Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Dishing on Non-Fiction

It's time for an informal poll.

We talk about fiction a lot, but rarely discuss non-fiction. So I want to know- how much non-fiction do you read? Memoir, self-help, history, current events, whatever.

Here's my non-fiction list so far this year:

1. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert (Loved this- read it in two days!)
2. Judgement of the Pharaoh: Crime and Punishment in Ancient Egypt by Joyce Tyldesley (Read this in two days as well- needed it for both WIP's.)
3. John Adams by David McCullough (Hefty, but well-worth it! And yes, this is the book HBO based their series on.)
4. Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America by Douglas Brinkley (Been at this one a while now- it's good, but 1000+ pages.)

So you tell me: how often do you crack open non-fiction? Any you'd recommend?

6 comments:

Nicole said...

I love Alison Weir :)

Matthew Delman said...

I'm currently reading a book called The Industrial Revolutionaries, about the men who pushed the first Industrial Revolution ahead. I've also been known to read history books about the middle ages on occasion.

I love flipping through my copy of da Vinci's translated diaries. So many cool ideas there.

Joshua McCune said...

Not much, and usually only the stats type ones (e.g, Freakonomics, The Tipping Point).

Susan Kaye Quinn said...

I loved that Adams book! (also Freakonomics was very cool)

All my non-fiction reading lately has been either science related (User's Guide to the Universe) or writing related (Writing the Breakout Novel). I was more diverse before writing took over my life. :)

L. T. Host said...

I have a non-fiction idea (what don't I have an idea for?) but I don't read a whole lot of it. I don't know why, really, I guess I'm just not usually looking to read it. I'll have to check these out, though!

Nate Wilson said...

I delve into non-fiction much more than I used to, but that's still (at best) one for every five I read on the fiction side of things. Though I like to learn new things, I need to be entertained. Ideally, the author delivers both.

A few of my favorites: Freakonomics, A Short History of Nearly Everything (Bill Bryson), Stiff (Mary Roach), Mom's Marijuana (Dan Shapiro).