May 15, 2026
Halfway through reading The Great Influenza and coming to terms with the fact that I'm a realistic romantic sucker for essentially nonfiction fairy tales. Where a team of people come together to slay a dragon whether that be developing an antibiotic, organ transplantation, or some other intractable problem, sometimes with some abstract cost of metaphorical limbs lost. Doesn't have to be medical, stuff like The Right Stuff, Apollo 8 and Endurance counts too. What other nonfiction narrative novels do you guys recommend below?
Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson. About two shipwreck divers trying to identify and eventually prove the existence of a Nazi U-Boat sunk off the coast of New Jersey at around 300 feet. Learned a lot about diving technology, risks, techniques, etc. A very insane story filled with colourful characters and high stakes.
Oh yeah he wrote apollo 8 too and a sequel to shadow divers too, sick I'm going to put that on my to read list whenever I get to it
anaca20 days ago
I don't know how technical you want to go, but Nasa has a selection of free history books related to aerospace projects https://www.nasa.gov/history/history-publications-and-resources/nasa-history-series/
The larger category of essentially "book versions of heist movies" has been one of my favorite kinds of books since forever. Here's a couple that seem closest to your examples, big teams pursuing technical, somewhat practical goals.
The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder is the best one I've read about computers. No risk of life, unless you consider a corporation a person, but has lot more heart than you'd expect for being essentially about a bunch of guys in some windowless room.
Skunk Works by Ben R. Rich and Leo Janos is kind of a supercharged version of The Right Stuff, and probably the reason why thousands of people majored in aerospace engineering. Rich is an engineer and this is his autobiography, and he has much more insight, technical and not, than even someone like Tom Wolfe. An amazing read.
Into the Silence by Wade Davis is an excellent one about the first people to climb Mt. Everest. More big picture than something like Endurance, but has that same sense of suspense and exploration. (Let me know if you know of or find more books like Endurance. I haven't found too many books like it other than this, though I haven't read many "expedition" books.)