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Under the Tuscan Sun – Frances Mayes
Bitter is the New Black – Jen Lancaster
The Book of Awesome – Neil Pasricha
The Tall Book: A Celebration of Life from on High – Arianne Cohen
All Roads Lead to Austen: A Yearlong Journey with Jane – Amy
Elizabeth Smith
Happier at Home: Kiss More, Jump More, Abandon a Project,Read Samuel Johnson, and My Other Experiments in the Practice of Everyday Life –
Gretchen Rubin
Mick Jagger – Philip Norman
The End of Your Life Book Club – Will Schwalbe
They’re all pretty similar, right? Some travel, memoirs,
biographies with a couple research type books thrown in there too. Obviously I don’t
really stray from what I like when it comes to non-fiction. Which, I suppose I sort
of knew when it comes to wandering bookstores. I’ll always look in the same few
sections.
One of the reasons I don’t read a lot of non-fiction is
because I’m really slow at reading them. This is odd and frustrating because I’m
such a fast fiction reader. About half of the above books took me forever to
read, even though I liked the majority of them. The ones that I gobbled up were
The Tall Book, Happier at Home, and The End of Your Life Book Club. (The Book
of Awesome is one of those books that I read a few pages at a time over a few
months but it could easily be read in an afternoon.) I loved The Tall Book because it was interesting and relatable to me (I’m 6’ tall!) and was full of
interesting stats and research. I love the way Rubin writes and combines her research
with personal experience and have thoroughly enjoyed both her Happiness Project
books. The End of Your Life Book Club was such a moving story and I highly
recommend it to everyone.
What I discovered with Mick Jagger was that I’d rather read
memoirs than biographies. It also didn’t help that I didn’t like the way Norman
wrote or that Jagger didn’t have anything to do with the book. Sure, memoirs
may not be super objective but I didn’t feel like this particular bio was
objective either (Norman thought the sun rose and set with Mick, I think).
So those are my thoughts on non-fiction! I know I was very
specific in titles but I think it does show what kind of books I like when it
comes to non-fiction. What about you? Do you read any non-fiction? What are
some of your favourite titles?
Nonfiction tends to slow me down a little as well. I think it might be because of all the facts? I want to make sure I get them filed away in my brain correctly.
ReplyDeleteNonfiction books are my favorite to read. I've had so many recent favorites. The World's Strongest Librarian is a fantastic memoir :)
The Austen book looks good-will have to look for it! I also read The End of Your Life Bookclub really fast!
ReplyDeleteKerri @ Turn the Page Reviews
http://turnthepagereviews.com
I saw The End of Your Life Book Club on goodreads and thought it sounded interesting. I think I'm going to add it to my TBR. The Tall Book sounds really interesting, but I am not tall so it would probably just make me wish I was, haha! I need to read more non-fic! I always mean to but end up getting more fiction instead. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteI really really really need to read The End of Your Life Book Club just because I could do with a good book-cry.
ReplyDelete