The Best Non-Fiction from the Second Half of 2012

A selection of the non-fiction I read and appreciated in the second half of last year – not exhaustive and not all necessarily published in 2012 (but within the recent past at least)…

HHhH – Laurent Binet – a tour de force as the French would say (and fitting as Binet is French) – the idea of weaving Binet’s investigation and recreation of the assassination of Heydrich in Prague with his own mixed feelings doing the research.

Death in the City of Light: The True Story of the Serial Killer Who Terrorised Wartime Paris – David King – a re-telling of the case of Marcel Petiot who was a serial killer in occupied Paris during the war. This is a little known story (at least on the English side of the Channel) and horrific.

A Dance with the Dragon: The Vanished World of Peking’s Foreign Colony – Julia Boyd – Boyd’s telling of the lives and quirks of the foreigners that inhabited old Peking is fun and romps along at a pace – a great overview of a lost world that obviously appealed to me!!

Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Slum – Katherine Boo – a rather lyrical account of the slums of Mumbai. What is fascinating is the micro worlds that exist in the slums – small business, entrepreneurs both business an social – but at the end it is the unremitting despair and obstacles people face that comes through. Certainly the best book on Mumbai since Sukehtu Mehta’s brilliant Maximum City (and on, how many writers wish they’d got to that title first!!)

Ian Fleming’s Commados: The Story of 30 Assault Unit in  WW2 – Nicholas Rankin – Britain remains in the midst of a prolonged bout of Fleming mania at the moment. And a good thing too, Fleming, Bond and all that is terrific. But Fleming’s wartime exploits are also amazing and worth covering and done well by Rankin. Worth noting here a short biography of one of Fleming’s fellow authors turned espionage experts Tina Roseberg’s D For Deception about the wartime experiences of Dennis Wheatley.

Nancy Mitford – Selina Hastings – originally published in 2010 but just out in Kindle edition so worth noting. Hastings is, for my money, the best biographer working today (see her Somerset Maugham bio) and this bio of Nancy Mitford is no disappointment either. Hastings places Nancy wonderfully within the mad Mitford world and explains the depth to what are often seen as her ephemeral novels. A cut above the usual fare that populates the Mitford Sisters publishing machine that continues.

Voodoo Histories – David Aaronovitch – useful rendition of the ridiculous theories around everything from 911 to Monroe to Diana to Hilda Murrell and David Kelly. The problem of course is the same as Hitch had with God is not Great – Aaronovitch expertly reveals the ridiculousness of conspiracy theory “arguments” and the possible delusions and delusional behind them but to those of us who reject conspiracy theorists and nonsense like God these books just confirm what we know. I fear they don’t persuade the delusional conspiracy theorists or the superstitious believers sadly.

The Secret Life of France – Lucy Wadham – OK, so I know a bit more about the French than I did before this book – their odd approach to sex, their complete lack of a sense of humour beyond that of a British 7 year old….but still they remain a mystery to me over there on that side of the Channel. Weirdos, the lot of ’em.