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It takes a lot of work to be this nerdy.
We hope you love the products we recommend! Just so you know, BuzzFeed may collect a share of sales from the links on this page.
Look, I am not here to defend or even explain my interests, ok? This one seems a little out of step with the rest of them, sure, but I have an intense fascination with weather, and this book both helped calm some fears and stoke others. Anyway, this is more of a facts-/trivia-based approach to weather, as opposed to a sciencey one, so keep that in mind. If that suits your fancy, though, you'll love it like I did and still do. It has a lot of sections on crazy weather events throughout history, and explains some truly WTF ones, like St. Elmo's Fire. And considering I recently got a question about St. Elmo's Fire right at bar trivia, I can say this book has been preeeetty darn helpful.
Get it from Amazon for $11.88+, Barnes & Noble for $1.99+, or a local bookseller through IndieBound here.
If you, like Bill Nye, thinks science rules, consider reading We Have No Idea: A Guide to the Unknown Universe or A Short History of Nearly Everything.
All your historical European faves make an appearance in this utter classic — Anne Boleyn! Martin Luther! Leonardo da Vinci! The gang is literally all here. So much of our current world (not to mention Jeopardy! clues) is informed by the Medieval era and the Renaissance, and Manchester does an unparalleled job at describing the key events and figures so that you actually remember who's who. It's a huge — and hugely important — span of time, which can seem overwhelming, but this book is the perfect way to digest and learn it all. This is another one I read for school, and liked so much I decided to get a copy of my own. It's called history. Learn it.
Get it from Amazon for $9.99+, Barnes & Noble for $1.99+, or a local bookseller through IndieBound here.
World history is an overwhelmingly broad category, but some good starter books are Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, The Six Wives of Henry VIII, or Why the West Rules — for Now.
The law, the Constitution, and the Supreme Court never seem more human and relatable than they do in this book. It focuses on the Supreme Court in the post-Roe v. Wade years, particularly when William Rehnquist was chief justice. If you want to know all about the close personal friendship between Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia, this book has it! If you want an up-close look at how the court decides the cases that affect your day-to-day life, yep, that's all in there, too. Even if you just want a better context for knowing weird-sounding Latin legal phrases, this book can do that for you. I read it in, like, three days, and after, I felt like I could take on Judge Judy AND Jeopardy!. If that's not a ringing endorsement, I don't know what is.
Get it from Amazon for $7.28+, Barnes & Noble for $1.99+, or a local bookseller through IndieBound here.
Mmmmm legal history. Do yourself a favor and also check out All The President's Men or Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-63.