Nonfiction November: Reads Like Fiction

Hooray, Nonfiction November is here! Nonfiction November is a month-long celebration of everything nonfiction. Each week, we’ll have a different prompt and a different host looking at different ideas about reading and loving nonfiction.

Week 4 (Nov. 19 to Nov. 23)

Reads Like Fiction (Hosted by Rennie at What’s Nonfiction?)
Nonfiction books often get praised for how they stack up to fiction. Does it matter to you whether nonfiction reads like a novel? If it does, what gives it that fiction-like feeling? Does it depend on the topic, the writing, the use of certain literary elements and techniques? What are your favorite nonfiction recommendations that read like fiction? And if your nonfiction picks could never be mistaken for novels, what do you love about the differences?

Does it matter to you whether nonfiction reads like a novel? If it does, what gives it that fiction-like feeling? Does it depend on the topic, the writing, the use of certain literary elements and techniques?

Nonfiction doesn't have to read like a novel for me to enjoy it, but my favorite nonfiction books do. In nonfiction, the most important thing is truth. But the second most important thing is meaning, and I generally need story to get meaning.

And if your nonfiction picks could never be mistaken for novels, what do you love about the differences?

I love to read through books of information, like encyclopedias and dictionaries; no one would mistake an encyclopedia or a dictionary for a novel. What I love about reference books like these is the feeling that all the important things have been collected and shared in one place. 

What are your favorite nonfiction recommendations that read like fiction? 



For Adults:
God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State by Lawrence Wright
The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court by Jeffrey Toobin
LeRoad Trip: A Traveler's Journal of Love and France by Vivian Swift
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Resistance by Laura Hillenbrand
Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott
Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
The Last Shot: City Streets, Basketball Dreams by Darcy Frey
The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls
Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson
Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Woman: An Intimate Geography by Natalie Angier
The Roads to Sata: A 2,000 Mile Walk Through Japan by Alan Booth
The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible by A.J. Jacobs
A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

And let's add two more that I finished this week:
The Library Book by Susan Orlean
The American Wolf: A True Story of Survival and Obsession in the West by Nate Blakeslee




For Children:
Herstory: 50 Women and Girls Who Shook Up the World by Katherine Halligan
Radioactive: Marie and Pierre Curie, a Tale of Love and Fallout
Redwoods by Jason Chin
The Fantastic Undersea Life of Jacques Cousteau by Dan Yaccarino
One Beetle Too Many: The Extraordinary Adventures of Charles Darwin by Kathryn Lasky
Bird Talk: What Birds are Saying and Why by Lita Judge
Let's Hatch Chicks: A Day-to-Day Chick Hatching Guide for Kids by Lisa Steele
Dolphin Baby! by Nicola Davies
Ella: Queen of Jazz by Helen Hancocks
Schomberg: The Man Who Built a Library by Carole Boston Weatherford
If the World Were a Village: A Book about the World's People by David J. Smith
Lives of the Artists: Masterpieces, Messes by Kathleen Krull

My Favorite Quilts at the 2018 Houston International Quilt Festival

Next year the festival will celebrate its 45th anniversary. I first went to the Houston International Quilt Festival nearly thirty years ago. Quilting has always been special to me. Grandma Ashley taught me to quilt when I was in college. She showed me how to use a template ("a tem-plate," she called it, with her beautiful northern Louisiana voice) to cut out each piece. Then we sewed each piece together to form a quilt top. We layered in some batting and a back, and then began to quilt the pieces together. That was my first quilt.

I've since made many more, and now there are all sorts of quilting kits and quilting machines and quilting computer programs. 

I still go to the Quilt Festival for one reason, though: to see the amazing quilts fashioned by people all over the world. 

Here are my favorites from this year's festival.

Book Lovers Heaven

One of these days, I am going to die.

I hope I will go to Book Lovers Heaven.

Here are some things I hope will be there:

Good reading chairs.

Book pencils.

Games of Bookopoly.

Lego librarians.

Book-scented candles.

Old card catalogs used for storage.

Literary tattoos.

Book Lovers Memory Challenge games.

Book quilts.

"Fully relax while reading your favorite book."

Book shoes.

Good coffee. 

An amazing library setting.

Who would like to go to Book Lovers Heaven with me?

Do you have other ideas for furnishings that I have left off?

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. Each Tuesday That Artsy Reader Girl assigns a topic and then post her top ten list that fits that topic. You’re more than welcome to join her and create your own top ten (or 2, 5, 20, etc.) list as well. Feel free to put a unique spin on the topic to make it work for you! Please link back to That Artsy Reader Girl in your own post so that others know where to find more information.

Nonfiction November Be the Expert: My List of the Best Books for Writers About Writing

Hooray, Nonfiction November is here! Nonfiction November is a month-long celebration of everything nonfiction. Each week, we’ll have a different prompt and a different host looking at different ideas about reading and loving nonfiction.

Week 3 (Nov. 12 to Nov. 16)

Be The Expert/Ask the Expert/Become the Expert (Hosted by Julie at Julz Reads) Three ways to join in this week! You can either share three or more books on a single topic that you have read and can recommend (be the expert), you can put the call out for good nonfiction on a specific topic that you have been dying to read (ask the expert), or you can create your own list of books on a topic that you’d like to read (become the expert).

I'm an expert on lots of odd genres of nonfiction books.

Armchair Foodie Travel Books

Teaching in Tough Schools: A List of Great Stories
Baking Bread: Fiction, Nonfiction, and Everything in Between

Books That Would Be On My Syllabus If I Taught Happiness 101

Top Ten Best Moving-and-Starting-Over Books

Great Books About Teaching

Great Picture Book Biographies of Great Women

Top Ten Travel Narratives

Books I'd Give to Readers Who Have Never Read...Oh Dear...Nonfiction

I wrote and illustrated my first book when I was five. I wrote it on a Rainbow Tablet. It was a collection of stories. Each story was on a different color of paper.

My friend and I wrote books together when I was in elementary school. We wrote mysteries with a main character named Walter. He was, as I remember him, bumbling. None of our Walter stories have survived, but I remember my friend and I laughing hysterically as we spent entire summer afternoons writing about Walter's adventures.

I've always kept a journal and I have taken writing classes off and on at the community college and through the Inprint Teachers as Writers program for over thirty years.

But the truth is that I'm not so much a writer as I am a reader of books about writing.

In honor of Nonfiction November and NaNoWriMo, here is my list of The Best Books for Writers About Writing:

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott
Art and Fear: Observations of the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking by David Bayles
Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within by Natalie Goldberg
Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami
On Writing Well by William Zinsser
Mystery and Manners by Flannery O'Connor
Wild Mind: Living the Writer's Life by Natalie Goldberg
If You Want to Write: A Book About Art, Independence and Spirit
You Must Revise Your Life by William Stafford
Pep Talks for Writers: 52 Insights and Actions to Boost Your Writing Mojo by Grant Faulkner
The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield
The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron
Syllabus: Notes from an Accidental Professor by Lynda Barry
Art Before Breakfast: A Zillion Ways to Be More Creative No Matter How Busy You Are
Old Friend from Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir by Natalie Goldberg
The Practice of Poetry: Writing Exercises from Poets Who Teach by Robin Behn
Poemcrazy: Freeing Your Life With Words by Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge
The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White, illustrated by Maira Kalman
Stein on Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies by Sol Stein
The Writing Life by Annie Dillard

What kinds of nonfiction are you most familiar with?

Are you a writer? Have you read any of these?

Do you have any books to add to my list?

The 2018 Texas Book Festival

The Texas Book Festival is my favorite book event of the year. Serendipitously, it occurs every year right around the time of my birthday, so it has evolved into a way to happily celebrate my big day. 

This year, because of other obligations, we only had time to make a quick trip to Austin on Saturday. I was worried I wouldn't be able to squeeze much into one day. 

I shouldn't have worried.

Matt de la Pena and Christian Robinson

Both Matt de la Peña and Christian Robinson were separated from their parents as children. De la Peña's dad was in Mexico while Matt lived with his mother in the US. Robinson was raised by his grandmother because his mom was struggling with addiction. 

Both men have used these struggles in their work, de la Peña as an author of children's picture books and young adult novels, and Robinson as an illustrator of children's picture books.

Together, de la Peña and Robinson created the Newbery award-winning picture book, Last Stop on Market Street. Their latest book together is Carmela, Full of Wishes.

Nathan Hale

There was a wall-to-wall crowd for author Nathan Hale. Have you ever heard him speak? If you have, you know why there were so many people willing to stand for an hour to hear him. Nathan Hale is mesmerizing. He tells the stories of American history and draws cartoon illustrations as he is talking. 

His newest book is the latest in his Hazardous Tales series. It's called Lafayette.

Juana Martinez-Neal

Every children's author at the Texas Book Festival is introduced by a group of children. Juana Martinez-Neal, the author of the picture book, Alma and How She Got Her Name, was introduced by a group of children who each told how he got his name. Martinez-Neal told us how she hated her name when she was growing up. People didn't know how to pronounce it, and when she told them she was from Peru, people immediately thought she wore a tall Peruvian hat, lived in the mountains, and had a llama. The story of Alma and How She Got Her Name, she told us, was inspired by her own story.

Lunch at Mmmpanadas

Pie Squared

I'm a pie fanatic, so I was happy to see Cathy Barrow in the Central Market Food Tent sharing her new cookbook, Pie Squared. Barrow said she has always been a pie maker, but she'd never tried rectangular pies until she entered a contest in her hometown of Washington DC. She was astonished at home much easier rectangular pies are than round pies. She was challenged to make a cookbook with rectangular pies, so she did. She made 193 pies while trying out this method.

I liked Barrow's talk so much that I bought the book.

Sarah Bird

Texas author Sarah Bird came to talk about her new book, Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen. One of my friends from my book club just read this book and was raving about it to all of us, so I was eager to hear Bird talk. The historical fiction novel is based on the real-life story of Cathey Williams, who disguised herself as a man and served for two years in the Buffalo Soldiers. My book club friend thinks this book would make a good selection for the next Gulf Coast Reads.

Susan Orlean

You might expect a huge crowd for Susan Orlean's new book, The Library Book, with this group of teachers and librarians who make up a large part of the Texas Book Festival. It was another packed house. Orlean told us the library "may have been the first place I was given autonomy." It was such a thrill for her, Orlean said, to leave a place with things you hadn't paid for. Libraries are our memories, she said. The Library Book has four distinct themes: (1) a history of the Los Angeles Public Library, (2) day-to-day life at a library, (3) the largest library fire in history which occurred at the LA Public Library in 1986 and left the library closed for seven years, and (4) her personal memories of libraries. 

I'm on the list to get this one at my public library.

Mary Pope Osborne

The last stop of the day was for Magic Treehouse author Mary Pope Osborne and her sister, the author of the sister series, Fact Finders, Naomi Pope Boyce. The sisters told us about their latest books, Hurricane Heroes in Texas, the Magic Treehouse story, and the nonfiction Fact Finders book, Texas. Boyce told us she had never read a state history as exciting as that of Texas. Both sisters told us they'd ben touring Texas for a while, and they were pleased to tell us, "There is so much energy in Texas." They also commended the children of Texas for their politeness; they said they'd never seen anything like that in the North. 

The sisters also shared the themes of their next five pairs of books: the Roman Army, Ben Franklin, the Galapagos Islands, narwhals, and llamas. 

What a day! I can't wait for next year.

Backlist Books I Want to Read

I'm actually more of a backlist reader than I am a new book reader; I like books that have proved themselves over time.

Here are some of the backlist books I'm very interested in reading. These are all books that have been moved from the Kinda-Want-to-Read stacks in the bedroom to Wanna-Read stacks in the closet to the Gonna-Read-Soon stacks that lie next to my bed.

The Night Circus

Salt to the Sea

Edith Hamilton's Mythology

Jon Kabat-Zinn's Wherever You Go, There You Are

Don Quixote

The Gates of the Alamo by Stephen Harrigan

The Night Lives On by Walter Lord (Titanic sequel)

The Desert Fathers: Sayings of the Early Christian Monks

A View of the Harbor by Elizabeth Taylor

Jane Gardam's Queen of the Tambourine


That's not even including all the YA fantasy novels I haven't read yet...City of Bones...Cinder...The Elite...Before I Fall...or the Classics Club books....




Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. Each Tuesday That Artsy Reader Girl assigns a topic and then post her top ten list that fits that topic. You’re more than welcome to join her and create your own top ten (or 2, 5, 20, etc.) list as well. Feel free to put a unique spin on the topic to make it work for you! Please link back to That Artsy Reader Girl in your own post so that others know where to find more information.

Nonfiction November: Nonfiction / Fiction Book Pairing

Hooray, Nonfiction November is here! Nonfiction November is a month-long celebration of everything nonfiction. Each week, we’ll have a different prompt and a different host looking at different ideas about reading and loving nonfiction.

Week 2 (Nov. 5 to Nov. 9)

Nonfiction / Fiction Book Pairing (Hosted by Sarah at Sarah’s Book Shelves)
This week, pair up a nonfiction book with a fiction title. It can be a “If you loved this book, read this!” or just two titles that you think would go well together. Maybe it’s a historical novel and you’d like to get the real history by reading a nonfiction version of the story.



I'm learning to become a Master Naturalist, so I have some good ideas for book pairings, with fiction and nonfiction, or fiction and fiction, that includes naturalist elements.

Two nonfiction books about birding

Two fiction books about forests

A nonfiction and a fiction book about raptors

What book pairs would you make?