Hey bookworm friends, since I recently read a couple of nonfics I thought I’d share the very small list of ones I’ve read through the years. Or, at least the ones worth remembering, I may be excluding one or two that I wish I could forget 😂. The title should say Complete(ish) but that’s not SEO-friendly so that will be our little secret 😉. Given that this is not my preferred genre, I thought it would be fun to document my brief dips into various topics that captured my attention. I’m framing this list as my starting point and hope to use it as a motivator to grow the List of Nonfiction Books under my belt.
Please Note: I catalogue biographies and memoirs I read separately from the nonfiction books so I’ll make another list featuring those later.
List of Nonfiction Books
The Art Thief – Michael Finkel│True Crime
Why I Picked It Up: I needed a book with a bat on the cover for a reading prompt & this one came to mind first.
How I Felt About It: I really enjoyed it & was utterly engrossed! My Review.
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Poyums – Len Pennie│Poetry
Why I Picked It Up: I like the creator and have been following her on social media so I wanted to check out her book.
How I Felt About It: I don’t know anything about poetry but connected to her poems. My Review.
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Freedom Is A Constant Struggle – Angela Y. Davis │ Politics, Social Justice, History
Why I Picked It Up: I wanted to educate myself a bit on the concept of collective liberation to read something that pertains to the situation in Palestine.
How I Felt About It: It was a tough but important read. It was insightful and helped me understand some things so I’m glad I read it. It also made me realize how much I don’t know, which is equally as valuable.
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Bring It On: The Complete Story of the Cheerleading Movie That Changed, Like, Everything – Kase Wickman │Pop Culture, Film
Why I Picked It Up: My brother gifted it to me for Christmas one year and we used to watch this movie obsessively as kids so of course I read it!
How I Felt About It: This was a fun read, I especially liked the second part which talked about the legacy of the movie with a focus on how cultural perceptions change with time.
4 More Nonfiction Books I Read
Eating Animals – Jonathan Safran Foer │Food, Environment, Philosophy
Why I Picked It Up: One of my friends recommended it because I’ve been saying I want to read more nonfiction books about the environment.
How I Felt About It: Another difficult, fascinating yet depressing read but I’m also glad to have read it. I appreciated how non-preachy and nuanced it is while being utterly unflinching at the same time.
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The Psychopath Test – Jon Ronson │Psychology, Science
Why I Picked It Up: Further proof that friend recommendations work on me sometimes 😄 I then recruited my friend and my husband to read it with me!
How I Felt About It: This was an engaging read and it generated a lot of discussion.
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The Sawbones Book – Justin McElroy & Sydnee McElroy │Medicine, Humour
Why I Picked It Up: Great question, since I never listened to the podcast😂 I saw it in my library’s catalogue, thought it looked cool and that’s about it.
How I Felt About It: I’m more lukewarm about this one, It was certainly entertaining and I find the subject matter fascinating but I remember it had a ton of typos.
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A History of the World in 100 Objects – Neil MacGregor│History, Art, Archaeology
Why I Picked It Up: I’ve already mentioned this book several times on my blog (see this #6Degrees of Separation Post), but I read it from a university professor’s recommendation.
How I Felt About It: This is one I adored when I read it in 2017 so probably considered my fav nonfiction book—which isn’t saying much since I’ve read like 8—but still.
Link-Up
I’ll be linking up this post with @athomealot’s Book Worms Monthly. It’s a monthly linky event where we can share our bookish content, up to 4 posts per month. Reviews, reading lists, interviews… anything book-related is allowed. Come join in on the fun!
Let’s chat in the comments!
What are your favourite genres to read? Do you read nonfiction? If so, what are some of your favourites?
How did you like the Ronson title? I read it last year and found it absolutely fascinating. It pairs nicely with Will Store’s “The Unpersuadables”.
I couldn’t possibly begin to list all of my nonfiction reads, but history, science, and society are the big three.
Your whole blog is I’m sure not even the entirely of all of your nonfic reads! 😛 & I really enjoyed the Ronson book, it was my first by him but it was fascinating, I agree. I read it in 2021 so I don’t recall all the details but I know I liked it. I’ll have to check out synopsis for The Unpersuadables!
I have Psychopath Test on my TBR. I keep intending to try it but have yet to do so.
Ah, cool okay. Well I hope you enjoy it if you pick it up and I do think it was entertaining and interesting.
I read Eating Animals about 10 (?) years ago and promptly stopped eating meat – I feel like that’s the highest praise I can give: this book changed my mind. 😊
I have The Psychopath Test on the bookshelf to read … may have to bump that up.
Great post and an interesting range of books/subjects.
Oh wow, that is very high praise indeed!
Cool, I hope you like The Psychopath Test if you do read it, I remember being engrossed by it when I read it a while ago.
Thank you so much ♥
I never read non fiction so I’d consider 8 a lot 😂 it’s great how varied the ones that you’ve read seem to be too. Sawbones sounds kind of interesting but that typo issue sounds worrying. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Bring It On, I definitely think it’s lovely that you got to experience the book for the nostalgia involved though. I have a couple of non fiction books on my TBR (a few of which I heard of from you) so I’ll really have to try and check one of them out sometime. My priority TBR is just always in the way 😂🙈
Well I am glad you think so 🖤! Since Sawbones is based off of a Podcast it kind of collects stories from the podcast I just wish more attention was paid to the finishing details of it. & Oh Bring It On was my childhood movie, my brother and I could quote the heck out of it and the funny part is we didn’t know what half the things meant until we were older (it being a teen movie and we were young kids) 😂. That dang priority TBR, if it could only read itself 🤣🤣Hehee jk, doing the reading yourself is the fun part! lol
Podcasts are another thing I really need to try and check out sometime 😅 I have a few jotted down now though from you and another blogger. And it’s so frustrating when those details are lapsed. It feels especially troublesome to have typos in a non fiction in a way as it kind of makes you question some of the facts too. It’s lovely that you had the movie in common and it’s wonderful having those sort of films and shows that you watched all the time. I get that as looking back at some things I saw when I was younger I can’t help but think I really wouldn’t have got that 😂 although I wasn’t quoting it 😅 I’m not even planning to read the unowned ones on it until next year & that list is pretty massive so who knows when I’ll get them all read 🙈
Yeah same, I have a few podcasts that I want to try as well but I almost always choose music or an audiobook instead 🤷♀️
I agree, like a spelling mistake shouldn’t make you doubt the content but sometimes it does and that’s unfortunate because that’s not the reaction the authors want!
yeah my goodness some of things we watched as kids that went over our heads I think it’s probably a good thing we didn’t understand them back then! 😆
Yeah that’s understandable! Good luck, you got this!!
I just don’t seem to think to put anything like that on. Like yesterday I did a ton of tidying and never even put any music on 🙈 I need to start doing so. I hope you get to check our the podcasts you’re interested in soon though.
I think it’s the topic it’s based on too. It may be a fun approach to the subject but you’d think things would still be spelt correctly.
Yes definitely. A lot of the jokes in adult/teenage shows go over your heads when you’re younger. Although I’ve noticed that a lot of childrens shows put the odd joke in that are clearly aimed at adults 😂
Thank you 🥰
Haha I highly recommend it to make it more fun. It’s like the only reason I look forward to doing chores but I also get wanting peace and quiet sometimes that’s nice too 🙂
haha I know right?
Yes that’s true, I love when TV shows for kids include subtle nods to things that adults will find funny, it makes it enjoyable for everyone 🙂
It would certainly make them more interesting 😂 although to be fair I don’t mind a lot of them. It’s just ironing that I can’t stand 😂
Yes very true. And sometimes it even gives you an OMG did they really just go there moment 🙈
Yeah that’s fair some chores aren’t that bad at all. I actually don’t mind ironing, I set up in front of the tv and I’m good. My most dreaded one is cleaning the bathroom. Every time I end up with a sore back 😂
Ahahah yeah it’s funny when they do that!
I do the TV thing too for it but it still seems to take ages and sometimes the creases seem to reappear 😂🙈 oh I don’t blame you. That’s probably the worst place to clean. Although back & neck wise on top of kitchen cupboards is a pain too, although that’s luckily not a task that you have to do all the time.
oh no haha the creases reappearing is so annoying I see why you would hate that haha! Oh the top of kitchen cupboards is an entirely foreign place to me, being short 😂 If those ever need to be cleaned they will be my husband’s job, that’s what tall people are for lol 😛
It’s definitely frustrating. And yay that’s a lovely benefit to being short 😂
Ahaha definitely😆
The world through 100 objects sounds really interesting, otherwise we read very different non-fiction books which is always fun.
Very interested in your biographies/memoirs though, I want to read more so always on the lookout for recommendations there.
A History of the World in 100 objects is the first nonfiction book I ever read that I inhaled as if it was a fantasy book hahah just because It has short chapters that each talks about a different item and it goes in kind of chronological order so it was fun to see a progression and kind of ‘story’ build out.
I’ll post my memoirs soon so hopefully you can find something there that might sound interesting, I don’t read that many either but I do love graphic memoirs.
There’s a book about the movie Bring It On???!!! I must read it! I recently got The Art Thief from the library because I remember seeing it on your blog. Now I’m also curious about A History of the World in 100 Objects!
Yes! It’s a nonfiction about the creation and legacy of the movie. The first half talks about the process of writing it and selling the story as well as anecdotes during filming and the second half is all about the ways it was revolutionary at the time and about the ways it still fell short by modern standards. I thought it was well worth a read if you’re a big fan of the movie.
Oh wow well I hope you like the Art Thief and feel free to let me know what you think of it either way ♥ A History of the World is quite chunky but I love the format so much.
That is a good selection of non-fiction reads for someone who doesn’t read many! It is very rare for me to read non-fiction as reading is my form of escapism. The only non-fiction I usually read are biographies and autobiographies, and I’ve read more of those than usual this year.
Popping over from Book Worms Monthly.
Thank you, given that I don’t read many that’s a lovely compliment 🥰 & I totally understand that! Well that’s pretty cool, I hope you’ve read lots of good ones!
Also, I left a couple messages on your blog but can’t see them not sure if they just need to be accepted first but if you didn’t receive them pls let me know 🙂