Hello hello! This week’s host for Nonfiction November is Katie at Doing Dewey, who is encouraging us to talk about Nonfiction Favorites: 

We’ve talked about how you pick nonfiction books in previous years, but this week I’m excited to talk about what makes a book you’ve read one of your favorites. Is the topic pretty much all that matters? Are there particular ways a story can be told or particular writing styles that you love? Do you look for a light, humorous approach or do you prefer a more serious tone? Let us know what qualities make you add a nonfiction book to your list of favorites.

I decided to take the easy way out and respond to Katie’s questions one at a time, which hopefully will give a good sense of how I got about choosing my nonfiction reads.

Is the topic pretty much all that matters?

Absolutely not. I’m one of those weird nonfiction readers who will pick up a book on just about any topic – honestly, the stranger the better – provided the writing is good and the story is told in an interesting way. It does help if the topic is something in my wheelhouse, but some of my favorite books have been about things I didn’t really know I wanted to learn more about – lobsters, Star Wars, canoeing, or Olympic rowing, for example.

There are a few topics, however, that I tend to avoid. I generally don’t enjoy reading about World War II (or really, any major war), and I’m not often interested in biographies of dead white dudes. While there are always exceptions — The Boys in the Boat comes to mind, as does a book from my TBR, Destiny of the Republic — those are definitely areas that I tend to skip if I don’t have specific recommendations.

Are there particular ways a story can be told or particular writing styles that you love?

As a former journalist, I love stories where you get a chance to see how the author put the book together. I like learning a little bit about the reporting/writing of the book as I’m reading it, and when the author find a way to become part of the narrative in a subtle, useful way. These aren’t memoirs (although I like them too), just well-researched nonfiction that includes a personal component in the writing.

Mary Roach is really excellent at this style — her science writing is infused with her personality in a way I really love. Sarah Vowell also does this well. A book I read recently, Nomadland by Jessica Bruder, benefited a lot from her immersion with the story she was trying to tell. The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee is another tough topic that was made easier to read about thanks to the personal experience the author was able to include.

Do you look for a light, humorous approach or do you prefer a more serious tone?

One of the things I can be a little pushy about is the idea that nonfiction can be equally as fun and transporting as fiction. I read nonfiction for enjoyment as often or more than I choose to read fiction for pleasure, which means I generally look for a lighter touch. That doesn’t mean I don’t read nonfiction on serious topics, just that I tend to look for a more readable writing style — I’m much more of a popular, mainstream nonfiction reader than an academic nonfiction reader.

And that’s all for this week. Thanks again to those who are reading, commenting, and visiting the other bloggers participating this month. It was fun to host last week and finally make it around to all of the bloggers participating. Make sure to visit Doing Dewey to check out what other people are saying about their favorite nonfiction!

Some of these links are Amazon Affiliate links. If you click through and buy something on the site, I’ll get a small commission. 

You guys, I had such a good time reading all the posts for this week’s Nonfiction November prompt, Be the Expert/Ask the Expert/Become the Expert. I’m sorry this wrap up is getting published so late, I had a crazy week and just finished commenting on the last post a few minutes ago.

Here are the bloggers and topics that made up this week’s prompt. Be sure to click over to those you haven’t read yet, or those topics that are especially interesting to you (especially those near the bottom of the list) — a lot of them were really creative:

Heather at Based on a True Story — People Forced to Leave Their Homes

Kazen at Always Doing — Doctors Doing Their Thing Awesomely

Unruly Reader — Self-Improvement Books

Kate at booksaremyfavouriteandbest — Books About the Intersection Between Our Physical Being and Psychological Being

Julie at Julz Reads — Mountains

Beth at Too Fond — Raising Children With an Awareness of Nature

Emma at Words And Peace — France

Katherine at Writerly Reader — Folklore in the Digital Age

Kim at Time2Read — U.S. Presidents

Lindsay @ Lindsay’s Library — Dogs, Animals, Exploration, History, Medicine, Science, Travel, War

Lory at Emerald City Book Review — White Trash and Hillbilly Elegy

Anne@ Head Fullof Books — Mental Illness and Abnormal Psych

Juliana at Wild Places — Maritime Disasters

raidergirl3 at an adventure in reading — Feminist Theory 101, Biology Topics, and Black History Month

Eva at The Paperback Princess — Hollywood

Maphead’s Book Blog — Iran

Iliana at Bookgirl’s Nightstand — Bookbinding

Trav at HeadSubhead — Bookshops

Tara at Running ‘n’ Reading — Staying Injury-Free

Sarah at Sarah’s Bookshelves — Reading and Writing Life

Angela at Literary Wanderer — Female Heroes

Susie at Novel Visits — Women and World War II

Nick at One Catholic Life — Spiritual Reading

Deb at The Book Stop — U.S. Politics and Current Events

Heather at Gofita’s Pages — Death and Dying

Kristilyn at Reading in Winter — Memoirs

JoAnn at Lakeside Musing — Books About Books

Buried in Print — Residential School System

Literary Lindsey — Gardening and Local Eating

Novels and Nonfiction — World War II

Carrie at Other Women’s Stories — The Kennedy’s

Jessica at The Bookworm Chronicles — Christian Nonfiction

Brona’s Books — The Holocaust

TJ at My Book Strings — History and Development of Free Speech

Tina at Novel Meals — Ex-Pat Literature

Thanks to all who have participated so far! Next week’s host is Katie at Doing Dewey who will be asking about Nonfiction Favorites:

We’ve talked about how you pick nonfiction books in previous years, but this week I’m excited to talk about what makes a book you’ve read one of your favorites. Is the topic pretty much all that matters? Are there particular ways a story can be told or particular writing styles that you love? Do you look for a light, humorous approach or do you prefer a more serious tone? Let us know what qualities make you add a nonfiction book to your list of favorites.

Because putting together book lists is my favorite thing – I’m really excited to be hosting this week’s topic of Nonfiction November – Be the Expert/Ask the Expert/Become the Expert:

Three ways to join in this week! You can either share three or more books on a single topic that you have read and can recommend (be the expert), you can put the call out for good nonfiction on a specific topic that you have been dying to read (ask the expert), or you can create your own list of books on a topic that you’d like to read (become the expert).

I’m going to break the rules a little bit and offer up a list that’s a combination of Be the Expert and Become the Expert – three books all about genes and genetics.

First, the two books I’ve already read:

The Family Gene by Joselin Linder

For years, members of Joselin Linder’s family have come down with a deadly illness that doctors cannot explain. As Linder struggles to understand her own mysterious symptoms – a blocked liver, swollen legs, and a heart murmur – researchers she spoke with suggested that the illness haunting her family may actually be a private genetic mutation. In the book, Linder explores her family’s medical history, the development of gene science, and what it’s like to be a young woman with a potentially fatal mutation making choices that would affect generations to come. I was gripped by this book from the first page, and will be recommending it often.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

This book is one of my go-to recommendations for people who say they just aren’t interested in nonfiction because it is just so good. In 1951, Henrietta Lacks, an African American woman from Baltimore, was diagnosed with cervical cancer. Without her consent, cells from her cancerous tumor were biopsied and cultured, creating the HeLa cell line. HeLa cells, which have continued to reproduce continually, are known as an “immortalized cell line,” and have been part of many of the most significant scientific breakthroughs of the last 60 years. Based on extensive research and interviews with the Lacks family, this book is a masterful exploration of the intersections of medicine, class and race in the United States.

And finally, the book I am really curious to read now:

The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee

Siddhartha Mukherjee is one of the best science writers out there right now. I’ve read his first book on cancer, The Emperor of All Maladies, but haven’t gotten around to his second, The Gene. In the book, Mukherjee looks to answer the big question posted by genetic science: What becomes of being human when we learn to “read” and “write” our own genetic information? Mukherjee uses the story of his own family’s struggle with mental illness to explore the science and social history of genetic science and how the things we’re learning now may play out in the real world. He digs deep into the history of genetics, and looks forward to what we know now thanks to the mapping for the human genome.

And Now It’s Your Turn

And now, since I’m the host this week, it’s your turn to share your book lists. If you’re participating this week, feel free to link up your posts to the Mr. Linky below:

Thanks again to everyone who has participated so far. And don’t forget you can join us over on Instagram for our photo challenge using the hashtag #nonficnov. If you follow the hashtag, you’ll find the list of prompts. I hope you’ll join us!

Happy Sunday! A couple of weeks ago Jenny at Reading the End decided to launch a little project called Something on Sunday, a way to celebrate the little things in life and share some love for the things that matter most. She encouraged people to blog every Sunday “about something that kept you on your feet that week,” big or small, bookish or not, that’s happening right now.

My Something on Sunday for this week happens to be big, and sort of bookish — after almost seven months of unemployment, I got a job!

Since mid-October I’ve been working as the social media specialist for the Washington County Library system. It’s a new position for the library and for the county, which means I’ve had a lot of room to experiment and make the job my own. In general, I’m responsible for running the library’s social media presence, analyzing data about our digital efforts, and strategizing how to better support the work being done at the libraries in our system. It’s so much fun.

I feel like working at a library is sort of the dream for bookworms. This isn’t exactly where I expected to land when I began my career exploration in March, but it also feels like exactly the place where I should be. I’m still adjusting to the fact that my season of sabbatical is over, but I also feel like a kid in a candy store when I get to walk up to the cataloging department and sneak a peek at all the new books going out into the world… so it kind of all evens out.

The transition of going back to work full time has been a little rough. I feel like I’m having to learn to manage my time all over again (through something like the fourth or fifth major change in the last 18 months), but one thing I have now is a greater capacity to give myself a break. Things will settle out soon enough, and at that point I hope to be back here more regularly. Thank you all (again and again and again) for your patience and kindness and good cheer — this community is amazing and I miss being a more active part of it.

Also, I decided to try bangs… photos to come.