BookHampton's Best Nonfiction 2011

As the United States marks the 150th anniversary of our defining national drama, 1861 presents a gripping and original account of how the Civil War began.1861 is an epic of courage and heroism beyond the battlefields. Early in that fateful year, a second American revolution unfolded, inspiring a new generation to reject their parents’ faith in compromise and appeasement, to do the unthinkable in the name of an ideal. It set Abraham Lincoln on the path to greatness and millions of slaves on the road to freedom.

Greenblatt (who wrote one of our great favorites, Will in the World) offers a fascinating look at how one man, a 15th century bibliophile named Bracciolini, discovered a copy of the last surviving manuscript of an ancient Roman philosophical epic. On the Nature of Things by Lucretius is a beautiful poem of the most dangerous ideas: that the universe functioned without the aid of gods, that religious fear was damaging to human life, and that matter was made up of very small particles in eternal motion, colliding and swerving in new directions. The Renaissance was born.

How we think. From the ever-fascinating Nobel Laureate, a blend of economics and psychology that is both riveting and revealing. Kahnemann shows us that we think on two tracks: “Fast” for emotional and intuitive responses and “slow” for deliberate analysis. Blending the two is how our brain creates our judgments. One of the New York Times 10 Best of 2011.

The Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Peter the Great, Nicholas and Alexandra, and The Romanovs returns with another masterpiece of narrative biography. This is the extraordinary story of an obscure young German princess who traveled to Russia at fourteen and rose to become one of the most remarkable, powerful, and captivating women in history. “How delightful! … Massie understands plot – fate as a function of character” — The New York Times

We think this should become a holiday classic. In a small and simple story Saramago wrote about his own childhood in Portugal. The name Saramago was given to his father by a town clerk, but all the rest came from within this loving peasant family. They filled the small boy with equal measures of food and fantasy. Enchanting him with stories, encouraging him to read and unknowingly bestowing the life-long gift of compassion. A true gem.