I’m not officially participating in Nonfiction November, or looking at the prompts etc, but for years I’ve associated November blogging with two things: NaNoWriMo and Nonfiction November. I’m not doing NaNo again this year – there’s a high likelihood that I’ll never do it again, tbh – and I’ve been very nonfiction-oriented this year, so I’m unofficially following along.

Nonfiction typically makes up about 10% of my reading each year. Given that I’ve found a good average of about 50ish books per year, that means 5 nonfiction. This year, I’ve already read 11. That’s over 25% of the 40 books I’ve read this year. That’s very out of the norm for me, but hey, I tend to read in waves, so I’ll just run with it. The last time I had a big nonfiction kick was in 2015, when 19 of the 71 books I read that year were nf (about 27%). Also, three of the six books I called favorites that year – plus all three runner-ups – were nf. Very unusual for me! And 2021 is shaping up to be similar, at least in terms of percentages. I haven’t as of yet read any life-changing nf this time around.

It’s unlikely that the only thing I’ll read this November is nonfiction, but I do have quite a few on my possibilities list:

• It Could Be Worse: A Girlfriend’s Guide for Runners who Detest Running – Beth Probst (in progress)
• Being Human – Robert Sapolsky (in progress)
• Coffeeland – Augustine Sedgewick
• Gut Feelings: The Microbiome and Our Health – Alessio Fasano
• The Body is Not an Apology – Sonya Renee Taylor
• Understanding Exposure – Bryan Peterson (in progress)
• Exercised – Daniel Lieberman

That may seem like a small list to most folks, but that’s literally more nonfiction than I usually read in a year, so there’s that…

Anyway, wish me luck! Happy Nonfiction November!