It’s week three of Nonfiction November 2024! This week is hosted by Liz, who blogs at Adventures in reading, running and working from home. She’s a fun blogger I started keeping up with after a #NonficNov a few years ago.
This week’s prompt is:
Week 3 (11/11-11/15) Book Pairings: This week, pair up a nonfiction book with a fiction title.
This year, I’m picking a couple of news-related reads. How people consume and where they get their facts is super important in this social media-soaked era. It’s not very fun, I have to admit. So, I am pairing a relaxed read on how best to think about the news with a fun, classic newspaper book.
First up is my nonfiction pick , News: A User’s Manual, by Alain de Botton. I am a big fan of Alain de Botton and the way he tries to make intentional and philosphical thinking an everyday thing for normal folks like myself.
In News , he does this by breaking down the major types of news that distract or stress us all out. Whether it’s politics, Economics, or celebrity sleaze, his framework offers a clear way of surfing through each day’s headlines while showing impact it has on all of us as a whole.
And for the fiction side of this week’s bookish coin, I am offering up an oldie that was first published in 1938 in England. Evelyn Waugh’s Scoophas a list of quirky characters, an easy plot and is dripping in dry humor and satiric wit that you’d expect from Evelyn Waugh.
The story follows William Boot as a “sort of” reporter for the Daily Beast, which is a fictional daily newspaper where Boot is mistakenly identified for another well known writer with the same last name. Boot, with zero skill and full of dread, falls into a real “scoop” when he lands the story of a lifetime. I have to admit that the story didn’t end the way I thought it would, but it was good fun.
It’s Week Two of Nonfiction November #nonficnov, which is hosted on Volatile Rune. The prompt for this week is:
Choosing Nonfiction: What are you looking for when you pick up a nonfiction book? Do you have a particular topic you’re attracted to? Do you have a particular writing style that works best? When you look at a nonfiction book, does the title or cover influence you? If so, share a title or cover which you find striking.
I love these questions. It’s so easy to be fooled by a book’s packaging these days. Cookbooks and business books are the worst. Some of the coolest-looking books turn out to be lame. So I’m always looking for quality writing in the jacket copy and blurbs. Yeah yeah… I know… isn’t that all marketing speak and just authors blurbing for each other? Sometimes, yes. But if you find a book on a slice of a slice in a topic you like and the praise quotes are a mixed bag of learned folks, book folks, practitioners, etc., then there is a higher-than-average chance you are holding a good book.
As far as topics go, I love books about books and books where cultural ideas/trends, social science/history, and philosophy intersect. So I’m all over the map there! Oh, and books on maps are fun, too.
Covers absolutely influence me. I pulled a few favorite reads to see if I could figure out the ‘what’ and ‘why’ this is. These 15 books are grouped well into three categories.
I love fonts! Creative lettering goes a long way with me in creating a great nonfiction cover.
Also, I like nonfiction covers that work hard to have an iconic look. Not only are these next five books good reads, but the covers are unique and wouldn’t work well for any other book. The tilt-shift effect used on all of Sarah Vowell’s books is a fun, unique series look.
If you haven’t read Neil Postman’s “Amusing Ourselves to Death” then I think you need to. Written pre-internet boom, it’s just as timely and accurate today. Again, so many conversations will be sparked by this book.
Lastly, I appreciate nonfiction books where it’s clear that the publisher took the time to create something that resonates with the reader or community around a topic. I absolutely think these next five are great examples. Whether it’s a book related to newspapers or the classic Gilded Age of book collecting, these all fit their readers well.
The classic read here is Nicholas Basbanes “A Gentle Madness”. It’s not a small book, but very well done and is one of the best deep dives out there into bibliomania and books about books.
It’s officially Nonfiction November #nonficnov and one of my favorite times of the year. Basically, it’s a month of planned and shared posts between bloggers around the world sharing their favorite nonfiction reads of the year. Some years are bigger than others, but I am always glad that it happens (thank you to those who organize it!) as it’s a fun way to find some new reads and hopefully a new blog or two to follow.
Most of my reading has always been mostly nonfiction, and with 29 of the 33 books I’ve read this year, 2024 is no different. So let’s dive in with this introductory week’s prompt hosted over on Based on a True Story (where you can ‘link up’ your own post if you’d like to participate):
“Let’s start out by celebrating your year in nonfiction. What books have you read? What were your favorite books or topics?”
I read a lot of ‘books about books’. I’ve also read more political books than usual, but they’re all misses. I just haven’t found one that’s been worth the time. I’m not sure why that is, but maybe it’s just burnout on my part. Anyway… I didhave a few favorite reads that I want to mention, and then I’ll list the rest.
‘The Literary Decade’ cover design by Janet Anderson; ‘The Book-Makers’ cover design Hachette Design Group; ‘This Is What It Sounds Like’ cover design by Sarah Bibel; ‘Any Person is the Only Self’ cover design by June Park
My favorite book I’ve read this year is Allen Churchill’s The Literary Decade (1971), which is about the Roaring Twenties and the literary scene. Lots of names you’ll know many stories I didn’t know and I certainly have never taken a look at them all (and their books) through a cultural history lens. Lots of names and viewpoints we know now are left out, but the writing is so well done that I went out and found a copy of Churchill’s The Improper Bohemians about Greenwich Village just to keep reading his writing.
I also got a lot out of Adam Smyth’s The Book-Makers: A History of the Book in Eighteen Lives (2024). While not a new structure, Smyth does a great job of featuring many different folks who had a direct impact on the development of print culture. The book chapters each featuring one or two people. Sometimes they’re printers, or paper makers, or publishers, and even zine artists. It was fun.
And the winner of the pinkest cover I’ve ever bought and the book I’ve talked about most at get-togethers is This Is What It Sounds Like: A Legendary Producer Turned Neuroscientist on Finding Yourself Through Music (2022). This book by Susan Rogers and Ogi Ogas was amazing. It lays out all the biological reasons why music can affect our moods the way it does, and it also explains how (and when) we start to form our own individual musical tastes. Lots of fun stuff in here. Not to mention all of the playlists to help demonstrate the trends and concepts that the authors are talking about.
My fourth favorite book was all over the place for a month or two, so I won’t go on too much, but if you like books then Elisa Gabbert’s book of essays Any Person Is the Only Selfis one you’ll probably like. She talks about books as well as authors she really admires and spins all this together to craft entries on art and ideas and a thinking life.
Anyway, below are the rest of the nonfiction I read this year. Please share in the comments if you’ve read something you think I would like. You can also click over and read this post if you’d like to participate in #nonficnov over the next few weeks.
Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World
Son of Birmingham
Democracy or Else: How to Save America in 10 Easy Steps
The Libraries of Thought and Imagination: An Anthology of Bookshelves
The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper
The Art of the Literary Poster
The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore
Parnassus Corner: A Life of James T. Fields, Publisher to the Victorians
In the Groove: The Vinyl Record and Turntable Revolution
The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters
Shopkeeping: Stories, Advice, and Observations from the Bookstore Floor
Novelist as a Vocation
Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning
Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life
Reading the Room: A Bookseller’s Tale
Improbable Libraries: A Visual Journey to the World’s Most Unusual Libraries
Why I Am Not Going to Buy a Computer: Essays
The Upstairs Delicatessen: On Eating, Reading, Reading About Eating, and Eating While Reading
How to Resist Amazon and Why: The Fight for Local Economics, Data Privacy, Fair Labor, Independent Bookstores, and a People-Powered Future!
The Secret Lives of Booksellers and Librarians: Their stories are better than the bestsellers
Shaking the Gates of Hell: A Search for Family and Truth in the Wake of the Civil Rights Revolution
MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios
Books Do Furnish a Painting
Librorum Ridiculorum: A compendium of bizarre books
Since starting in 2002, each issue has included a few fun features like book clubs that write in as well as quirky categories that only super-passionate book folks could come up with (think something like Have You Read ’18th-century time travel novels that have cats’ kind of a thing). Like I said, lots of fun.
They also do some straight-up features on categories and authors, as well as a trend piece here or there. Nothing fancy or thought-provoking, but always enjoyable reads from fellow book lovers who often add books to your list.
But I always enjoy the New Books Guide in each issue. Basically, they tally reviews from dozens of sources and average out the rating on a five-point system. Then, they pepper in a handful of sentences from the most positive reviews as well as a handful of sentences from the most negative reviews.
It’s fun to see math play out by categories, authors, etc., and to see which outlets pop up here and there.
If you’re not interested in subscribing, you can pick up Bookmarks Magazine at most Barnes & Noble and Books-A-Million stores. I am sure many indie stores carry issues, too. While those print copies are fun to flip through, the functionality of each digital issue is winning me over.
