A Merry Christmas Non-Fiction Shopping List

The Non-Fiction Shopping List 2012

It's the beginning of the holiday shopping season, and it's time to start checking peoples' Amazon wish lists and listen for hints. Book readers can be a squirrley bunch, though, and none more so than those who read non-fiction. Some people read non-fiction simply for the desire to learn about the world around them, while others look down at fiction readers as escapists. Whatever the reason, there's plenty of good true stories out there to be given. Here's a few, along with the suggest audience for each.

The Reluctant Communist: My Desertion, Court-Martial, and Forty-Year Imprisonment in North Korea

North Korea's been all over the news this year, with last winter's death of Kim Jong-Il, the rise of Kim Jong-Un and his wife Ri Sol-Ju, and the loosening of some of the restrictions there. This is a rather unique look into the most cloistered country in the world, through the eyes of an American POW.

Recommended for: the current-affairs and news junkies on your list.

A Man With No Talents

This is a rare look into one of the less shiny subcultures in Japan. Writing with the pen name Oyama Shiro, this chronicles the life of a day laborer through the bubble years and following recession in Japan. Unable to fit into the salaryman role laid out for him, the narrator take the more difficult, yet ultimately more freeing life of manual labor. Living in a bunk in a boardinghouse, not only does he blame no one for his fall in status, he thanks his society for giving him the opportunity to live as he wishes, with no responsibilities to anyone but himself.

Recommended for: people struggling with the current American recession, those who believe Japan has no underside.

The Boy who Harnessed the Wind

William Kamkwamba lived through some of the hardest times in Malawi. With his father unable to bring in a harvest, he couldn't afford to go to school. Even when he was young, though, he thought it was a shame that work and study had to end when it got dark. While trying to piece together an advanced science book in the village's library, he put together the bicycle lights he's seen around town and a picture of a windmill, and he brings a light in the darkness to his home for the first time.

Recommended for: with a strong message of self-reliance and a happy ending, this is a safe book for anyone from upper-middle-school to a grandmother.

Okimono Kimono

Almost more of an art book than a real story, one of the women of the CLAMP manga writing group puts together a beautiful collection of both original and traditional kimono. She relates her experiences in wearing kimono in regular life, as well as ways to modernize the style of dress while keeping them feminine and pretty.

Recommended for: most female manga readers would appreciate the art of this book, even if they'd never dress like this themselves.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Known by many aliases since her death, this is the story of the life and family of a poor black woman in Maryland. Treated at Johns Hopkins, the cancerous cells that eventually killed her opened the door to the study of human cells outside of the body. What follows is the history of her family, who never saw a dime of the money that their mother's cells made, the scientists who used her biological material without her consent, and a fascinating look at the fields of bioethics and medical patents.

Recommended for: fans of science, civil rights and biographies alike.

Good Women of China

China has one of the most controlled 'free' presses in the world. And yet, it's still much more relaxed than in decades past. In the 1980s, as radio was slowly able to show the country a more realistic view of itself, Xinran began a late-night call in show for women. Collected here are some of the most memorable stories from those years. Told in plain language, but with a journalist's ear for narrative, the lives of the women in this book will stay with the reader long after she closes the cover.

Recommended for: current events and history buffs, women's rights and civil rights activists, and anyone looking for poignant stories with a thread of hope woven within them.

So there it is. That should cover most of your shopping list. But again, as always, make sure to tuck that gift receipt into the front cover. Book readers are a wily bunch, and sometimes we read even the most obscure title without anyone knowing. 

One woman sheds light on a nation's oppression of women

All countries evolve. A person born a generation ago in America has seen a revolution in social issues. In the last 50 years, the US has seen great strides in the acceptance of minorities, homosexuals, the physically and mentally handicapped, and those with mental illnesses. The military has gone from a noble profession, to something to be despised, to a 'love the soldier, hate the war' mentality. We've had the Red Scare, watched the Berlin Wall come down and had the first large-scale terrorist attack on American soil.

All that, however, is nothing compared to what has been going on in China since the end of World War II, as seen in Xinran's Good Women of China. So much of it will never be know, because of China's strict control of the media. It's a wonder even that the Tank Man footage of the Tienanmen Square Massacre made it out intact, as military police stormed the hotels overlooking the Square, destroying any film and cameras they could find.

By the 1980s, however, China began to give the appearance of a free press. Author Xinran sought to give voice to the millions of women in China that had found themselves in truly horrifying situations. Created by a combination of thousands of years of a male-dominated culture, the huge social and political upheaval of the last century, and a pervasive national sense of not being able to change one's lot in life. Whatever the reason, though, there is no excuse for the horrors found in the stories included here.

The very first story in the collection is the story of Hong Yue. Hong Yue was a bright young girl who kept a diary while in the hospital. But the relative safety of the hospital was the best situation she'd ever been in. For at home, her father slips into her bedroom at night. And when she tells her mother about this, she is told that there is nothing to be done about it. The family needs its patriarch, and there is nothing to be gained by making a fuss and the family losing face over the issue. So Hong Yue learns how to keep herself sickly and confined to the hospital,  where befriending a baby housefly and sacrificing her health is better than the alternative.

But not every heartbreaking story ends in despair. Due to the lack of rural infrastructure, a massive earthquake in central China went completely unnoticed by authorities. Until people walked through the destroyed roads leading out of town, no one outside the village knew how bad the destruction was. Entire apartment buildings were shorn in two, as mothers watched their children buried in rubble. But from the devastation of the earthquake grew an orphanage that helped the childless mothers as much as the orphans themselves. Their days are filled with laughter and play, and both the mothers and the children share in the healing.

After working on her radio show for years, Xinran became a tremendously famous media personality in China. It came to the point where she would be stopped on the street by perfect strangers, and being offered their terrible stories, wherever she went. Eventually, it became too much for her, and she moved herself and her son to Britain. One good thing came of the move, however - outside of the influence of the Chinese media, she's now able to get her books published. Since then, she has also set up a charity teaching Chinese heritage to children who have been adopted out of the country. In this way, Xinran continues to help those without a voice, both in China and beyond.

Highs: These are stories that need to be told, no matter how hard they are to endure.

Lows:  Because there are no easy answers to the plights of those whose stories are told, it does leave the reader with a sense of despair at the end.

Verdict: An absolute must-read for anyone who wants to know how the rest of the world really lives.

Further Reading: Sky Burial, Half the Sky