NonFiction November Week 1

It has finally arrived! It is time for NonFiction November!

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THIS WEEK’S PROMPT

Week 1: (Oct 31-Nov 4) – Your Year in Nonfiction: Take a look back at your year of nonfiction and reflect on the following questions – What was your favorite nonfiction read of the year? Do you have a particular topic you’ve been attracted to more this year? What nonfiction book have you recommended the most? What are you hoping to get out of participating in Nonfiction November? This week is hosted by Katie @ Doing Dewey so make sure and check out all the other participants when you get a chance.

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For those of you contemplating participating in this event, I truly cannot over emphasize how much it inspires me to read NonFiction. Here are the books I read from November 1, 2021 until January 1, 2022. Many are books that I found in other participant’s reading stacks and just couldn’t wait to read.

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And here are the books I read from January 1, 2022 to November 1, 2022.

That is 22 NonFiction books in all but half of them were sparked during, and immediately after NonFiction November.

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The books that stood out for me this year are certainly the following:

• The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander Newfoundland by Jim Defede. This book was highly recommended during NFN 2021 and I can 100% understand why. If you want your faith in humanity restored, read this.
• Likewise, Unwinding Anxiety Jordan Brewer MD, PhD was a book I discovered on NFN. It has really changed the way I view anxiety.

I read a bunch of books about the brain and mental organization. I think I started with being curious about why we think things and it morphed into how to improve comprehension and retention. This was sparked by a past read of Make it Stick by Peter C. Brown, which is still my favorite book about how to remember the things you have learned.

• You Are Not So Smart by David McRaney
• Head in the Cloud by William Poundstone and
• The Organized Mind by Daniel Levitin

I have been struggling this year to be consistent and intentional in my reading. Sometimes I am just happy to pick up a book and run with it. Frequently, I depend on audiobooks from the library to keep me company and I will just take the first available one. Finally, I caught a specific interest in American history as told by marginalized populations and have been focused on that in the last part of the year. I plan to continue with the rest of the revisionist US history books.

• Never Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge by Erica Armstrong Dunbar
• We Do This ‘Till We Free Us by Mariame Kaba
• An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
• An African American and Latinx History of the United States by Paul Ortiz

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This year I cannot wait to see what everyone else is reading. I always find the best recommendations during NFN and I know it will keep me inspired for months to come. My goal for 2023 is to actually use my TBR to choose my next books. A radical notion, I know!

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Tell me, please! How was your NonFiction reading this year?

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