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It's #BookLoversDay and I want to share the list of awesome #nonfiction books I read for this year's Polymath Training Challenge.

Run on a Hungarian book site, this challenge announces 12 nonfiction topics every year - 11 are the same, the 12th is randomly selected for each participant. You get to pick the books you want to read.

I found some awesome books for this year and finished early, so I'm sharing now 😊 📚

Thread 🧵

#ReadingChallenge #books #bookstodon #ReadingCommunity @bookstodon
Dieser Beitrag wurde bearbeitet. (1 Jahr her)

Dr. Zalka Csenge Virág hat dies geteilt

Topic 1: Cartoons and Animation

Book:
Queens of Animation: The untold story of the women who transformed the world of Disney and made cinematic history, by Nathalia Holt

This one was a fascinating read about the first woman animators and story artists hired by Walt Disney, and their lasting effect on the most famous Disney movies.
Most of it was new to me, and I loved the details about their lives and personalities.

#Disney #animation #WomensHistory #women #art
Topic 2: Hungarian poetry

Book:
Il pane perduto by Bruck Edith

This one is the autobiography of a Hungarian Jewish poet who is also a Holocaust survivor. She was labeled by the media "the Anne Frank who lived", which I think is a bit iffy, but the book is nonetheless interesting. Most of it tells about her trying to find her place and purpose in the world again after surviving Auschwitz. She ended up living and publishing in Italy.

#poetry #JewishWomen #WomensHistory #Hungary #biography
Topic 3: Baltic countries

Book:
Old Thiess, a Livonian werewolf by Carlo Ginzburg and Bruce Lincoln

I actually tooted about this amazing werewolf trial story earlier so here is the link:
https://ohai.social/@TarkabarkaHolgy/109788418170538405

#werewolves #folklore #WerewolfWednesday
Topic 4: Saints

Book:
Furta Sacra: Thefts of Relics in the Central Middle Ages, by Patrick J. Geary

This was a hilarious yet well researched book on the business of stealing relics and justifying the theft with outrageous legends in the Middle Ages. From saints that *wanted* to be stolen all the way to saints who miraculously had two identical corpses so that both rival churches could have one...

#history #religion #saints #medieval #histodons
Topic 5: Money

Book:
The chemistry of money, by Brian Rohrig

This one is a deep dive into the chemistry of coins and paper money. All kinds of interesting topics, from how coins were made throughout history to be more corrosion resistant, all the way to what chemical reactions occur if we don't store our coin collection in the right box.

#money #numismatics #chemistry #science
Topic 6: Dictatorships

Book:
Secondhand time: the last of the Soviets, by Svetlana Alexievich

This book was one of the (emotionally) hardest reads I ever had. But it was so worth it. It is a compilation of interviews and personal monologues from hundreds of people, centered on the fall of the Soviet Union. People who were happy, people who were devastated, people who were guilty, and innocent. Nobel Prize well deserved.

#history #histodons #NobelPrize
Topic 7: Nature conservation

Book:
The lady and the sharks, by Eugenie Clark

I love a good autobiography by a trailblazing woman scientist, and this one did not disappoint. Eugenie Clark is famous for her work with sharks, even though she also worked with many other fascinating fishes that she writes about with equal enthusiasm.

This one was a very entertaining read, including personal details such as what it's like to dive while pregnant.

#shark #sharks #nature #WomenInSTEM #biography
Topic 8: The solar system

Book:
How ​I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming, by Mike Brown

If you are in my generation, Pluto losing its spot as a planet is likely a sore topic for you. I was therefore delighted to find this book, and learn more about just what the heck happened and why. By the end of the book I was not only stunned by the amount of work that went into the process, but I also learned to understand why Pluto is not a planet anymore.

#astronomy #planets #science #space #Pluto
Topic 9: 20th century classical music

Book:
From kitchen to Carnegie Hall: Ethel Stark and the Montreal Women's Symphony Orchestra, by Maria Noriega Rachwal

This one would deserve an HBO show. It's about the first full symphonic orchestra in North America that consisted solely of women, started in 1940. The story has many comical and even more inspiring moments as a group of women of all backgrounds turns into a musical success - and it's all true.

#WomensHistory #music #ClassicalMusic
Topic 10: Hoaxes and secrets

Book:
Mysteries of the Snake Goddess: Art, Desire, And The Forging Of History, by Kenneth Lapatin

This book delves into the questionable origins of the Boston Snake Goddess figurine. To provide background, it also deals with the long history of Minoan forgeries, and Sir Arthur Evans' track record of creating Minoan history and art from excavated artifacts. Good context for Bronze Age Crete and our view of what it was like.

#archaeology #history #histodons #Minoan
Topic 11: History of Science

Book:
The lady and the octopus: How Jeanne Villepreux-Power Invented Aquariums and Revolutionized Marine Biology, by Dana Staaf

This is a beautiful and colorful book on another trailblazing woman scientist, the inventor of the first aquariums. Jeanne Villepreux-Power contributed a lot to science, including research on how the argonaut gains its shell.

#science #WomensHistory #MarineBiology #octopus
Topic 12: The Rákóczi Revolution

My random topic was an important moment in Hungarian history, the Rákóczi revolution of 1703-1711.
I ended up reading a book by Magyar Zoltán (titled Rákóczi) that explored the mark the (unsuccessful) revolution left on Hungarian folklore and local legends. Despite it being relatively recent, it has seeped deep into Hungarian tradition, and gathered a lot of archaic, mythical tropes and motifs.

#Hungary #folklore #folktales #history
All in all, I love this reading challenge, and I did not regret picking up any of these books. I loved the topics and the places they took me. 📚

You can do your own version of this challenge if you like nonfiction :) Have fun!

#nonfiction #ReadingChallenge #books #bookstodon
This was *really* interesting, thank you!! 🙏

I've saved this whole thread, to make it easier to find later, because I definitely want to read a lot of these books.

I'm also interested in the polymath challenge (and that most of the categories stay the same each year) - it has sent me down a new path of thought! 🙏
the categories are different each year. But one can easily do their own challenge by picking random topics with WikiRoulette 😄
Thanks for sharing this! Will definitely have to try it out as an excuse to carve out reading time for twelve books. 🙃📚
Pluto was my favorite planet, and I was prepared to wave away the objections to its planethood, but this book was very convincing, and it really is not a planet.
Still, I made a shirt and mug design that laments in limerick form:

A planet called Pluto by name
Grew vast in stature and fame
It has its own moons
And yet all too soon
Was demoted to dwarf planet shame

https://www.zazzle.com/dwarf_planet_pluto_limerick_poster-228617227139164417
❤️ Aleksievich! I strongly recommend her Chernobyl book.
I just started it!
Just to clarify: "Bruck Edith" is Hungarian name order.
Yes, except she doesn't use it like that, not even on the Hungarian covers
That's what I suspected. Is she Edit on the Hungarian covers?