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.
Since the fall of Twitter I have struggled to find a place to share links and online articles that I find interesting. So I am now creating small ”link round up” posts and sharing here. Hope this ongoing series or posts surface some interesting news & thoughts for you.
Lots of attention was given to TikTok leveraging all the data they have collected in launching a new book imprint called 8th Note Press (which is also now printing books with Zando). It’s interesting that OverDrive (the library ebook lending platform) has also launched an imprint called Heights Press. It’s named after a place in Cleveland and will focus on kids’ titles. You can read OverDrive’s full press release here.
The Book Maven has a podcast called The Book Maven: A Literary Revue that is now six episodes deep. They’re 30 minutes long and touch on various topics and books. I’m still listening, but I’m on the fence on whether I’ll keep up. One I really like at the moment is Jeff O’Neal’s First Edition from BookRiot. He asks good questions and talks to folks spread throughout the publishing world. O’Neal really is best when he’s on his own, allowing him to chase any and every rabbit he wants.
With so many year-end and bestseller lists out there, I wanted to share one that I appreciate and keep up with throughout the year. It’s The Southern Indie Bestseller List, which is updated every Sunday with covers and books from the previous week. The info for this list is collected from independent booksellers from across the South. It’s an interesting look into what’s selling in the region.
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 the fall of Twitter I have struggled to find a place to share links and online articles that I find interesting. So I am now creating small ”link round up” posts and sharing here. Hope this ongoing series or posts surface some interesting news & thoughts for you.
Amazon is massive (that’s the kind of insightful breaking news you get here). But it is so stinking big that they have to automate many of their systems. If you did like many people have done and opted for a cheaper ad-supported kindle, be aware that ads for AI generate books are now in the mix. What a weird time to be selling books.
