Some of his work is a bit dated now, but his overwhelming humanity in the midst of the heavy clinical cases he presents is inspirational.

In my own field (so I don't expect anyone else to have read this or agree with this choice), I have to say that Gail Kligman's "The Politics of Duplicity: Controlling Reproduction in Ceausescu's Romania" is a tour de force.

As far as Christian/religious non-fiction goes, Ron Sider's "Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger" had a profound effect on me when I first read it, and still influences many of my choices today. I must reread that sooner rather than later, I think.

Posted by anoesis (# 14189) on :

I'm just not sure I've read widely enough, or enough full-stop, to be able to make nominations for a top 100 list, but there has been a lot of talk about autobiography going on - a favourite genre of mine - so I sat down and made my own list of the ones I've enjoyed most. What they have in common, I think, is that they are 'easy to read', in terms of both clarity and in the way they engage the emotion, without in any way having 'easy' themes. First among the bunch is probably 'A Ring of Bright Water' by Gavin Maxwell - it is just a thing of beauty. I read it in a single sitting and found my own surroundings slightly unfamiliar upon emerging. Also 'Through the Narrow Gate' by Karen Armstrong, 'Bread and Roses', by Sonja Davies (a hard life, that one), 'A Fence around the Cuckoo' then 'Fishing in the Styx' by Ruth Park' (a tough life, you might say) - and now for something completely different, as Monty Python would say - 'Moab is my Washpot' by Stephen Fry, which is clever, and frank, and sad, and very, very funny. Also many orders of magnitude better than his next autobiographical attempts.

Posted by TurquoiseTastic (# 8978) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sipech:
Might have to check out Primo Levi. His is a name I've heard of, but never paid any attention to.

Oh! You sinner! You should go and read "The Periodic Table" right away and then "If This Is A Man".

Posted by la vie en rouge (# 10688) on :

Since cookbooks have been mentioned, I think we need the mother of them all - Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management.

Posted by ArachnidinElmet (# 17346) on :

-I'd definitely second A Brief History of Time. I read it last year and wondered why I'd been intimidated out of it before.

-If we're having graphic novels, Bryan Talbot has written/illustrated a couple. My choice would be Sally Heathcote: Suffragette co-created with his wife, Mary.

-The Story of the English Language in 100 Words by David Crystal

-The People Speak: Democracy is not a Spectator Sport Ed. Colin Firth & Anthony Arnove. A collection of speeches and letters from individuals involved in political and social movements over the centuries (it starts out with a contemporary description of the Normans being bastards to the Anglo Saxons).

Last but not least Prehistory of Sex by Timothy Taylor because it's full of surprising thoughts about global history and gender politics (and not just because it's full of Neolithic porn and the author was my university personal tutor [Biased]

)

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
....
Hobbes's Leviathan, Locke's Essays, Hume's Treatise, Mill's On Liberty are all important. I don't know whether they're accessible to the general reader.

Oh, I should certainly say that Mill was. His writing was wonderfully lucid.

Posted by Eigon (# 4917) on :

There was a wonderful radio series a little while ago from the British Museum - History of the World in 100 Objects. It was also made into a book, and it was absolutely fascinating, so I'd suggest that as one of the 100 best non-fiction books.

Posted by Barnabas Aus (# 15869) on :

Sipech wrote:

quote:
Might the Encyclopaedia Britannica count?

If reference books are to be considered, surely the Oxford English Dictionary should be on the list.

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

But would you consider the OED one of the best non-fiction reads of all time? Which is really what the question is about, although it hasn't been that precisely worded.

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

Well, it contains all other works, including the not-yet-written---just read the words in the right order.

Posted by Pomona (# 17175) on :

Surely Claudia Roden should be included in the cookery writers?

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