Journal of the plague year

Daniel Defoe, 1772.

One of the first novels in English, and still one of the best. Tells the tale of the Bubonic Plague in London in 1665. Surprisingly modern, apart when discussing the origin and spread of the disease.

Defoe's arch style is to die for:

We had no such thing as printed newspapers in those days to spread rumours and reports of things, and to improve them by the invention of men, as I have lived to see practised since.

The making of the atom bomb

Richard Rhodes, 1986.

Good writing about science and engineering, thick in pages, scientific detail and personal history. A good antidote to juvenile essays about the morals of the atomic bomb too -- the scientists involved had thought it through, weighed their consciences, and decided that at USA with the bomb was better than a defeated USA without the bomb.