Exploring one particular topic with a series of books sounds rather interesting to be honest. I think on HN in particular it wouldn't surprise me to find that most people are reading more non-fiction than fiction.
Can you give an example of a topic and some related books that you enjoyed?
There are lots of books about the former, with a huge number of various angles. Dom Nozzi has a couple of books with critical analysis on traffic planning and suburbia; well, he's not against all that per se, he just carefully points out the planning patterns that do not work for humane living. Then everybody probably knows Kunstler who has been a vocal author on the subject for years; I can recommend his TedTalk[1] to sum up many of his books. On the contrary, a delightful book about the appeal and history of the British suburbia by Paul Barker is the book 'The Freedoms of Suburbia', to be enjoyed slowly over the cup of hot tea.
[1] http://www.ted.com/talks/james_howard_kunstler_dissects_subu...