In “Punching Out” (2011), Paul Clemens spends a year at the massive Budd Detroit Automotive Plant, Stamping and Framing Division in Detroit — the year after the plant has been shut down. He chronicles the plant’s press lines being disassembled and shipped off to the places where cars are made these days.
Interesting and thought-provoking, but deeply depressing. It’s hard to avoid thinking of the dismantling of a Detroit auto factory as a metaphor for the nation’s economy.
Read reviews from the Washington Post and the New York Times.
I very much enjoyed Jess Walter’s short story collection “We Live in Water” (2013).
Phil Lapsley’s “Exploding the Phone: The Untold Story of the Teenagers and Outlaws Who Hacked Ma Bell” tells the story of the underground “phone phreaking” culture of the pre-PC era. That group included Steve Wozniak (who wrote the book’s forward and Steve Jobs, and 
In The Idea Factory (2012), Jon Gertner tells the story of Bell Labs, the “idea factory” of the title. Bells Labs was established as the research & development arm of AT&T (once known as “Ma Bell”), which was committed to providing universal telephone service throughout the United States. The Bell Labs scientists would later invent the transistor and cellular telephony, among (many) other things, such as cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation.
I very much enjoyed Joe Peta’s Trading Bases: A Story About Wall Street, Gambling, and Baseball (Not Necessarily in That Order).
We recently checked out a new museum that opened in New York City called the Museum of Math (or, for the cool kids, MoMath).
Richard Russo’s memoir “Elsewhere” (2012) is, quite simply, required reading for anyone who has enjoyed Russo’s work, especially his earlier books.
An awesome read from Nate Silver, a guy who has done some fascinating things.
In The Half-Life of Facts (2012), author Samuel Arbesman argues that “everything we know has an expiration date.
Peter Chapman’s Bananas (2008) tells the story of how the United Fruit Company pretty much ran Central America for a good part of the 20th century.