Monday, August 11, 2008

Nonfiction books with brilliant opening chapters

Edward Dolnick is the author of Down the Great Unknown, The Rescue Artist, Madness on the Couch, and The Forger's Spell.

A former chief science writer at the Boston Globe, he has written for the Atlantic Monthly, the New York Times Magazine, and many other publications.

Invited by Powells.com to "[r]ecommend five or more books on a single subject of personal interest or expertise," he came up with:
Five Nonfiction Books with Brilliant Opening Chapters:

The Path to Power: The Years of Lyndon B. Johnson, Vol. 1 by Robert A. Caro

Freedom at Midnight by Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins

Maximum City by Suketu Mehta

The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Visions of Glory by William Manchester

The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris
Read the interview from which this list is drawn.

--Marshal Zeringue