Non-Fiction

Are not as dry as historians of old. They're finding new and more engaging ways to get the history across, without making it feel like a lecture.

Barbara Tuchman, David McCullough, Lauren Hillenbrand, Ron Chernow, Erik Larson, David Gran, Jack Weatherford, Tracy Borman, Allison Weir (who's both a novelist and nonfiction writer), Jon Meacham, Taylor Branch--

All of these writers have changed how to write history now. They've sort of borrowed techniques from historical fiction and the true crime genre to make the history come alive. Some of them even slip in the odd bit of humour here and there. Or that's how the books I've read of late have presented history.

Maybe I've been lucky with my history reading, though.