Non-Fiction November - Week One

Non-Fiction November is hosted by Kim, Katie, Leslie and Rebecca.

I love this chance to focus on my non-fiction reading.

Each week the girls will post a few non-fiction questions for our consideration.

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? 

I was a little disappointed to discover that I had only read 10 non-fiction titles since last Non-Fiction November. Although, in my defence, I do have a few half-finished NF titles by my bed. But then I remembered that I filed biography/memoir differently.
So, in fact, I have read 17 non-fiction titles this past year - a much more respectable (for me) total. 

I've read food books, travelogues, memoirs, history, maths, sociology, Holocaust, health and inspirational titles.

Part of the problem this year is that two memoir/travelogues that I had high hopes for that turned out to be duds (The Most Beautiful Walk in the World and A Motor Flight Through France). It kind of put me off my game. 

However, one of the stand out reads came via J.K Rowlings. Her commencement address - Very Good Lives - was a gem of book. Full of inspiration and sound advice. If you haven't already read it, make time to do so this month. You won't regret it and it will only take you an hour or so to read it!

A close second was another inspirational book this time by Cheryl Strayed. 
Tiny Beautiful Things was full of hard-hitting home-truths. Honest, humane and heart-felt. As you can see, it also brought out the alliteration in me!

What nonfiction book have you recommended the most? 

At the moment, the NF title I keep recommending to everyone at work purely on the rave reviews it has received in the local papers, is Magda Szubanski's Reckoning. It sounds like my kind of memoir and I'm hoping to get to it this month.

I also regularly recommend Yotam Ottolenghi's Plenty More. It is my (current) favourite cookbook, even though I haven't got past the first recipe - the Tomato and Pomegranate Salad! 
It's divine.

Mr Books has been recommending The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution by Walter Isaacson all year to everyone we know!

What is one topic or type of nonfiction you haven’t read enough of yet? 

I would love to read more foodie non-fiction titles. I have quite a few on my TBR pile and it's a topic that fascinates me and obsesses me in equal measure. The two foodie books I did read this past year are reviewed on my other blog, Four Seasons - here.

Some of this month's contenders.

I also want to read more non-fiction written by women. Any suggestions for classic non-fiction by women are welcome below to help me with my Classics Club women's classic literature challenge.

What are you hoping to get out of participating in Nonfiction November?

Since last year's Non-Fiction November I was invited to write the round-up posts for History, Memoir and Biography on the Australian Women Writers challenge. 
This is obviously an area dear to my heart and one that is easy for me to read and review.

The trick is to read a little more widely and to read outside my comfort zone.

That's where you guys come in!