For those that follow this blog, and I know it isn’t many of you, you’ll know that I am a big fan of non-fiction. So this November I am kind of joining in with Non-Fiction November. This is run by A Book Olive who can be found here and here and in various other places over the interweb.
The aim of the challenge is for those taking part to read one, yes, one no-fiction book during the month of November. Should you want to so more she has generated four prompts that you can interpret in any way you chose to pick a suitable book. The prompts this year are:
Fraud
Web
Capital
Display
I have no idea what I would choose for those! Must explore my TBR to see what I could find
For the first week I am here to talk about my year in non-fiction. I have so far read 161 books in 2023 and 105 of those have been non-fiction.
These are the subjects so far:
Natural History – 21
Travel – 21
Memoir – 11
History – 7
Art – 4
Environmental – 4
Politics – 4
Photography – 3
Archaeology – 2
Dorset – 2
Miscellaneous – 2
Britain – 2
Maths – 2
Science – 2
Mental Health – 2
Gardening – 2
Weather – 2
Technology – 2
Social History – 2
Economics – 2
Food – 1
Biography – 1
Architecture – 1
Books – 1
Of those, there have been some cracking books:
Restoring The Wild: Sixty Years of Rewilding Our Skies, Woods and Waterways – Roy Dennis
Hothouse Earth: An Inhabitant’s Guide – Bill McGuire
England on Fire: A Visual Journey through Albion’s Psychic Landscape – Stephen Ellcock& Mat Osman
Eating to Extinction: The World’s Rarest Foods and Why We Need to Save Them – Dan Saladino
The Bookseller’s Tale – Martin Latham
The Lost Orchards: Redicovering The Forgotten Cider Apples Of Dorset – Liz Copas & Nick Poole
Nomad Century: How to Survive the Climate Upheaval – Gaia Vince
Two Lights: Walking through Landscapes of Loss and Life – James Roberts
One Place De L’Eglise: A Year Or Two In A French Village – Trevor Dolby
Notes from the Cévennes: Half a Lifetime in Provincial France – Adam Thorpe
The Serpent Coiled in Naples – Marius Kociejowski
The Lost Rainforests Of Britain – Guy Shrubsole
Taking Flight: A Celebration Of The Miraculous Phenomenon Of Flight – Lev Parikian
Real Dorset – Jon Woolcott
Between The Chalk And The Sea: A Journey On Foot Into The Past – Gail Simmons
Grounding: Finding Home In A Garden – Lulah Ellender
The Language of Trees: How Trees Make Our World, Change Our Minds and Rewild Our Lives – Katie Holten
Undercurrent: A Cornish Memoir Of Poverty, Nature And Resilience – Natasha Carthew
The Swimmer: The Wild Life Of Roger Deakin – Patrick Barkham
La Vie: A Year In Rural France – John Lewis-Stempel
Wild About Dorset: The Nature Diary of a West Country Parish – Brian Jackman
Ravenous: How To Get Ourselves And Our Planet Into Shape – Henry Dimbleby
High Caucasus: A Mountain Quest In Russia’s Haunted Hinterland – Tom Parfitt
Rural: The Lives Of The Working Class Countryside – Rebecca Smith
Grounded: A Journey Into The Landscapes Of Our Ancestors – James Canton
The Granite Kingdom: A Cornish Journey – Tim Hannigan
Life At Full Tilt: The Selected Writings of Dervla Murphy – Dervla Murphy, Ed. Ethel Crowley
As you can probably tell, the two genres that I like, travel and natural history feature strongly in my favourites list too.
So let me know in the comments below if you are participating in Non-fiction November.
Are there any of the books in the list above that you really like the look of?
What a lovely list (of course!). I think Book Olive’s four prompts are separate from the (five) weeks we’re doing for our particular Nonfiction November but of course it’s great to mix and match: I’m combining Nonfiction November and Novellas in November!
Thank you! Is yours completely separate from Olive’s?
Afraid so! You can find all the weeks themes linked to on my original post if that helps.
I am just writing the pairing theme at the moment