My Year in Nonfiction

Week 1: (November 1-5) – Your Year in Nonfiction with Rennie at What’s Nonfiction: Take a look back at your year of nonfiction and reflect on the following questions – What was your favorite nonfiction read of the year? Do you have a particular topic you’ve been attracted to more this year? What nonfiction book have you recommended the most? What are you hoping to get out of participating in Nonfiction November?

So far this year I have read quite a bit (at least for me) of various types of non-fiction. The full list is included in my Nonfiction and Poetry 2021 post. I set it as a goal to read 10 works of NF this year and to date have read 33. This included essays (4 books); history (2); self-help/productivity (11); memoir/biography (5); books on writing (3); true-crime (2); poetry (2) and 4 that don't fit any of these categories. I made a conscious choice to read a lot of self-help books this year--I'm not a huge fan of these, but I did find some useful insights in most of the ones I read. 

I think my favorite NF book this year was Square Haunting: Five Writers in London Between the Wars by Francesca Ward. It is a group biography of 5 women who all lived (at different times) in the same London square. They were all writers and scholars and their individual stories were interesting (I had only heard of some of them before reading the book) and their relationship to the neighborhood was a great way to link the lives together and show some London history as well. 

I have recommended The White Mountain by Dan Szczesny to several people. It is about New Hampshire's famous mountain and the various roles it plays (currently and historically) in the lives of people in the Granite State and beyond. 

I am looking forward to Nonfiction November as an opportunity to take stock of what I have read so far this year and consider what I might want to read next.