Tag: reading

Nonfiction November: Week Five

~ whatmeread ~ 10 Comments

Here we are at the last week of Nonfiction November. The prompt for this week is

Week 5 (11/25-11/29) New To My TBR:  It’s been a month full of amazing nonfiction books! Which ones have made it onto your TBR? Be sure to link back to the original blogger who posted about that book! (Deb)

I have added a bunch of books to my TBR this week! Some of them were ones that I intended to put on it but forgot until reminded by a thoughtful blogger! Others are brand new to me. So, let’s go! I thought I’d divide these into books I already knew about and books I learned about this week.

Books I already knew about but forgot

Actually, a friend of mine recommended this book to me quite some time ago, and I forgot about it. So, when I saw it on Readerbuzz this month, I immediately put it on my list. Thanks Deb! It’s Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari.

I’ve had my eye on A Fever in the Heartland by Timothy Egan since it came out. Okay, I am interested in the history of fringe organizations. I’ll never forget reading Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer. Also, I found Egan’s book about the dust bowl to be interesting. Notice how I made no attempt to use this book’s really long and bulky subtitle. C’mon you guys! Some subtitle on a nonfiction book is expected, but you don’t have to tell everything on the cover! The blog that reminded me of this book was Joy’s Book Blog.

I didn’t write down which blog reminded me of Caste: The Origins of our Discontent, because it was mentioned on several. I have been meaning to read this book, especially because I thought Wilkerson’s book about the Great Migration was excellent.

One morning as I was driving to my art class, I heard an interview with Amy Tan. I didn’t know that she had been more or less restricted to her house because of a condition that causes her to faint with no warning. She told how she got interested in looking at the birds in her backyard and how she eventually trained some of them to eat from her hand. The book is also illustrated by herself! I made a resolution to get that book right away, but I forgot all about it until Shoe’s Seeds and Stories wrote about it this week.

Those are the books I knew about before, but look what I picked up this week!

Books that piqued my interest this month

These books appear in the order that I wrote them down.

What could be more exciting than the story of women in 1938 tackling the Colorado River to see what botanical specimens they can collect? They were expected to die! I found out about Brave the Wild River by Melissa L. Sevigny on The Book Stop blog! Another unnecessarily long subtitle, guys.

I can thank Unsolicited Feedback for listing two books that I put on my TBR this year. One of them is Our Moon (long subtitle) by Rebecca Boyle. I’ve always liked the moon, and Boyle hooks it into effects on our intellectual development, science, and other topics.

The other book is Around the World in 80 Birds by Mike Unwin, illustrated by Ryuto Miyake. OK, I like birds. In this beautiful book, Unwin picks 80 birds from around the world and tells us all about them.

Thanks so much, Unsolicited Feedback!

This one looks like a page-turner, Spy Princess: The Life of Noor Inayat Khan by Shrabani Basu. It’s about the first woman wireless transmitter in occupied France during World War II. She assumed a dangerous resistance post, was betrayed, and ended up dying in Dachau. I put it on my TBR thanks to Literary Potpourri!

And stepping back to World War I, Margot at War by Anne de Courcy is a biography of Margot Asquith, the wife of Britain’s Prime Minister during World War I and how she affected the office. This is a staid description, but this book with its examinations of the couple’s private lives sounds quite juicy! Thanks to Hopewell’s Library of Life for this suggestion!

Finally, thanks to Helen of She Reads Novels for just yesterday reviewing another true crime novel by Kate Summerscale, The Peepshow: The Murders at 10 Rillington Place. I have found Summerscale to be reliably good and interesting but didn’t know she had another book out. I like me a good true crime.

Last year, I listed six or seven nonfiction books in my TBR, but only managed to read three of them (along with nine others). This year, I’ll try to make a point of doing better.

TBR Book Tag!

~ whatmeread ~ 7 Comments

Cover to Sisters by a RiverAs a change of pace, I took up the offer of Naomi at Consumed by Ink to participate in the TBR Book Tag. The only rules are to answer the questions and then tag some more people (if you want). So, please let me know if you’d like to participate (or I might tag someone)!

1. How do you keep track of your TBR pile? This is probably going to seem anal-retentive. I have the bottom of my nightstand completely filled up with books, and the overflow of more recently purchased books is on my desk. The nightstand is stacked in reading order with the genres mixed up together, and the books on the desk get put into the nightstand as the quantity of books in the nightstand dwindles. However, there’s no guarantee when I pick up the next book that I’ll feel like reading it, so I often go through the pile looking for one that I feel more like reading.

2. Is your TR mostly print or e-book? It is almost all print books. I have a couple of e-books from Netgalley on my iPad at most times.

3. How do you determine which book from your TBR to read? I take the next one in the nightstand unless I just don’t feel like it, and then I go down the pile until I find one I want to read. Sometimes, if I just bought a new book that I really want to read, I’ll take it off the desk.

4. A book that’s been on your TBR the longest? The Decline and Fall of the British Empire by Piers Brendan. My husband bought it for me. It’s not that I don’t think the subject might be interesting, it’s just that he buys from the Bargain Books, and although you sometimes find a real bargain there, often those books are there for a reason. I’ll probably read it one of these days. At least Brendan is a historian. Sometimes my husband has bought me nonfiction books written by people with no credentials in the subject whatsoever.

5. A book you recently added to your TBR? Sisters by a River by Barbara Comyns

6. A TBR on your list strictly because of its beautiful cover? I will admit to doing this occasionally, but not right now.

7. A book on your TBR that you never plan on reading? Maybe not A Shropshire Lad, which I got free from the Folio Society.

cover for Rubbernecker8. An unpublished book on your TBR that you’re excited about? I only have a couple unpublished books, but I guess I’m looking forward most to Rubbernecker by Belinda Bauer, who writes delightfully scary thrillers.

9. A book on your TBR that basically everyone has read but you? The Little Friend by Donna Tartt. I read Tartt’s first book (The Secret History) years ago and thought it was over-rated, so I never read the second one. Then this past year I read The Goldfinch. Excellent!

10. A book on your TBR list that everyone recommends to you? Right now I don’t have one. I’ve got a lot of obscure books in my pile.

11. A book on your TBR that you’re dying to read? Greenbanks by Dorothy Whipple

12. How many books are on your TBR shelf at Goodreads? 63, but I’m not good at keeping it up. I have completely different books on my Wish List on Amazon, and most of the books in my TBR at home are not on the Goodreads list.

I have tagged Ariel of One Little Library and Cecilia of Only You.

Let me know if you’d like to be tagged!