WebJunction

I love reading non-fiction and lately have been reading more non-fiction than fiction. Much of what I read is related to technology and society and I may not represent the norm in this area.

In terms of non-fiction authors, I enjoy David Sedaris (a little comic relief), Barbara Ehrenreich (gets me thinking) and Seth Godin (sort of work related, but still good reading).

I read a lot of biographies as well, which to me is a gray area in terms of being non-fiction.

Let me think on this some more...

Oops, that last paragraph was supposed to be my post, not glommed onto the previous post. Sorry!

And others that come to mind would be books by Barbara Ehrenreich like Nickel and Dimed. Her books have been very popular with our female patrons. Memoirs are very high on the list.
Like Jessica Zeller, I think there's a preconception that women read fiction and men read non-fiction. If that were true in the past, and I'm not certain it was, I see much more of a blend of both forms and gender today. Perhaps in the end, readers are readers and will read what appeals to them. Women might be looking for something different in non-fiction than men do. Just look at the popularity of Glass Castle and Year of Magical Thinking.
In our non-fiction book group, books that win high marks seem to have good sense of place, people that you care about, enough detail told in layman's language. For instance, Erik Larsen's Devil In the White City won approval of the whole group while his Issac's Storm did not. The group did not care enough about the people in this true telling of deadly Galveston Hurricane. They attributed this to the journalistic approach by Larsen. Something lacking. The group is now reading Worst Hard Time : the untold story of those who survived the great American dust bowl / by Timothy Egan. Preliminary comments are very favorable and most of the group is made up of women though generally at least 3 men attend. And even our fiction group, all women, will be reading Stealing Lincoln's Body by Thomas J. Craughwell. Craughwell tells of the forgotten event of the attempted theft of the president's body. It reads like narrative fiction and perhaps this is where the appeal lies. Good story telling while learning something from history.

Thanks for mentioning this article in LJ. Neil Wyatt always has practical advise for to share in our jobs of RA. Her 15 sure bets at the end of the article are a good starting list to keep in mind when suggesting nonfiction to our patrons.

Speaking of marketing nonfiction, there's a recent thread from Jan 5, 2008 on publib on just this subject. In case you're not familiar with this list, Publib is an electronic discussion list with posting on a variety of topics of interest to public library staff. The archives are searchable at http://lists.webjunction.org/publib/ - You'll find lots of suggestions on how to market your non-fiction collection. I rarely do a book display these days that does not include a mix of fiction, nonfiction and media. This mix is a good way to promote whole collection usage.

Also, there's a non-fiction survey being conducted by The Adult Reading Round Table (ARRT), a group of Chicago area readers advisors. IT hopes to find answers to how patrons select specific nonfiction books to read, particularly when they are seeking enjoyment rather than just information. One part of the survey asks for your favorite non-fiction reads. I'll be interested in this compiled list. You can take the survey at http://www.arrtreads.org and also post it to your own webpage as the ARRT is hoping for results from a variety of readers.