Another couple of small non-fiction books that are rather similar to each other: Acquainted with the Night, by Christopher Dewdney, about night-time; and Latitude Zero, by Gianni Guadalupi, which follows the equator around the world and through history. Both good for small-dose history and anecdotes.

Another one a little heavier; The Island of the Color-Blind by Oliver Sacks. Offbeat and interesting.

Birdwatching books have had a rise in popularity recently, or at least books about birdwatching. "Two Redtails in Love" got a lot of attention, so did "Club George", both New York-centric. A better one is "The Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature and Fowl Obsession", by Mark Obmascik, about a man trying to see every species of bird on the North American continent in one year. Birders can do a big year for almost any size area, township, county, state, etc., but this is the American Birding Assn's big contest. This story reads like what a friend of mine would call " a regular book", meaning a thriller, I guess.

Jack Pendarvis, mentioned earlier in this blog as the author of "The Mysterious Secret of the Valuable Treasure", has a new book of short stories coming out, "Your Body is Changing". Put it on the list.