"Light" non fiction

corblimey

According to my reading log, I'm becoming disillusioned with fiction. Of 62 books read so far this year, just 22 have been fiction, and I've only liked half of them (and that's being optimistic, my system seems to be 'well there was nothing overly wrong with it, so I guessed I liked it).

So for next year, I'm going to concentrate on non-fiction, but there are times when I really need something light to read. I'm thinking of things like travelogues (Bryson and the like) and sports-based books (Moneyball and things like that) but I'm definitely light on light books.

I've considered the list on http://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/light-nonfiction and there's some books there I want to read, but I'm open to specific suggestions or even genres that are generally pretty light.

First_October

You can't go wrong with Bryson; the man's a genius at what he does!

Manach

Bryson++.
Another recommendation: Nate Silver's "The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail — but Some Don't" which is a friendly approach to the power and (mis)use of statistics in life.

Pa8301

They both might be a bit dated now but The Miracle of Castel di Sangro by Joe McGinniss and A Season with Verona by Tim Parks are worth a read.

tawfeeredux

Roger Kahn's 'Boys of Summer' - I'm reading it at the moment, really like his writing style, not too heavy on the baseball details.
Also, Tim Moore's 'French Revolutions', similar in style to Bryson.

IvyTheTerrible

I like commodity histories, I think Salt by Mark Kurlansky on that Goodreads list is excellent, for example.