The Nonfiction Files 2: How to Pick Nonfiction You'll Like

How do I know what nonfiction is for me? Forthcoming nonfiction that fits that bill. And an update to my nonfiction taxonomy.

The number one question I get from readers about nonfiction reading is how do I know what nonfiction books to read? How do I know what will be engaging and not too boring or repetitive?

For me, finding the right book is much more an art than a science, which is to say, I have kissed a lot of nonfiction frogs before finding myself a prince¹. Today, I’ll share with you what I look for when selecting my next nonfiction read and setting my TBR.

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Before I do though, I want to update the nonfiction taxonomy I released last month. I thought about it a lot before and after sharing it with you all, and I got something wrong. I still stand by what I said, but organizationally the order was off. Style (academic, creative, narrative, and reported) should be the largest piece of the pyramid, because style is the most overarching piece. You can apply style to any of the other classifications.

Which is to say, you can have a book that matches in both category and genre but still feels radically different because of the style. Just to belabor this point a little, I took four books that fit into the same category, genre, and subject and then changed the style and you can see how that changes the entire vibe of the book.

I feel better correcting the record, because this error was making me crazy. Okay, Moving on!

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How to tell if a nonfiction book will be for you?

First, and this cannot be overstated, you need to know your taste. If you read a lot of nonfiction, this is likely easy for you to articulate. If you’re newer into sourcing your own nonfiction, you will have some trial and error² to help you hone your thinking. Here is what I look for when I am looking into nonfiction: topic, key words, endorsements, and cover.

Topic

This is the easiest thing to discern. What is this book about? That is always where I start. While I can be convinced to read something outside my personal interests, the topic is usually going to be the thing that gets me to consider a book. I know I love a crime, a collapse of some sort, a social issue, cultural criticism, and recent history³. Any time I see a topic that falls into one of those umbrellas I am going to perk up.

Key Words & Phrases

Now that I know what the book is about how do I know if it will be written in a way that I will respond to? That is where key words come in. I will read the jacket or marketing copy looking for clues on what to expect. This part makes me feel like a spy trying to decode a cryptic text⁴. These words are important because, as we’ve discussed, the same topic could be covered in a variety of ways. Here are a few terms I see on nonfiction books and what that tells me I’m in for. I also gave you a few other words I see a lot that do similar things as “see also”⁵.

Comprehensive - big picture, large scope, a lot of information.
See also: detailed, overreaching, academic

Extensive research - this will be detailed and have receipts. It usually won’t be an academic book (because research is implied with an academic book so they’re not going to say that in the copy), but it will have a similar level of depth for a lay audience.
See also: meticulous, rigorous, deeply reported

Definitive - either the first pass at an event, person, or topic, or a reexamination the flips it fro what folks thought they knew. It will for sure give deep dive energy and take you into the nitty gritty. This usually means this is the only book you need on the subject (according to the publisher so take that with a grain of salt).
See also: singular

Exploration - the author is going to walk you through the topic or event or phenomena, it is not the most helpful of descriptors, but it does imply there will be a broad view and a more detailed one as you progress.
See also: examination, critical

Harrowing - this means intense, and usually means you’re going to be up close and personal with your subject whether that is a memoir or a work of investigated journalism where you’re embedded with a person going through some shit.
See also: intense

Laugh out loud - I assume you know what this means literally, but in nonfiction books it usually also means pretty specifically jokey, not just loosely humorous.
See also: hilarious, side splitting

Lyrical - this is always a hint that you’re going to be getting a form of creative nonfiction. Expect juicy prose.
See also: poetic

Meditation - intimate, usually reserved for books with at least some piece of personal narrative. You’re sticking with one topic for a long time and digging in.
See also: reflective, introspective

Moving - this means you’re supposed to cry, especially if it is any form of personal writing.
See also: heart breaking, emotional, wrenching

Narrative - you’re getting a story with an arc and some character development.
See also: reads like fiction, novelesque, follows (as in a person or family)

Propulsive - fast paced and action packed, a book you can lock into and not come up for air until you’re done.
Similar terms: gripping, riveting

Searing - if I see this for a memoir or essays (or any personal writing) I am thinking take down of a person, place, or idea. That also holds true for a lot of reporting on topics, especially current events and politics.
See also: scathing, blistering, no holds barred

Tell all/Exposé - expect mess, expect juice, this is particularly enticing to me when paired with a memoir, because then you’re getting hot goss.
See also: revealing, look inside

Weaving - this is hints at a lot of pieces thrown at you, could be something like a Memoir plus, or biography that really digs into historical context. This can also be giving you clues to if the book is written chronologically or not.
See also: genre bending

Endorsements

I take book recommendations very seriously, but also very skeptically. The below list includes the outside sources I will give some weight to when I’m considering my next nonfiction read.

• Personal recommendations from friends and family. This is not just anyone, it’s gotta be the folks who know my tastes.

• If an author who writes the kind of nonfiction I like, recommends a book to me directly or via social media, I will pay attention. Some of my fave book recs of recent years have come from this source. A few authors who’s taste I trust, Patrick Radden Keefe⁶, Garrett M. Graff, Roxanna Asgarian, Kiese Laymon, and Clint Smith. If they recommend, I will at least give it a gander. So far, they have not led me astray⁷.

• In the same vein if a book is blurbed by multiple⁸ authors who write my kind of nonfiction, that is an indication that I might into a book.

• Awards. Not every award or accolade matters to me personally. But I know what I like enough to know that some awards speak to me. Whatever books win the general fiction category for the Pulitzer Prize is a me book. I also tend to agree with is Kirkus Prize for nonfiction. I do not put as much stock in the National Book Award for nonfiction, because that award seems to shift year to year based on the judges in a way the other prizes seem to have their own identity. I am similarly mixed on The New York Times’ five best nonfiction books of the year. I almost always read them, even though I only agree on maybe two or three.

Cover

I do not care what you were told in second grade, I am judging a book by its cover 100% of the time, and you should, too. I know that if I see a monochromatic, color saturated photo with large, bold, simple tent on the cover that that book is for me. I will be reading and loving that book. Books that are red, white and/or black? That’s a yes for me. Baby blue nonfiction? Not so much.

A great exercise, go pull your favorite nonfiction books off the shelf, what do their covers have in common? Look for books that look like that in the bookstore. This isn’t a fool proof way to pick a new favorite, but I think you’ll be surprised by how well it works.

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Forthcoming nonfiction on my radar

Here are eight books coming out later this year, that I haven’t yet read⁹, that I am most excited about based off any combination of the above factors¹⁰. They are listed here in order of publication.

There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America by Brian Goldstone¹¹ March 25)
Authority: Essays by Andrea Long Chu (April 8)
Love in Exile by Shon Faye (May 13)
The Last Supper: Art, Faith, Sex, and Controversy in the 1980s by Paul Elie (May 27)
Their Accomplices Wore Robes: How the Supreme Court Chained Black America to the Bottom of a Racial Caste System by Brando Simeo Starkey (June 3)
No Sense in Wishing: Essays by Lawerence Burnely (July 8)
A Flower Traveled in My Blood: The Incredible True Story of the Grandmothers Who Fought to Find a Stolen Generation of Children by Haley Cohen Gilliland (July 15)
The Devil Reached Toward the Sky: An Oral History of the Making and Unleashing of the Atomic Bomb by Garrett M. Graff (August 5)

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I would love to hear from you what factors you use to picking your next nonfiction read, and how well do they work for you? Trusted sources? Foolproof key words? Cover designs? Something else?

If you have topics you want me to discuss or dig into for next month’s installment of The Nonfiction Files, let me know.

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1. Patrick Radden Keefe, but you already knew that.

2. I still pick up books thinking I know for sure they will be slam dunk new favorite book, and boy am I wrong. So, this isn’t solely about being newer to nonfiction.

3. For it is anything from World War II and later.

4. I am not sure that is why spies do, but just go with me.

5. Though I know this isn’t technically how “see also” works, since I didn’t give you definitions for those terms as well, but you catch my drift.

6. Him again? Swoon.

7. A few books that I have read a loved recently from this cohort include; The Unclaimed, Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here, The Barn, and Challenger. Not too shabby right? Maybe they are my most trusted outside source.

8. It can not be just one blurb it needs to be a few.

9. I picked books I haven’t read so that maybe at the end of the year we can look back and see how well I know my own taste.

10. Lol look at those covers, were they designed in a lab for me? To be fair, a handful of these books made my TBR before the covers were released.

11. I have read most of this book, I am not finished, and it is not out yet. I am counting it here because it has been highly anticipated by me, but isn’t truly and totally unread. But, yes it is very good and harrowing.