June TIOLI - Fact or Fiction?

Link back to main June TIOLI thread is here.

For those following the challenge to read a non-fiction book if you usually read mostly fiction (or vice-versa), I thought it might be interesting to explore here our preferences for fiction or non-fiction, and for those of us who keep meaning to read more of one type of book, what is stopping us doing so?

Is is because we have to read non-fiction for work, so this feels like too much hard work? How many of us actually do record our work- or study-related reading on LT, I wonder? I have a whole study full of theology books, some read but far too many of them unread, and nearly all of them uncatalogued, while the ones I did read were mostly from the libraries at college and no longer in my collection. I've also got a large number of books about medieval history and culture, as well as scholarly editions of medieval literature - many of these picked up second-hand while I was studying these things, but most of these have remained unread.

Does anyone else collect a lot of particular types of non-fiction because they sounds so interesting, and then not read most them - or is that just me?

If your practice regarding reading mainly fiction/non-fiction has changed over the years, what has caused that change?

I mainly read fiction for pleasure and escape, the non-fiction that I read is mainly for work and only some of the books are listed here on LT, others are usually ones I've borrowed from the medical library, lots of the medical stuff I read for work I normally just dip in and out of so don't list it here on LT, also it can sometimes just be the odd article or medical review, usually more if I'm trying to write an essay etc. Some of the other non-fiction that I have are educational books for the children and gardening (for when I finally get some greenfingers!), odd diet and lifestyle and travel books. The one I enjoy looking at a lot is The Traveller's Atlas -I daydream about places that I would like to visit when I one day win BIG on the lottery!!

Last year my fiction:non-fiction ratio was 3:1, and my non-fiction reads had a higher average rating than my fiction reads. 12 of the 44 books I've completed so far this year have been non-fiction, so it looks like my fiction:non-fiction ratio is about the same as last year's. I do find it harder to read non-fiction when I'm tired. It usually takes a little more effort than fiction and it can make me sleepy if I haven't been getting enough rest.

Since genealogy is one of my hobbies, a lot of my non-fiction choices have something to do with history (U.S. and social). My work-related reading is mostly articles and professional blogs rather than books.

I read both fiction and non-fiction; the ratio is about 2:1 in favor of fiction. What I may do is pick one of those non-fiction reads that seems long and bulky and thus keeps getting bounced to the back of the line, and a novel that I know I want to read but that never seems to make it to the top of a TBR stack because it feels daunting (whether or not it is.)

There are certain types of non-fiction books that feel too ponderous -- the 600 page tomes on esoteric subjects. It's like going to the gym -- I'll be glad I've read them but it's hard to get to the starting line. There are some novels that everyone describes as "must read" books that I have yet to pick up and probably wouldn't unless forced to do so. On the other hand, I'll read too much fluff and too many mysteries, even though I end up rating them only 3 stars, and I gravitate to the same kinds of general narrative non-fiction on topics that interest me; the more accessible and less academic the style (if not the content) the happier I am!

It's like going to the gym -- I'll be glad I've read them but it's hard to get to the starting line. Exactly! And I'm as bad at getting out for exercise as I am at reading the things that I know will be genuinely good for me to have read. I need the equivalent of a personal trainer to push me, I think!

I definitely read more fiction. I've been reading one non-fiction book a month for a category in my 11 in 11 Challenge. Perhaps this month I will be able to fit in more than one non-fiction read. So far I have chosen Jeremy and Amy: The Extraordinary Story of One Man and His Orang-utan by Jeremy Keeling.

Hmmm.... I like this. I definitely read more fiction, partly because I'm a slow reader, have a demanding job, and don't always get the non-fiction books that I check out of the library finished before I have to return them. Sometimes I'll buy the book, but still time is an issue. Right now I'm making my way through The Warmth of Other Suns and, even though I love it, I have to intersperse it with some fiction.

I just bought The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival so I think I'll try to read that in June for this challenge.

I read more fiction than nonfiction. I always set a goal of 100 nonfiction books a year, but since I read 400 fiction books to go along with it, the numbers are very lopsided. I have My Lord What a Morning by Marian Anderson home from the library now, so I will read that one for this challenge.

ETA: I am also going to read one from my home library for this challenge: Newton by Peter Ackroyd.

#8 Stasia, have you always read a similar proportion of nonfiction, or does the fact that you 'set a goal' to read a certain number each year mean that you at some point decided you wanted to increase the proportion of nonfiction? And if so, what made you decide to do that?

I was pretty surprised that my ratio of fiction to nonfiction has remained steady for two years at approximately 4:1. I would have thought it was 2.5:1. Obviously I need to kick it up a bit and get going on these nonfiction gems around here!

I definitely read more fiction than non-fiction most months, but I'm pretty satisfied with the overall balance. I like reading fiction more, and I read fiction faster, so I don't necessarily want to shift the balance much. For this challenge though I will strive to read an unusual type (for me) of fiction and non-fiction--so I will be reading A Distant Mirror (history) as a non-fiction selection and some poetry or short stories for a fiction selection. For some reason I avoid reading history although I always enjoy it when I do.

#10 I hope you find one or two good ones to inspire you in June.
#11 I read A Distant Mirror many, many years ago - as preparation before going off to college. I hope you enjoy it; I can't remember much about the content now, but I think it did engage me at the time.

I'm more of a fiction reader these days. Last year I had a nonfiction category in my 1010 challenge and I struggled to complete it, yet I really enjoy my nonfiction reads when I do get round to them. This year my nonfiction focus is on journeys and I've only read 2 books out of the proposed 11 for my 11 in 11 challenge.

I collect books about printing and typography among other subjects yet hardly ever get round to reading them. So I'll be joining Genny in reading Just my type.

#9: Genny, the idea of setting a goal of reading 100 nonfiction books each year came from Louis L'Amour's autobiography Education of a Wandering Man. I had always read nonfiction, but never before tracked how many nonfiction books I read in a year.

Hey - changing my mind already. I picked up The Warmth of Other Suns again last night. It is SO good. No worries that I'll finish it in June for the "Fact or Fiction" challenge.

I read a lot of mysteries (4 of my 11 categories in my 11 in 11 challenge are mystery-related) and a lot of nonfiction (the other 7 categories in 11 in 11 are nonfiction-related).

What I don't read much of is non-mystery fiction so that will be my focus for this challenge.

For the Missouri Readers group, I'm reading a Jane Smiley book this month. Private Life. I will count it for this and maybe choose another.

ETA: I've read 58 books so far this year. Of these, 31 are nonfiction.

Based on this year's reading to date, I'm very close to 50-50, although fiction has a slight edge. I suppose that I will read non-fiction since it's slightly lower.

I've read 4 non- fiction out of the 48 books so far this year so my non- fiction book The American Civil War : a military history by John Keegan will be my book for this challenge.

I'm way ahead on fiction reading (62 out of 76) , so I'll be reading more non-fiction for this challenge. Yay! I've got a bunch of NF out from the library right now! Good challenge!

Karen O.

Jan-May I read 98 fiction books & 4 nonfiction. So far in June I've read 1 nonfiction.

Britannia, the Roman Conquest & occupation of Britain.1963.

Julius Caesar did two separate raids around 56 BC. Then occupation started roughly 56 AD (Augustus, 1st Emperor, set border on Channel; later Emperor sent in army because the natives kept sailing over and raiding). Emperor, in 411 AD, told Britain to see to own defenses, thereby severing connection. The land had been mostly stripped about three times of military by Generals declaring themselves Emperor. When Britain was told to see to own defense, it included today's Wales (the name, apparently, is based on a fort in Scotland), England (named after the Angles) and parts of Scotland (named after the Scotti of later Ireland).

Roman Britain, civilized Britain did not fall apart in 411 AD. Fell under the weight of invading Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. and it was a slow fighting retreat by the Romanized Bretons. Roman civilization fell away in retreat; reverted to Celtic past in the hills of Wales and Scotland.

The invaders came from north of the Roman border. The did not wish to follow, join Roman style civilization.

If Roman Britain had been role to see to own defenses when still had the Romanized Bretons filled legions, and strong generals, things may have been different.

odd, my intention was only to note completion of a book.

I am largely a reader of fiction. Nonfiction books take me a lot longer to complete...I pick them up, read a few chapters or essays, and put them down for weeks or months at a time before returning. I do enjoy collections of essays and memoirs and history books and general audience science books. I just don't read them that often. A few years ago I challenged myself to reading 1 nonfiction book per month. That only lasted for 3 months because I wasn't able to read more than 3 novels a month while doing so.

Still undecided about Challenge #12. I do have some options on a low shelf.

I also read mainly fiction although I have managed to read 13 non-fiction books so far this year which is almost as much non-fiction as I read in total last year. As other people have said, I think I find a fiction book easier to pick up after a long day at work than some non-fiction books.

I've added Sisters of Sinai to the wiki for this challenge which is a non-fiction book I bought with my birthday money earlier this year and haven't got round to reading yet.

What a great challenge for those of us who struggle to read a lot of nonfiction. (Glad to see I'm not alone!) Only 6 of my 35 so far have been nonfiction, but even most of those have been lighter reads.

I think I should really try to get The Pirate Coast finished. A friend gave it to me for Christmas, and I haven't gotten past the first chapter!

I have up my ratio of non-fiction vs. fiction books this year because of the take or leave it challenges. Thus far, 19 of the 48 books I have read have been non-fiction. Before the challenges, I only averaged about 4 non-fictions books a year! So I will get to read another non-fiction this month.

Interesting. Very few of us read more nonfiction than we do fiction. I'm in that group and just one other, last I looked.

#25: The only person I know of for sure that reads more nonfiction than fiction is Peter who reads almost exclusively nonfiction. As a matter of fact, he gave away the majority of his fiction books last year before his family moved from Japan to Australia.

#26 Hmmm. I'm more like 52/48 nonfiction/fiction.

18 Nonfiction/112 Fiction

Yep, going to read a nonfiction. :D

22: souloftherose: I hope you like Sisters of Sinai as much as I did!

Karen O.

I must be the odd man out here. I read about three times as much non-fiction as fiction.

I hardly ever read non-fiction, but my son's swim coach lent me The Talent Code: Greatness Isn't Born, It's Grown by Daniel Coyle and it was fascinating. I read it in two days, which for me and non-fiction, is astonishing.

I read more fiction but I do normally read quite a bit of non-fiction - last year it worked out at at least 3 books a month, though I think it might be a bit lower at this point this year - however, a high proportion of this is biographical or related to that, so in the spirit of the challenge, I'm going to read a nonfiction book which doesn't fit into my collections "lives letters and diaries" or "travel" and which looks a bit more challenging - and it happens to be an ER book - Iran, The Green Movement and the USA by Hamid Dabashi.

I just counted the books I read so far this year and found that I read quite a bit more nonfiction than I thought I had. Since fiction won by a slight edge, I'm now reading the non-fiction Kosher Chinese by Michael Levy for this challenge.

Kosher Chinese is an Early Reviewer book. I just started it, and it seems worthwhile. It's a light, breezy, and quite funny account of a young Jewish man's Peace Corps assignment in a rural village of China starting in 2005.

Thank heaven this looks like a fun read as I have another short ER book I'm also reading but not liking very much (but think I should be!). That's Emerging Arab Voices. Oh, well. At least my reading is balanced (i.e like versus not like).

One the reasons I decided to to take part in the TIOLI Challenges (and 11/11) was to encourage myself to read more nonfiction. I'd gotton really lazy about it, probably only reading one every other month.

Last month, my first month on LT, 25% of my reading was nonfiction, so I'd have to say it's been a success so far!

At any rate, I'll be reading nonfiction in this category. I'm starting with a hold over from last month -- Kipling Sahib (which is great, btw). I have no lack of nonfiction books to read....

I read far more non-fiction than fiction when I'm in a goal oriented state of mind, but after a stretch of 5 non-fiction in May, I'm looking forward to reading The Sparrow in June.

I read way more fiction than non-fiction. However, since joining LT and reading recommendations about many excellent and fascinating nonfiction books, I've been reading a lot more nonfiction (and enjoying it). Just finished The Other Wes Moore, for example.

Hm. Most of my non-fiction for a long time has been about folklore and mythology. Some of it really gets close to a blurry line about which it is. But others are very clearly on the nonfiction side. And then there're the linguistics books on my shelves.

At any rate, I want to add more sciencey and history non-fiction to my reading, so I chose Nothing to Envy this month (and Poseidon's Steed last month). I'd been wanting to read the Demick book for ages, especially after I saw so many people talking about it last year, but kept putting it off. I took it out of the library Saturday morning and found myself staying up until the wee hours Saturday night to read it. I'm so glad I finally read it, though I wish I hadn't dragged my feet about it!

Depending on my other reading commitments this month and how fast it goes, I might add another history-based non-fiction book - The Wordy Shipmates, which I found for only $4 on a remainders table recently (yay!), and have been wanting to read for some time.

Finally got started on one of my own choices for this challenge: Just my Type, which, as the subtitle says, is a book about fonts. The book starts with recognising how since the advent of word processing and desk top publishing we all have a vast array of different fonts/typefaces to play around with. Aimed at the non-specialist, the book tells the stories of the origins and designers of some of these (the good, the bad and the ugly) and looks at the appropriate and inappropriate ways they have been used (eg Comic Sans on a gravestone) and what message our choice of font may be giving. So far I'm enjoying it.

Just out of curiosity, I took a look at my numbers for this year and they are badly fiction-skewed: only 37 of my reads thus far have been nonfiction. This may be the first year in memory that I have not made my 100 book goal for nonfiction.

39: How many books have you read so far, Stasia?

#40: As of this past Sunday's report, 176.