Challenge Check-in: Nonfiction Reader Challenge

In hopes of completing my various reading challenges by the end of the year I will be posting check-ins this week on the various challenges and what I have left to read if I am going to complete them. 

The 2022 Nonfiction Reader Challenge has 12 categories and the idea is to read one nonfiction book for each of them, or to read any 12 nonfiction books.  I decided to participate as a "grazer" and set my own goal which was to read 12 books, but not necessarily in the defined categories.

These are the categories for which I have read books:

Social History: I read two books that fit this category Blizzard of Glass by Sally M. Walker and 99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret by Craig Brown and am counting both toward this challenge.

Popular Science: The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean

Language: Living with a Dead Language by Ann Patty

Celebrity: I am counting two books that fit this category Blowing the Bloody Doors Off by Michael Caine and Canada by Mike Meyers.

Published in 2022: The Power of Regret by Daniel H. Pink

I have completed 7 books so far and need to read 5 more. Or I need to designate other non-fiction books I already read this year as "wildcards" for this challenge.

These are the categories for which I haven't read/designated a book:

• Linked to a podcast
• Wild Animals (have A Libertarian Walks into a Bear on my shelf)
• Economics
• Medical Memoir
• Climate/Weather
• Reference
• Geography

The Power of Regret

The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward 

by Daniel H. Pink
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read Pink's book When a few years ago and really liked it so when I heard about this book I jumped right in. Pink conducted the World Regret Survey (which is still going on) and used the stories he collected there as a data set to analyze the role of regret in our lives. He identified correlations among the various regrets and addresses each type as well as talking about the implications of regret more generally. 

This was a thought-provoking book and Pink is an excellent writer. Mixing in people's personal stories with the social-science make this a very readable book.

Counts toward the Nonfiction Reader Challenge as a 2022 book.

99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret

Ninety-Nine Glimpses of Princess Margaret 

by Craig Brown
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When I first picked up this book (at a library book sale I think) I thought it was a novel, and in some ways (having now read it) I think I was correct. Technically it is a biography of HRH the Princess Margaret (1930-2002), sister to Queen Elizabeth II. It was published in Britain under the title Ma'am Darling.

Rachel Cook, writing in The Guardian, said:

Brown has done something amazing with Ma’am Darling: in my wilder moments, I wonder if he hasn’t reinvented the biographical form. Subtitled 99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret, it is described by his publisher (which, infuriatingly, hasn’t given him an index) as “kaleidoscopic”. But this doesn’t do it justice. It is a cubist book, a collection of acute angles through which you see its subject and her world (and, to an extent, our world) anew.

I really liked the form of this book -- each chapter (or glimpse) is a self-contained view. Some are diary entries from various people who met PM, others are press clippings, lists of related things, narrative descriptions of events in her life (like you would expect to find in a biography). Some of the glimpses are fictional "what-ifs" presented as if they had happened: a marriage to Pablo Picasso, and PM becoming Queen of England. This multiplicity of viewpoints comes together into a fascinating portrait of a life lived in a very strange fishbowl.

The New York Times Review of this book concludes with what I think is an accurate depiction of what this book does:

"Without ever explicitly positioning Margaret for our pity, Brown reveals how we elevate in order to destroy. Who or what, in the final reckoning, is the true grotesque — the absurd, unhappy princess, those desperate to get close to her, or the system propping them all up?"

This was one of my 20 Books of Summer and I it counts toward the Nonfiction Reader Challenge in the category of "social history." I already have a book for that category however, so this one becomes one of my "wildcard" titles.

The Disappearing Spoon

The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements by Sam Kean
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I enjoyed this book, and I learned quite a bit from it. There were definitely parts that I didn't totally understand, but overall the author did a very good job at explaining a lot of chemistry in a way that made sense. There were a lot of stories about the personalities involved in the development of the periodic table and the discovery of various elements and I found those parts the most interesting. 

This title counts toward the Nonfiction Reader Challenge in the 'popular science' category.

Blizzard of Glass

Blizzard of Glass: The Halifax Explosion of 1917 

by Sally M. Walker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"On December 6, 1917 two ships collided in Halifax Harbour. One ship was loaded top to bottom with munitions and one held relief supplies, both intended for wartorn Europe. The resulting blast flattened two towns, Halifax and Dartmouth, and killed nearly 2,000 people. As if that wasn't devastating enough, a blizzard hit the next day, dumping more than a foot of snow on the area and paralyzing much-needed relief efforts." --jacket copy

Written for a juvenile audience this book is based on extensive archival research and interviews with people who lived through the tragedy. It contains a lot of photographs from various archives and museums which enhance the historical record. The author focuses on several families who lived in the area, from a variety of backgrounds, and takes the reader through the individual experiences of those people along with the report of events in the harbor that led to the explosion. This is a horrifying event in Canadian history told with compassion and attention to human detail.

I am counting this book toward the Canadian Reading Challenge, and the Nonfiction Reader Challenge (as social history).

 

Living with a Dead Language

Living with a Dead Language: My Romance with Latin 

by Ann Patty
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There is a lot of Latin grammar discussed in this book which I found rough going. Mixed into it is a delightful memoir of a woman who has retired from her career and is looking for a worthwhile way to fill her days and occupy her mind. The memoir kept me going through the discussions of declensions. I have never studied Latin at all but I suspect that if you have, even a bit, the explanations of what she is learning and what she finds a struggle in her studies would make sense. Patty's writing is excellent (she was an editor so this isn't surprising) and her story is very relatable. This book made me think about what I might want to dive deeply into as an academic pursuit in my rapidly approaching later years. It won't be Latin. 

Definitely recommended.

This title counts toward the Nonfiction Reader Challenge in the 'language' category.

Blowing the Bloody Doors Off

Blowing the Bloody Doors Off: And Other Lessons in Life 

by Michael Caine
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This memoir by British actor Michael Caine was part reminiscence and part self-help book. He described what happened in his career and shared stories about the rich and famous (all quite kind -- whenever he criticized someone he didn't name them) and mixed into the stories were the lessons he learned and advice he had to offer on how to get ahead in the world, even if you aren't an actor. Find someone amazing to be your spouse was key to his success. I enjoyed the book; Caine's writing style is very chatty and appealing. I was not familiar with many of the movies he made, but am interested now to see more. I watched Without a Clue which was quite funny and have The Quiet American on hand to watch soon. 

This title counts toward the Nonfiction Reader Challenge in the 'celebrity' category.

Nonfiction and Poetry 2022

One of my reading plans for 2022 was to read 25 works of nonfiction and 4 books of poetry." More would be fine, but I want to get to at least this many works of nonfiction in a variety of genres (essays, history, biography). I did well with a similar goal last year, in part because I kept a list so I will do the same this year using this post. 

I am not counting the poetry books toward the nonfiction count, but plan to track both here. If I blog about a specific book once I finish it I will link to the post. I am also doing the Nonfiction Reader Challenge and will note the categories (where applicable) each book fits into on this list. 

Nonfiction titles read:

1. Italy: A Short History by Harry Hearder (January)
2. Blowing the Bloody Doors Off by Michael Caine (January) NRC- celebrity
3. Canada by Mike Myers (January) NRC-celebrity/wildcard
4. A Voice from the Attic by Robertson Davies (January)
5. Readers' Advisory Guide to Genre Fiction (February)
6. How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where you Are to Where You Want to Be by Katy Milman (February)
7. Readers' Advisory Guide to Historical Fiction by Jennifer Baker (February)
8. The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman (February)
9. Living with a Dead Language by Ann Patty (March) NRC-language
10. Ikegai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life by Hector Garcia Puigcerver and Francesc Miralles (March)
11. Browsings: A Year of Reading, Collecting, and Living with Books by Michael Dirda (March)
12. Readers' Advisory Guide to Nonfiction by Neal Wyatt (April)
13. One Half of Robertson Davies by Robertson Davies (April)
14. Women Writers at Work by the Paris Review (April)
15. Blizzard of Glass by Sally M. Walker (April)
16. Dusk, Night, Dawn by Anne Lamott (May)
17. Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (May)
18. Readers' Advisory Service in the Public Library by Joyce Saricks (May)
19. The Power of Ritual: How to Create Meaning and Connection in Everything You Do by Casper ter Kuile (May)
20. Uncommon Carriers by John McPhee (June)
21. The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean (June) NRC - popular science
22. No Hard Feelings: Emotions at Work by Liz Fosslien and Mollie West Duffy (June)
23. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (June)
24. Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell is This? by Marion Meade (June)
25. Ninety Nine Glimpses of Princess Margaret by Craig Brown (July) NRC-social history/wildcard
26. The Power of Regret by Daniel H. Pink (July) NRC-published in 2022
27. Burning Questions by Margaret Atwood (July)
28. The Readers' Advisory Guide to Genre Blends by Megan McArdle (July)
29. Your Best Year Ever by Michael Hyatt (July)
30. The Lazy Genius Kitchen by Kendra Adachi (August)
31. Agatha Christie: First Lady of Crime edited by H.R.F. Keating (Sept.)
32. The One-page Financial Plan by Carl Richards (Sept.)
33. Living a Charmed Life by Victoria Moran (Sept.)
34. The Mindful Day by Laurie J. Cameron (Oct.)
35. Virginia Woolf: A Writer's Life by Lyndall Gordon (Oct.)
36. The Lazy Genius Way by Kendra Adachi (Oct.) NRC-related to a podcast
37. The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman (Oct.)
38. Midlife: A Philosphical Guide by Kieran Setiya (Oct.)
39. A Libertarian Walks into a Bear by Matthew Hongolz-Hetling (Nov.) NRC-animal related
40. If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future by Jill Lepore (Nov.)
41. Biography: Fiction, Fact, and Form by Ira B. Nadel (Nov.)
42. Off the Clock by Laura Vanderkamp (Nov.)
43. The 99% Invisible City by Roman Mars (Dec.)
44. Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen (Dec.)
45. Python Programming by Cal Baron (Dec.)

Poetry books read:

1. Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude by Ross Gay (October)

Nonfiction Reader Challenge 2022

Book'd Out is hosting a 2022 Nonfiction Reader Challenge which I think will be a good companion for me to the non-fiction reading goal I am setting for myself (more about that in a future post).

For this challenge there are 12 categories and the idea is to read one nonfiction book for each of them, or to read any 12 nonfiction books. There are also challenge levels for 3 and 6 books. There is also a set your own goal category (the nonfiction grazer). I am going to participate as a grazer because I plan to read 12 books, but only use some of the defined categories (8 at the most) and then fill in the remaining 4 spots with essentially wild-card selections.

These are the categories I am considering using (with possible titles for each):

Social History

• Columbine by Dave Cullen
• Stonewall: The Riots the Sparked the Gay Revolution by David Carter
• Brolliology: A History of the Umbrella in Life and Literature by Marion Rankine
• For All the Tea in China by Sarah Rose

Popular Science

• The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean

Language

• Greek to Me by Mary Norris
• Living with a Dead Language by Ann Patty
• Shady Characters by Keith Houston
• Just My Type by Simon Garfield

Celebrity

• Not My Father's Son by Alan Cumming
• Canada by Mike Meyers
• What Would Audrey Do? by Pamela Clark Keogh
• Cary Grant by Scott Eyman

Linked to a podcast

• NPR's Podcast Start-up Guide by Glen Weldon

Wild Animals

• A Libertarian Walks into a Bear by Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling
• The Book of Eels by Patrik Svensson

Economics

• The Secret Life of Groceries by Benjamin Lorr

Published in 2022 

• Maybe - depends on what comes out this year

The categories I think I will skip are Medical Memoir, Climate/Weather, Reference, and Geography.