How to get into Non-Fiction

Hello all,

So I'm 29 now, and I only got into reading books maybe around age 23. Before this point, I hated reading. Barely did it when required in school and definitely did not do it for fun. I'd always been a big video gamer, fantasy setting games being my favorite. The first time I'd really gotten into a book was after I watched the second episode of Game of Thrones when it was new. After that I didn't want to wait every week to find out what happens, and decided to give reading a shot. Lo and behold I liked that series and read it all.

This sent me on the path of reading a LOT... almost entirely fantasy though. Through ASoIaF, I've read series by Sanderson, Erikson, Pierce Brown, Abercrombie, Bancroft, Muir. More recently I've read some older books too (The Shining / A Hero Born / Lord of the Rings / True Grit / Something Wicked This Way Comes / Planet of the Apes) and am currently reading 1984.

However, I've never truly read any non-fiction books. Do most people find that they favor either fiction or non-fiction way more than the other? Or do people strike a balance? At this point I'm exclusively a fiction reader, but I was interested in giving non-fiction a start and was looking for any recommendations, given my tastes I've listed. Without actually reading any, I'll say what interests me most in general if I were to give it a shot would be anything WWII (I used to like watching History channel) or maybe Medieval (Only because I equate this to a fantasy-type setting).

Any recommendations?

Thanks!

I guess I prefer fiction over non-fiction, but I love memoirs. Right now I am reading Code Talker about Navaho native Americans who helped bring the U.S. to victory in the Pacific using the Navaho language as a secret code. It was completely unbreakable! Fascinating history told by one of the people who developed the code and had to keep it a secret until the 1960s. I don't know yet if this is particularly well-written—I am not that far into it. There are several other books on the same subject. Of course there are so many others that are interesting such as Long Walk To Freedom by Nelson Mandela, Born a Crime by Trevor Noah is really interesting.

I know these are not your specific time periods. You might import your books and see if there are any non-fiction recommendations for them. Good luck and welcome to LT!

I read both--it just depends on my mood or state of mind. For WWII non-fiction, my favorite is Between Silk and Cyanide, a memoir by one of the guys who created codes for agents being sent into Germany to use. Absolutely fascinating, considering he was basically in charge of his department at about age 22.

I also really enjoy popular science--books about medicine/epidemiology and meteorology in particular. If you have any interest in weather and storms, there are some good titles out there about past hurricanes (so working in some history as well) like Isaac's Storm, about the 1900 Galveston hurricane; for more recent events, Superstorm: Nine Days inside Hurricane Sandy was also excellent.

Happy reading!

I read more fiction than non-fiction, but I do enjoy some non-fiction mixed up in that. I would usually read history, biography, some memiors, some popular science. I select non-fiction in the same way I select fiction - something about it has to appeal to me. It can be an author I've read before, or seen present a documentary on TV. It can be a subject that I either know I like, or one that I want to know more about. Or it can be simply that the title and cover blurb appeals to me - yes, I will entirely judge a book by its cover!

I find recommending non-fiction even more difficult that recommending fiction - what if you don't like it?! From the start of your reading I'd have thought that the middle ages may well find lots to interest you, after all GoT was supposed to have been inspired by the middle ages. With that caveat, maybe try something like She Wolves, which is focussed on personalities rather than an in depth focus on a period, if that makes sense.

The other thing you might like to try is if you catalogue your books, it can open up recommendations based on what you've already read. They are based on someone suggesting if you like X you might like Y. That can throw up some non-fiction based on fiction reading that other people have recommended.

Like others, I read more fiction than non, but I think the key is to start with a subject that appeals to or interests you. For me it can be some natural history (just finished a book about wolves and now I have one going about invertebrates and small vertebrates that make up the majority of species around the world), but I also like American Revolution history and books about odd subjects like kitchen implements, earthworms and cadavers.

Speaking of cadavers...maybe Mary Roach would be a good place to start. She writes well, has a scathing sense of humor and her books cover a myriad of things from sex to space travel (and yes, sex in space).

>5 Bookmarque: Kitchen implements ... Consider the Fork? Good one.

Yup, that's the one!

A couple of excellent 20th century stories:
The Boys in the Boat - pre-WW2 story of the US rowing team and their route to victory in Hitler’s Germany at the Olympic Games (1930?)

The Day the World Came to Town - How a small town in Newfoundland coped with all the passengers and crews that were grounded there in the days after 9/11.

Both storytellers took a firm and confident hold of large stories and told them with panache.

I guess I'm the odd one here. I read mostly fiction when I was younger, but other than when I'm editing someone else's manuscript (which is almost always fiction) I haven't read fiction for pleasure in decades, except for a series of ten books published over a twenty-six year period.
And, I'm all over the Dewey system when it comes to reading non-fiction, although the 400s (Language, Writing, Etymology), 500s (science) and 600s (Technology, Medicine, Agriculture, Mechanics...) seem to be what I gravitate toward.

I read
almost 95% nonfiction. In high school and middle school I read a tremendous amount of scifi and WWII history. As I grew older my passions for travel, food and wine channeled my reading. I also wanted to know much more about the history of places I lived in or traveled to. You mentioned medieval history - A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman might grab you. As for WWII - The Road Back To Paris by A J Liebling is excellent. You might want to explore shorter form nonfiction - essays perhaps. John McPhee is a master of the form and anything by him will instantly engross you in subjects you otherwise would not think interesting. As for travel lit, a great introduction would be A Time of Gifts by Patrick Fermor or The Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux.

The easiest routes into non-fiction, I would say, are either "popular history" (e.g. Barbara Tuchman is fantastic), biographies/autobiographies about people who interest you (pick the most reputable one; do a tag search on the person's name here on LT), or travel/adventure (pick a place on the map). Save the really scholarly stuff for the scholars.

Whatever you pick, anticipate slower reading since there's usually more to absorb.

I studied a lot of history and used to read almost exclusively non-fiction. One day about 20 years ago, I was in an English-language bookstore overseas and the owner asked what I liked to read. I replied, "everything." He said, "oh, good. Most of the time I get these old, conservative men in here who say they can't be bothered with fiction and I think, 'who the hell are you?'" I walked away with a novel and now I'm proud to read a huge variety of books.

One nonfiction book I really enjoyed was The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century by Ian Mortimer. That might be up your alley. It is written as a travel guide, with chapters like "Basic Essentials," "Traveling," "The Law," and "What to Do." It was breezy and sent me reading a few other books on topics that the author talked about, like the plague and the Peasant's Revolt.

I've been intending to get into fantasy books, so maybe you can give me a recommendation, too! I played Dungeons and Dragons as a kid and did the requisite reading that goes along with that, but I haven't been able to find anything that really piques my interest as an adult. I don't want to start an epic series. Any suggestions?

The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England is fine for what it is if you happen to be male. The author barely realizes that women exist in medieval England. He certainly doesn't expect modern women to want to travel there.

>12 mvblair: It's funny you mention that book, I was thinking about getting it because the design of it on Folio Society caught my eye.

My fantasy recommendations wouldn't be unique at all, everyone generally recommends the same series but since you asked-

A catch all recommendations that anyone should enjoy would be the books of babel series, the first book being Senlin Ascends. It's a steam-punk aesthetic with not much in the way of supernatural, but it has great prose in my opinion.

Because you read history books, the closest thing I can think that I've read with a historical kind of vibe would be the Malazan Book of the Fallen series. I have NEVER recommended this series to anyone because it is just insanely complex.. hundreds of POV characters, a lot of plot-lines, all across ten HUGE books. This is a series that spans entire continents that are extremely fleshed out, and you'll constantly be referencing the list of characters / maps that are in the front of each book to keep track. However, if you can really get into it, it is considered one of the best (possibly THE best) fantasy series written. The author was an archeologist too so that comes across and past cultures and societies and races are prevalent in the book.

EDIT: And I just saw you didn't want to start an epic series haha my bad. Then I'd recommend Senlin Ascends, only three books, and are comparatively short to all the other great fantasy series.

>13 MarthaJeanne: MarthaJeanne, I don't remember the book too well, but I enjoyed it. I'm sure your assessment is correct, although I don't think he actually expected anyone to really travel there.

>14 Soup811: Soup811, thank you for the recommendation! I just put in a request for "Senlin Ascends" at the library. It looks like a very different book!

Give Hunting Eichmann : how a band of survivors and a young spy agency chased down the world's most notorious Nazi by Neal Bascomb a try.

>15 mvblair: The point is that, as a woman, I am more interested in what a woman would experience than what a man would experience, and to only get the male viewpoint quickly gets boring, and then aggravating.

>13 MarthaJeanne: That sounds like an huge oversight, given the difference in experience between men and women in that era. Such a shame.

>17 MarthaJeanne: MarthaJeanne, I totally sympathize!

As others have suggested, history, biography, and memoir are marvelous gateways into non-fiction if you've been reading mostly fiction . . . the trick is to find books on topics that you're interested in, by writers with a novelistic eye for characterization and evocative detail. Fortunately, there's a lot out there to choose from!

A quick list of historians who I'd put squarely in that category:

Caroline Alexander
Stephen E. Ambrose
John M. Barry
Timothy Eagan
Carolly Erickson
Erik Larson
J. Anthony Lukas
David McCullough
Diana Preston
Ian Toll (seriously: if WWII interests you, try his Pacific Crucible)

And, from an older generation (mentioned here because they all did first-rate books on World War II, Brickhill and Morison by being there and Lord and Ryan by interviewing people who were):

Paul Brickhill
Walter Lord
Samuel Eliot Morison
Cornelius Ryan

If you're interested in exploring WWII via memoirs, here are a few classics:

George MacDonald Fraser, Quartered Safe Out Here
Paul Fussell, The Boys' Crusade
Robert Leckie, Helmet for My Pillow
William Manchester, Goodbye, Darkness
Bill Mauldin, Up Front
Ernie Pyle, Brave Men
E. B. Sledge, With the Old Breed

How do you get into non-fiction??? Just stick with the facts. :-) Seriously, give us some idea of specific areas of real life that interest you and, with this crowd, my guess is you will have any number of outstanding books to consider.

When I say specific I mean areas within a general category - history is too general - history of what - science (what aspect of science - discovery, scientists of note, impact of science on society...), war - which one and at what level - overview, personal accounts ..., exploration - where and when - biography - which field, what period, etc.

My reading is far more non-fiction than fiction and without some idea of what might interest you I could spend the rest of the evening listing books I found to be gripping-can't-put-it-down-page-turners.

>5 Bookmarque: & >16 rockinrhombus: Just scanned this thread and thought I'd pop in to offer a hearty "second" for both the Mary Roach and the "Hunting Eichmann" recommendations.

There have been a lot of great suggestions already, but regarding your interest in World War 2, I recently read what is still possibly the classic non-fiction book about the Normandy Invasion, The Longest Day, by Cornelius Ryan and felt that it held up very well. It is, indeed, the book that the famous movie was based on, although the movie was fictionalized a bit. The book is relatively quick reading, which might be a good way to get into a new way of reading (non-fiction, that is). Walter Lord's Day of Infamy, about Pearl Harbor, is along the same lines. Both were published soon after the war.