Play Book Tag discussion

Do you read nonfiction?
Why or why not?
What types of books do you choose for your nonfiction reading?

Not much. I will also confess that reading the descriptions and reviews for much non-fiction make my brain freeze in rejection and my eyes glaze.

My work life is so full of non-fiction and learning to stay on top of my area of expertise, there is no way I want that seeping into my relaxation reading. Also, during third year law school, I realized I had had a surfeit of reading to learn, that there are no more academics for me. Almost 40 years later, I still feel that way. Although I do have to do mandatory continuing legal education.😁

But I certainly do read it... memoirs, biographies, and autobiographies get read, a handfull each year. Some non-fiction explorations captivate me, like Appetite for America: How Visionary Businessman Fred Harvey Built a Railroad Hospitality Empire That Civilized the Wild West. I am trying to increase my reading of those from a rare read to one or two a year as part of keeping diversity in my reading I have a lovely modest TBR to choose from!

I also like reading essay collections, and in fact am really enjoying This Cold Heaven: Seven Seasons in Greenland.

One more comment : I do tend to lean towards women-centric non-fiction. One of the most powerful books I ever read, and relevant to this day, is Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape. Read in my 20s.

I am a self-proclaimed History nerd, so I read a lot of non-fiction. I always have one or two bedside and they are always the last reads of the day. It winds me down at the end of the day. I am not a big bio/auto-bio reader, though there are some great books in that genre that I have read Candice Millard excels in it.

Do you read nonfiction?

I do - it is about thirty to forty percent of my annual reading.

Why or why not?

I love to learn. I enjoy being informed about topics that impact our world.

As a secondary reason, I think of non-fiction as an antidote to some of the more outlandish claims being made on social media. It seems people say lots of things that have no basis in fact. I like to be able to refute this nonsense using references and proofs.

What types of books do you choose for your nonfiction reading?

I enjoy history, travel, memoirs/biographies, science, technology, psychology, health, art/artists, music/performing arts, sociology. I enjoy books about mountaineering, voyages by sea, extreme cold, ecology, artificial intelligence, baseball, wildlife, climate change, creativity, writing, how the brain works, and the list goes on and on.

There are some amazing authors writing non-fiction, and I always read their latest (just as I try to do in fiction).

Absolutely!

Favourite nonfiction for the longest time was biographies/memoirs. But add history to that. And much more: disasters (I guess that can fall under history), science, and lots more not coming to mind.

Often (but not always), it starts with something fictionalized that leads me to want to know more about what really happened.

I read much more fiction but I do read some nonfiction- mostly history, psychology, education, and women's issues. I'm not a big fan of memoirs but made an exception for things like Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood and Becoming. I did read multiple books on race in the last year, of which Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents is one of the most beautifully written books I have ever read, fiction or nonfiction.

There are some nonfiction books that read like fiction, such as The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo and In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin. I really enjoyed all of those.

I often skim parts of nonfiction, which is why I don't like it on audio. So much of nonfiction consists of "Here is a summary of A, which we have just discussed at length. Now that we have examined A, let us turn to B. There are 3 parts to B - c, d, and e. Let us look at them one at a time" . . etc. Aaargh!

I'm enjoying everyone's responses. Here is mine.

While I gravitate more to fiction, here's what interests me in non-fiction books: Memoirs, Art, Politics, Religion, Meditation, Psychology, Personal Finance, Travel, Health, Women's Issues, Social Media, Cookbooks and Food Writing, Wildlife and anything else that I would like to research.

(Borders had been my favorite bookstore. I remember spending hours there, grazing the various sections. They had a tremendous inventory. I was so sorry when they closed.)

I do read some non-fiction, though at least 75% of what I read annually is fiction. I like history, politics, travel, memoir/autobiography and biography. I also love food writing, though I suppose most of the ones I've read (excluding cookbooks), are also memoirs ...e.g. Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly or Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise. And I just ordered James Lapine's Putting It Together: How Stephen Sondheim and I Created Sunday in the Park with George (mostly because I'm such a Sonheim nerd...).

Holly R W wrote: "I'm enjoying everyone's responses. Here is mine.

While I gravitate more to fiction, here's what interests me in non-fiction books: Memoirs, Art, Politics, Religion, Meditation, Psychology, Persona..."

I loved Borders as well and mourned when it closed. I went on a buying streak before it close and I still haven't read all those books.

I do read non-fiction, although I'm also mostly a fiction reader. I enjoy historically accurate historical fiction that often leads to substantial non-fiction google searches.

I rarely read popular/celebrity memoirs, but I enjoy detailed biography and autobiography. Walter Isaacson, Ron Chernow and David McCullough are favorite non- fiction authors.

I read more fiction, but I like nonfiction, especially sciences, history, memoir/biography, books on books, social sciences, music, essays, cooking, gardening, animals, baseball- pretty much anything that catches my interest.

Some authors I really enjoy are Bill Bryson, Mary Roach, Kate Summerscale, Sam Kean and Ibram X. Kendi. Essays by James Baldwin, Joan Didion, Jessica Ward.

I have been reminded while reading everyone's answers that I too read travel and food nonfiction. I also have a fondness for books about words and language, process of creating, books and book collecting, needlework and textile. I do not read celebrity tell-alls or memoirs. I have also been known to sink into what I call geographic or cultural biographies such as books about the Silk Road or Ancient Egypt.

I also like books about books, about language, about crossword puzzles, Scrabble, etc. I have read some about the historical periods that interest me, which are mostly Regency and Victorian England and the same period in France. An entertaining book in this mode was The Essence of Style: How the French Invented High Fashion, Fine Food, Chic Cafes, Style, Sophistication, and Glamour.

I enjoy some pop culture books such as Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media and When Women Invented Television: The Untold Story of the Female Powerhouses Who Pioneered the Way We Watch Today. I have a speaking gig where I talk about women from US history and women's issues, so I've read some interesting biographies, including Margaret Fuller: A New American Life, The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism, Louisa: The Extraordinary Life of Mrs. Adams, Maria Mitchell and the Sexing of Science: An Astronomer among the American Romantics, Diva Julia: The Public Romance and Private Agony of Julia Ward Howe, The Rabbi's Atheist Daughter: Ernestine Rose, International Feminist Pioneer, and Free Thinker: Sex, Suffrage, and the Extraordinary Life of Helen Hamilton Gardener. Some of these are rather long but I found them all rewarding. Plus it's very easy to compose a 20-minute talk after reading them! Someone in my audience said I should write a book about one of the subjects. I said it's already done, that's where I got the info I just gave you. I always give credit to the books I used and encourage people to read them for more information. Currently I am presenting about Frances Ellen Watkins Harper. She was a Black abolitionist, suffragist, famous poet and novelist and basically nobody today has heard of her. Unfortunately, there is no full-length biography of her, just some chapters in various books.

I do read some non-fiction every year.

I like memoirs, I love history books written by journalists - they tend to be easier to read than academic versions.

I also really like what (I think) is classified as "micro history" where an era in history is told through the story of a single item - usually an item that no one really thinks about having any impact on history at all. Some of my favorites:

Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World
Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human
Bananas!: How The United Fruit Company Shaped the World
Vanishing Fleece: Adventures in American Wool

And I read anything and everything from Malcom Gladwell.

I could add animals and travel to my list, being more specific. Those also often fit under memoirs, as well.

I don't read much nonfiction since life is nonfiction and often read to relax in the evenings. My nonfiction reading varies quite a bit when I read it, though, as do my reasons for reading it.

I am an all about the story, kind of person, but I am also a have to know kind of person, so although fiction is my go to, I also read nonfiction. This year I am reading about 20% nonfiction.

Like fiction, I have go to authors who I read just about everything they write, Erik Larson, Timothy Egan, Philbrick, David Grann and Frances Mayes come to mind.

Going back through the years of my reading, I find a range of subjects which appeal to me - Biography/memoir, history, farming and small village life, animals, environment/nature, journalists/photo-journalist, health/mental health, travel/travelogues, social issues, refugees/immigrant, food.=/cooking.

Do you read nonfiction?

Yes! And there was a period of time when I basically read no nonfiction at all, so I'm trying to make up for lost time.

Why or why not?

I used to think I, as an aspiring novelist, had no use for nonfiction at all. Then ironically I became invested in writing nonfiction for my professional work, so that previous stipulation seemed silly and short-sighted. These days I do a lot of nonfiction/academic reading for research purposes, and I rarely record that on Goodreads because I'm often skimming or just trying to find a part of a book that's useful to me when the rest of it isn't, or reading academic articles, etc. If I read a book in full I try to include it in my Goodreads challenges, because that's when I feel qualified to talk about how a book was crafted, but often I try not to mix my work reading with my pleasure reading.

What types of books do you choose for your nonfiction reading?

My research reading is in the realm of politics, international relations, law, sociology, anthropology, human rights work, etc. I have found the joys of reading nonfiction for pleasure, though. In those instances I try to pick books that have no crossover with my research but I'm just curious about – interesting areas of history, for the most part. For example I've flagged history books on the Knights Templar that I really want to dig into, and I really really enjoyed reading The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon this year. Basically I've turned into a history nerd and I want to know all the things!

Do you read nonfiction?>
Yes! I would say at least 1/3 of my reading is non-fiction. I especially like it on audio though I do miss out on the photos and footnotes sometimes.

Why or why not?
I enjoy listening to people's stories, considering perspectives of others and learning new things. While I can definitely get all of that in fiction, I enjoy true stories as well.

What types of books do you choose for your nonfiction reading?
I read lots of everything. I do enjoy biographies and memoirs of celebrities, immigrants and those who just have a story to tell. I love travel tales. I enjoy learning history, nature and microhistories. I really enjoyed The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge and Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI. I just found the whole history so interesting.

I also really enjoy essays on social justice, the drug epidemic, feminism or even just social commentary on life. A Mind Spread Out on the Ground was mentioned in the Fall Flurries thread and it was excellent as was How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America. Currently I'm reading Against White Feminism: Notes on Disruption and I'm not sure that I agree with everything she says but I really appreciate her voice and perspective to understand the other side of the debates, agree with much and to better examine if I'm really listening to others before disagreeing with other points.

Jen K wrote: " A Mind Spread Out on the Ground was mentioned in the Fall Flurries thread and it was excellent as was How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America. j..."


Thanks for that, I am planning to read A Mind Spread Out on the Ground, I've been trying to get to is some time .

How the Word is Passed has been on my radar and I'm not sure when I can fit it in.

Mainly historical nonfiction but with the occasional scientific and (auto)biography/memoir thrown in for good measure!

I do read nonfiction.

I find that depending on what is going on with me a work and life shapes how much or how little I read fiction (for escape and enjoyment) vs. nonfiction (for thinking and focus).

I can go on reading jags of both.

I have recently been reading more non fiction, starting with the Walk Through History Challenge. I tend to veer toward fiction and usually need to gently push myself into non fiction. I love to learn so I enjoy it once I'm engaged.

I see I didn't respond. Which tells you my answer. You guys know me. It's complicated. Seems I read about 10 or so non-fiction books a year. Some I love. Others are harder for me. Some I just cannot do more than dissociate and grasp the pieces that I can. Others have been unexpectedly entrancing. I read two memoirs for July and I liked them both. It/s really like history or economics that kill me for Non-Fiction. Unless they read like a story. I can do non-fiction politics, or political memoirs.