JENN McKINLAY: Every January without fail I find myself buying more non-fiction books than I do throughout the rest of the year (excluding research books, of course). What were my picks this January?
ATOMIC HABITS
INNER EXCELLENCE
RUNNING UNTIL YOU'RE 100
MEDITERRANEAN DIET
Pretty easy to see what I’ve got going on, eh?
How about you Reds, what non-fiction books are you reading/have you read recently? Do you tend to buy more in January or no?
LUCY BURDETTE: I don’t buy more nonfiction, but I acquire it through the birthday (and Christmas) season LOL. Here’s my list:
BAKING WITH JULIA by Dorie Greenspan
BAREFOOT IN PARIS by Ina Garten
THE NEW PARISIENNE by Lindsay Tramuta
Food in Paris, anyone?
HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Buying more in January because of various resolutions, right? Like resolving to read more nonfiction. At which I have already failed.
Oh, I am always so tempted by non-fiction, and I just got the Ina Garten book, too. But I have so many fiction-reading assignments for interviews that it’s difficult to read for fun. (Isn’t that ridiculous?) Thank goodness for the New Yorker.
But oh, yes, I just got HOW SONDHEIM CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE by Richard Schoch which I am in love with. Fun fact: Did you know that all of the songs in A Little Night Music are waltzes? ALL of them? I cannot get that geniusness out of my head. Anyway. This is the joy of non-fiction: facts.
HALLIE EPHRON: My challenge right now is finishing the books I’ve started – I’ve got 3 under way and one of them is a memoir that I love but it strikes too close to home so I’ve had to take it in laps. The rest of my “nonfiction” reading is the New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, and a newsfeed from AXIOS. All of which I like to think of as “nonfiction.” (And I’m not giving them up.)
JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I’m currently rereading OUR OWN WORST ENEMY: THE ASSAULT FROM WITHN ON MODERN DEMOCRACY by Tom Nichols. It came out in 2021and I’ve also ordered the second edition of his THE DEATH OF EXPERTISE. He’s a smart and entertaining writer, and I can also highly recommend following him on Bluesky.
I also bought Becca Symes “Quit Books for Writers” 4, 5, and 6: ARE YOU IN WRITERS BLOCK, YOU’RE DOING IT RIGHT, and ARE YOU INTUITIVE. She’s an author’s coach with a podcast/video series I follow. I’ve listened to her previous books and gotten a lot out of them, so I’m hoping for more of the same.
Jenn, if you’re interested in habit formation, you should take a look at Katy Milkman’s HOW TO CHANGE. I have the audio book and I loved it!
JENN: Thank you, Julia! I"ll check it out. I also have several of Becca's books and love them.
RHYS BOWEN: Over the holidays I read (devoured) THE SALT PATH about a couple who lose everything–home, health etc–and choose to walk the 630 miles of the Southwest Coastal Trail in England. The prose is exquisite and I would often linger over a description. I gather it’s about to be made into a motion picture but that won’t do justice to the writing. The amazing thing is that the writer only kept a journal for herself, never imagining it would be published. Having lost their farm etc, she is now a bestseller.
I’m also wading through a thick biography of Edward VIII. Most of it I already knew but shows what a weak character he was.
DEBORAH CROMBIE: Rhys, I want to read THE SALT PATH! Unfortunately, I’m afraid if I buy it I may be consigning it to the fate of most of the non-fiction I buy, which is to sit neglected and dust-covered in one of my many to-read piles… I asked for Nic Kristof’s memoir, CHASING HOPE, for my birthday in June. Alas, even though Kristof is one of my favorite journalists and I will read any column he writes, I haven’t cracked the book. Hmm. Maybe I should try the audio version…
How about you, Readers, what's on your non-fiction TBR?
