A Nonfiction reading list

In designing a Nonfiction MA course for City University here in London, I came up with the following reading list. It's a 'work in progress' - all such lists are partial. These works are exemplary in some way, but it's also possible to be annoyed by parts of them and have your own writing develop through working out why.

I sought a mid-Atlantic list, so a balance of British and American writing. I also looked to balance male and female writers. The next step was covering the various genres .. so a little travel, memoir, crime, nature, biography, immersion, new journalism, war, history etc. Essay collections, fine as they might be, I avoided in favour of books with a sustained narrative arc. But for the H.V.Morton, the list comes from the latter half of the 20th century.
Having got rid of most of my books over the years, I've started collecting these titles again in secondhand editions. It's fun to be reacquainted.

Jan Morris, Venice

Tracy Kidder, Among Schoolchildren

Jonathan Raban, Soft City

Colin Thubron, The Lost Heart of Asia

Mark Bowden, Black Hawk Down

George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London

Bruce Chatwin, In Patagonia

Bruce Lamb, Wizard of the Upper Amazon

H.V.Morton, In the Steps of St Paul

Gitta Sereny, The Case of Mary Bell

Anthony Beevor, Berlin; The Downfall 1945

Patricia Hampl, A Romantic Education

John Hersey, Hiroshima

Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior

Hunter S Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Terry Tempest Williams, Refuge: an Unnatural History of Family and Place

Claire Tomalin, The Unequalled Self

Piers Paul Read, Alive

Anna Funder, Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall

John Krakauer, Into the Wild

Simon Winchester, The Surgeon of Crowthorne

John McPhee, The Curve of Binding Energy

Richard Rhodes, Why They Kill

Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Tom Wolfe, The Electric Kool-aid Acid Test

Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire