Today’s TTT is a freebie, so I’m looking at books I’ve previewed (that is, had Amazon send me a kindle freebie of) but haven’t bought.
Coyote America: A Natural and Supernatural History, Dan Flores. This was more of a “I want to look at this book later” kind of preview. I’ve never heard a good thing said about coyotes, so I’m interested in a book about them.
The Dictator’s Handbook: Why Bad Behavior Is Almost Always Good Politics. I definitely want to read this one, but I’m forbidding myself from buying more books until I have made more progress on Mount Doom.
Killer High: The A History of War in Six Drugs, Peter Andreas. Definite TBR. My thinking is that I’ll permit myself to buy a new book for every five TBR books I dispatch.
The Shahnameh: The Persian Epic as World Literature, Hamid Dabashi. From the title I was hoping this would be a study of the Shahnameh, a copy of which I own and intend to read. From what I’ve heard of it, its cultural importance in Iran is huge, as if it were the Greek classics, Shakespeare, and stories of King Arthur and George Washington all rolled into one. The reviews of this particular title, however, indicate that it’s less about the Shahnameh and more about Dabashi’s grievances with the category of world literature in general.
America’s Other Army :The US Foreign Service. A probable-TBR, but not a lock-in.
Cold War in the Islamic World: Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Struggle for Supremacy. Dilip Hiro. A possible-TBR, but there’s a lot of competition in the geopolitics/foreign policy area.
A History of Violence: Living and Dying in Central America, Oscar Martinez. An account of how Central America became so destabilized. Martinez’ The Beast covered similar ground, on the horrors that narco-wars have visited on Mexico, and I’m waiting until my memories of that one are less salient.
Good Birders Don’t Wear White: 50 Tips from North America’s Top Birders, various. In the spring Amazon decided — after I read several books on birds and bought a pair of binoculars — that I was a birder, and for several weeks it recommended birding books to me obsessively. This one caught my eye, but I was planning for Read of England at the time.
Natasha’s Dance: A Cultural History of Russia. I’m interested in learning more about Russian culture, but this one is an absolute unit of a book.
Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation. I enjoy reading about video games and their history (I’m a child of the eighties and nineties, after all, but this one wasn’t engaging enough to purchase.
Reading Freely 
This is a clever spin! I haven’t seen any of these. So maybe you should read one or two and you can tell us all about it.
Here’s my 10 Reasons why reading and blogging is good for you
Coyote America sound really interesting! I love the sound of that.
It came up as related when I was hunting for science & nature books. I might do it as part of a miniseries on the western US, not sure!
Yet being the keyword here hehe 😀 Hope you get around to these soon!
Here’s my TTT if you want to take a look https://readwithstefani.com/10-books-i-want-to-read-by-the-end-of-2020/ Have a great day ahead!
Thank you for dropping by, and I enjoyed your post as well — I tried to comment on yours, but received the message “Blocked as a bot” in spite of not including a link or anything.
This is a really interesting list! I haven’t read much non-fiction of late and feel I should probably widen my horizons.. if there wasn’t so much already on my TBR!
Trust me, I know the feeling!
I hope you enjoy all of these books when you buy them!
My TTT .
I can’t wait to get my hands on some of those books. Wow, what a list. https://pmprescott.blogspot.com/2020/07/ttt-072820.html
interesting selections… i don’t dabble too much in modern stuff; mostly find my muse a hundred years ago or somewhat less…
I hope you get to buy these soon.. and enjoy. them!
Thank you!
These all sound so interesting! I’m easily sucked in by nonfiction. I tend to buy books based on their titles alone. The Dictator’s Handbook is a book I’d buy for sure.
It’s definitely an eye-attracting one!
“I’ve never heard a good thing said about coyotes” — oh! My friend, or complete stranger rather, in that case I must recommend The Daily Coyote.
My first thought was “Aw”, followed by “Oooh!”, and I suppose an aawooooo is appropriate! 😀 Many thanks!