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I don't read more than 5 nonfiction books in any given year. This has been true for most of my life and it's not something I'm proud of. I'm not naturally drawn to nonfiction, and the ones that I am drawn to are usually memoirs or are based on social issues, which often lend themselves easily to storytelling.

I can't say I really understand my general aversion to nonfiction. When I go to a bookstore, I never run to the nonfiction section (does anyone actually do this?). But I have known people who only read nonfiction, and it was simply a matter of personal preference. I'm not going to dwell too much on why I have historically ignored this type of writing. Instead, I want to focus on my goal to actively seek nonfiction that does appeal to me.

May of you already know I actively seek to diversify my reading in as many ways as possible. Nonfiction isn't just a gap in my reading history, though, it's an endless chasm in an uncharted territory. That's what it feels like, at least. I won't reveal how few nonfiction books I've read to save face, so let's focus on the books I want to read for the next several months! Like in my goal to read more Indigenous authors, I will also try to read 1 nonfiction book a month. This is a reasonable goal that allows me to enjoy the literature that I've always loved while leaving room for growth and exploration.

Below are 12 books I am genuinely interested in reading. Please note that this is a personal reading list, not an exhaustive one of the best diverse nonfiction around (though these books are worth your time). I included memoirs because this is my first full-fledged and earnest exploration into the nonfiction genre, so I wanted to include something familiar. Memoirs are personal narratives that are similar enough to novels that I have never had any trouble reading them. I've also included more serious books on science, history, and social issues to balance it out.

I'm very proud of this list and hope others can use it as a reference to read nonfiction that is diverse, educational, inspiring,relevant, and important. My goal is to continue growing as a reader and as a human who is curious about the world and the many secrets is has to offer. I can't honestly say that I read diversely if I don't read nonfiction, so consider this my attempt at rectifying this egregious gap in my reading.

12 Diverse Nonfiction Books That Will Educate & Inspire

In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom - by Yeonmi Park

Memoirs about people's lives in North Korea should be required reading for everyone. Park's story is painful and tragic, but essential in order to shed light at the horrors that take place in North Korea. I expect to be mortified while reading, but also to learn much about the resilience of the human spirit.

The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People In North America - Thomas King

I know so little about the history of indigenous peoples that almost anything I read will educate me. I can count the number of books I've read by or about Indigenous peoples in two hands, which is embarrassing but something I'm working to rectify. Thomas King's book is ambitious in scope, which makes it all the more necessary for me to read it. Previously, I've talked about my goal to read more Indigenous literature. My plan is to include as much nonfiction as I can because I have so much to learn.

The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race - edited by Jesmyn Ward

This collection of essays and poems includes writers such as Daniel José Older, Edwidge Danticat, and Claudia Rankine, who fearlessly examine and question issues of race in America. They not only speak of the troubled present, but also of the darkest parts of our history and visions for a better future. This is an urgent and unmissable collection.

The Song Poet: A Memoir of My Father - by Kao Kalia Yang

I know embarrassingly very little about the Hmong people. Actually, I didn't know they existed until I read reviews of this book in the blogosphere. That's horrible, I know. But that's precisely the reason why I need to start reading more nonfiction. A memoir is the perfect place for a regular reader of fiction to start learning something new but in a familiar format. I am also very interested in Yang's The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir, published 8 years ago.

Teaching Mother How To Give Birth - by Warsan Shire

I have to be honest and embarrass myself again. The only reason Warsan Shire was brought to my attention was because of Beyonce's Lemonade album. But ever since then, she has been on my radar as a must-read for 2016. She's been recommended by a few bloggers I follow so I am determined to read this essential work of feminist text in 2016.

The Gene: An Intimate History - by Siddhartha Mukherjee

The subject matter and length of this book are a bit daunting, but I have heard only positive things about it and it does sound like a very important work. I have read and enjoyed books on biology, astrophysics, and cosmology, but one that focuses on the history of the gene is out of my comfort zone. However, part of growing as a reader and further diversifying my reading is to read beyond the familiar. I will give reading The Gene and earnest attempt and hope to learn much from it.

Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America - by Ibram X. Kendi.

This book chronicles the history of racist ideas throughout American history and how they affect race relations in modern American society. Reading a book like this will offer invaluable context for other important contemporary ruminations on race.

Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More - by Janet Mock

I have wanted to read Janet Mock's memoir for months now! The only reason I haven't is because I prioritize fiction over everything else. This pledge to read more nonfiction is the push that I needed to read Redefining Realness, which has received much critical acclaim and proven to be one of the more prominent texts on transgender issues in 2015.

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End - by Atul Gawande

I'm deeply fascinated by this one because it address the complicated and controversial topic of dying in modern society. It covers the various types of end-of-life care provided for the elderly and then asks questions about how to cope with death and the process of dying.

Citizen: An American Lyric - by Claudia Rankine

This lyrical meditation on race relations and discourse in America has only proven more relevant since its publication in 2014. Last week I went to a panel at my local independent bookstore titled "Black Literature Matters." It was wonderful and enlightening. They also gave out 200 copies of Citizen because they believe it's that important. I will be prioritizing this one over others on the list.

A Cup of Water Under My Bed - by Daisy Hernandez

Daisy Hernandez's memoir was recommended to me after the Orlando shooting as an important Queer Latinx narrative that explores family, identity, and experiences of migration. I'm slightly biased because the author and I share the same last name, but I'm positive this memoir will become a personal favorite after I read it.

The Other Slavery - The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America - by Andrés Reséndez

This is another work that sounds incredibly important and is bound to educate me about things I didn't know I didn't know. Native people face cultural appropriation and erasure every day, so that last thing we should be doing is forgetting that Indigenous Americans were enslaved too.

What's your relationship with nonfiction like? Solid and long-standing or nonexistent?

Thank you for reading. Enter your email below to receive new posts every Monday and Friday!

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being mortal: medicine and what matters in the end

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12 Diverse Nonfiction Books That Will Educate And Insipire

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I don't read more than 5 nonfiction books in any given year. This has been true for most of my life and it's not something I'm proud of. I'm not naturally drawn to nonfiction, and the ones that I am drawn to are usually memoirs or are based on social issues, which often lend themselves easily to storytelling.

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New York, NY (August 25, 2015) The National Book Foundation, presenter of the National Book Awards, will partner with The New Yorker to exclusively reveal this year's National Book Awards Longlists, ten books each in the categories of Young People's Literature, Poetry, Nonfiction, and Fiction, selected by four panels of expert judges independent of the Foundation and The New Yorker.

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Pulitzer Prize General Nonfiction Winners

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Pulitzer Prize General Nonfiction Winners

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Prizewinners and finalists in General Nonfiction category, including bios, photos, jurors and work by winners and finalists

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Combined Print & E-Book Nonfiction Books - Best Sellers - The New York Times

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Authoritatively ranked lists of books sold in the United States, sorted by format and genre.

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Nonfiction: news, interviews and reviews from NPR Books

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Also check out Kirkus award winners.

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Nonfiction Book Reviews | Kirkus Reviews

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(1) Research, (2) Real World, & (3) Review!

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Late on a Friday in Montreal, 1974, Art Williams, a National League umpire, is pacing the floor of his hotel room, sleepless and worried. During a game that evening, a player had pushed him, and Mr. Williams had pushed back - inappropriate behavior for those charged with enforcing the rules. It was personally troublesome for Mr. Williams, who, as the first black umpire in the National League, felt extra pressure to perform.

Mr. Williams worries through the night, repeatedly trying to compose the right words to explain the incident to the National League president, Chub Feeney, to whom he is obliged to report. After an early breakfast, Mr. Williams dials Mr. Feeney's number. When the umpire identifies himself, the president does not sound happy.

"Well, what do you want?"

"I wanted to explain to you, I mean, I wanted to tell you about what happened in last night's game."

"Do you know what time it is?" Feeney demanded.

Williams glanced at his watch and, at the same time, felt a sinking, queasy, bottomless feeling in his stomach. "Why, it is nine o'clock, Chub."

"It may be 9:00 in Montreal, young man," said Feeney loudly, "but in California it is still the middle of the night!"

This scene is recounted in one of my first books, "The Best Seat in Baseball, But You Have to Stand: The Game as Umpires See It." This is a nonfiction book, but obviously, I wasn't pacing behind the umpire on that anxiety-filled evening. So how could I describe the phone call or, for that matter, detail what Mr. Williams was thinking with any kind of authority? This is a legitimate question, one narrative or creative nonfiction writers must be prepared to answer when readers and editors want reassurance about scenes we've reconstructed. In our fervor to be cinematic and provide readers with compelling characters, how do we avoid crossing the murky line between fact and fiction?

Nonfiction means that our stories are as true and accurate as possible. Readers expect - demand - diligence. I won't say that nonfiction writers don't on occasion make mistakes or even knowingly make stuff up, as for example Jonah Lehrer did in his recent book, "Imagine," or James Frey did in his memoir, "A Million Little Pieces." (Yes, truth in memoir is often a matter of memory and perception, but that doesn't mean that the writer shouldn't strive for accuracy at every opportunity, even when ideas and information are presented in scenes, as in the Williams-Feeney encounter.) As I explained in my previous article for Draft, all creative or narrative nonfiction books or articles are fundamentally collections of scenes that together make one big story.

But to reconstruct stories and scenes, nonfiction writers must conduct vigorous and responsible research. In fact, narrative requires more research than traditional reportage, for writers cannot simply tell what they learn and know; rather, they must show it. When I talk with my students, I introduce a process of work I call the three R's: First comes research, then real world exploration and finally and perhaps most important, a fact-checking review of all that has been written.

In a recent interview in Creative Nonfiction, the magazine I edit, the writer Erik Larson explained his approach to portraying characters' inner states of mind. "I will only propose what somebody is thinking or not thinking if I have something concrete in hand that makes that clear," he says in the interview. "But you absolutely cannot make that stuff up out of whole cloth because then you pass into another realm entirely." That realm is fiction.

Most writers separate research into two interwoven phases. They begin with archival information, meaning what's already been written or collected. The Internet may be a starting point, but it's important to then go to direct sources. Letters, diaries, papers, interview transcripts will often reveal defining and intimate details of your subject. Story lines you had never imagined may also present themselves. In researching "In the Garden of Beasts," Mr. Larson searched documents, letters and writings related to his primary character, Martha Dodd, the daughter of the American ambassador to Hitler's Germany. Among the files were two locks of hair from the poet Carl Sandburg, with whom Martha had had an affair.

After the archives comes real-world research. Interview the people involved in the scenes - not just the primary characters, but the bystanders, as well, who may provide different perspectives. Visit the places where the action occurred and seek telling details, like the locks of Sandburg's hair, that will surprise readers. This is the stuff that stands out and makes your work unique, memorable and three-dimensional.

More often than not, the responsible writer combines both methods of research not just to make scenes enticing, but also to assure accuracy. Nailing down the facts and maintaining dramatic impact is a process that requires patience, persistence and a commitment to not cut corners. Examples of how to do it right can be found in Rebecca Skloot's excellent book, "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks." In one scene, Stanley Gartler, a relatively unknown geneticist, speaks at a conference of more than 700 academics and industry leaders in Bedford, Penn., in 1966. He steps up to the podium, leans into the microphone and begins a talk that disrupts the entire field of study related to the culturing of cells. When Gartler finished, "the room sat silent, dumbfounded," Ms. Skloot writes, until T.C. Hsu, the chairman of the conference session, spoke: "So I am happy about the paper by Dr. Gartler and am also sure he has made many people unhappy."

Ms. Skloot then recounts the ensuing dialogue in the meeting, as well as the heated debate that flows into other sessions and continues through informal lunches - and six pages of the book.

Ms. Skloot was able to describe and document the debate so thoroughly because she unearthed a detailed transcript of the proceedings, which included the discussions that followed presentations. But what about the narrative details: how Dr. Gartler stood at the podium and leaned into the microphone - and then the deafening silence following his talk? Ms. Skloot tracked down and interviewed people who were there, she explained in an e-mail to me. She located letters about the conference written by participants who'd since died. She also examined photographs from the sessions.

As a final step, a writer must conduct a fact-checking review, the final 'R' in this equation. This is important, even when the story is based on archival material and reinforced through personal conversations.

In an ideal situation, research, real world and review all come together perfectly. But of course, this isn't always the case. When I was reconstructing Mr. Williams's nervous night and his embarrassing phone call to Mr. Feeney, no written documentation existed. In piecing together the story, I interviewed both Mr. Williams and Mr. Feeney, as well as two of the umpires that Mr. Williams had been working with who had heard the story from both men. I confirmed it all with Mr. Williams before the book went to press.

In the end, thorough research and real world exploration followed by fact-checking review shapes and sharpens the story, ensures writer credibility and allows for fair and equitable treatment of the characters involved. And by carefully following the three R process, writers of nonfiction will be prepared to answer the inevitable question: "How do you know?"
Lee Gutkind is founder and editor of Creative Nonfiction Magazine. He is Distinguished Writer-in-Residence in the Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes at Arizona State University and a professor in the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication. His new book is "You Can't Make This Stuff Up: The Complete Guide to Writing Creative Nonfiction from Memoir to Literary Journalism to Everything in Between."

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Late on a Friday in Montreal, 1974, Art Williams, a National League umpire, is pacing the floor of his hotel room, sleepless and worried. During a game that evening, a player had pushed him, and Mr. Williams had pushed back - inappropriate behavior for those charged with enforcing the rules.

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A great blog by Maria Popova with posts regarding thoughts about books (and more!)

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It is a strange thing, desire - so fiery yet so forlorn, aimed at having and animated by lack. In its restlessness and its pointedness, so single of focus, it shares psychic territory with addiction. Its Latin root - dē + sidus, "away from one's star" - bespeaks its disorientation, its rush of longing, which we so easily mistake for love. And yet, when unplugged from the engine of compulsion and possession, desire can be a powerful clarifying force for the hardest thing in life: knowing what we want and wanting it unambivalently, with wholehearted devotion and fully conscious commitment. In this aspect, desire is not a simulacrum of but scaffolding for love. It shares a strand of that same Latin root with consider, for it is only through consideration - of our own soul's yearnings and the sovereign soul of the other - that we can truly love.

How to tell love from desire and how to make of desire a stronghold of love is what the Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset (May 9, 1883-October 18, 1955) explores in On Love: Aspects of a Single Theme (public library) - the posthumous collection of his superb newspaper essays challenging our standard narratives and touching self-delusions about who we are and what we want, anchored in the recognition that "people are the most complicated and elusive objects in the universe."

In a passage that calls to mind Auden's haunting meditation on true and false enchantment, Ortega considers how our slippery grasp of reality shapes our experience of love:

It would be outlandish to conclude that, after being consistently wrong in our dealings with reality, we should hit the mark in love alone. The projection of imaginary qualities upon a real object is a constant phenomenon... To see things - moreover, to appreciate them! - always means to complete them... Strictly speaking, no one sees things in their naked reality. The day this happens will be the last day of the world, the day of the great revelation. In the meantime, let us consider our perception of reality which, in the midst of a fantastic fog, allows us at least to capture the skeleton of the world, its great tectonic lines, as adequate. Many, in fact the majority, do not even achieve this... They lead a somnambulant existence, scurrying along their delirium. What we call genius is only the magnificent power... of piercing a portion of that imaginative fog and discovering behind it a new authentic bit of reality, quivering in sheer nakedness.

Love, Ortega argues, can uniquely pierce the veil of delirium and reveal a greater truth, unlike "inactive sentiments" like joy and sadness, to which desire is akin:

[Joy and sadness] are a sort of coloration which tinges the human being. One "is" sad or he "is" happy, in complete passiveness. Joy, in itself, does not constitute any action, although it may lead to it. One the other hand, loving something is not simply "being," but acting toward that which is loved... Love itself is, by nature, a transitive act in which we exert ourselves on behalf of what we love.

In consonance with Iris Murdoch's magnificent definition of love as "the extremely difficult realisation that something other than oneself is real," Ortega observes that the essence of love is an "intense affirmation of another being, irrespective of his attitude toward us." With an eye to all the things we mistake for it - "desire, curiosity, persistence, madness, sincere sentimental fiction" - he admonishes against the culturally conditioned error of measuring the magnitude of love by the intensity of violent emotion it stirs in us, drawing a crucial distinction between falling in love, as a transient altered state of consciousness drunk on dopamine, and loving, as a continuous mode of being:

Love is a much broader and profound operation, one which is more seriously human, but less violent. All love passes through the frantic zone of "falling in love"; but, on the other hand, "falling in love" is not always followed by genuine love. Let us, therefore, not confuse the part with the whole.

[...]

The more violent a psychic act is, the lower it is in the hierarchy of the soul, the closer it is to blind physical mechanism, and the more removed from the mind. And, vice versa, as our sentiments become more tinged with spirituality, they lose violence and mechanical force. The sensation of hunger in the hungry man will always be more violent than the desire for justice in the just man.

We are always, of course, trapped by the limitations of language in communicating the limitless. Observing the difficulty of using a single term to encompass "the most varied fauna of emotions" - the love of science or art, the love of a lover or a child, the love of a country or a cause - and the fact that any term becomes unwieldy when tasked with conveying too many disparate things, Ortega considers what the defining feature of love might be:

Love, strictly speaking, is pure sentimental activity toward an object, which can be anything - person or thing. As a "sentimental" activity, it remains, on the one hand, separated from all intellectual functions - perception, consideration, thought, recall, imagination - and, on the other hand, from desire, with which it is often confused. A glass of water is desired, but is not loved, when one is thirsty. Undoubtedly, desires are born of love; but love itself is not desire. We desire good fortune for our country, and we desire to live in it because we love it. Our love exists prior to these desires, and the desires spring from love like the plant form the seed.

Desire is often so difficult to distinguish from love because it is rooted in longing, but longing exists only in absence and evaporates at the moment of attainment, while love grows more saturated the more presence and energy it is given. A generation before the poet J.D. McClatchy contemplated the contrast and complementarity of desire and love, Ortega writes:

Desiring something is, without doubt, a move toward possession of that something ("possession" meaning that in some way or other the object should enter our orbit and become part of us). For this reason, desire automatically dies when it is fulfilled; it ends with satisfaction. Love, on the other hand, is enterally unsatisfied. Desire has a passive character; when I desire something, what I usually desire is that the object come to me. Being the center of gravity, I await things to fall down before me. Love... is the exact reverse of desire, for love is all activity. Instead of the object coming to me, it is I who go to the object and become a part of it. In the act of love, the person goes out of himself. Love is perhaps the supreme activity which nature affords anyone for going out of himself toward something else. It does not gravitate toward me, but I toward it... Love is gravitation toward that which is loved.

[...]

In loving we abandon the tranquility and permanence within ourselves, and virtually migrate toward the object. And this constant state of migration is what it is to be in love.

And yet, he concedes, desire can bloom into love:

One may sometimes grow to love what he desires: we desire what we love, because we love it.

The distinction between desire and love, Ortega observes, goes beyond that between the static and the active. Even more crucially, there is the distinction between possession and affirmation, between greed and generosity:

Desire enjoys that which is desired, derives satisfaction from it, but it offers nothing, it gives nothing, it has nothing to contribute... Love, on the other hand, reaches out to the object in a visual expansion and is involved in an invisible but divine task, the most active kind that there is: it is involved in the affirmation of its object.

[...]

Loving is perennial vivification, creation and intentional preservation of what is loved... a centrifugal act of the soul in constant flux that goes toward the object and envelops it in warm corroboration, uniting us with it and positively affirming its being.

Couple with Ortega on how the people we love reveal us, then revisit French philosopher Alain Badiou on why we fall and how we stay in love, Thich Nhat Hanh on how to love, and Hannah Arendt on love and how to live with the fundamental fear of loss.

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San Diego Public Library (San Carlos, Benjamin, Downtown)

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San Diego Public Library (San Carlos, Benjamin, Downtown)

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Expand search to other public library system.

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With its great weather, miles of sandy beaches, and major attractions, San Diego is known worldwide as one of the best tourist destinations and a great place for residents to relax year round.

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San Diego County Library (Santee, Lakeside, El Cajon, Fletcher Hills, La Mesa)

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San Diego County Library (Santee, Lakeside, El Cajon, Fletcher Hills, La Mesa)

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Search for public library books (including ebooks) & request even more through San Diego Circuit and LinkPlus.

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Search for library books at West Hills. Select West Hills and log in with your initials & 6-digit birth date to request books from other GUHSD libraries and view what you have checked out.

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Welcome to Grossmont Union High School District

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Welcome to Grossmont Union High School District

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Guide to Dewey Decimal system for browsing library collections