who’s afraid of non-fiction?

why you should read more non-fiction & some recommendations

The online book world loves a dichotomy. What kind of reader are you? Are you a mood reader, or do you stick religiously to a TBR? Do you use a bookmark or dog-ear your pages? Hardback or paperback? But one question seems to come up surprisingly often, as if the two are mutually exclusive: Are you a fiction reader or a non-fiction reader?

In much of the online book space, at least in the areas of BookTok and Bookstagram that I’ve come across, there seems to be an unspoken hierarchy between fiction and non-fiction. People can happily fly through several fiction books, but non-fiction remains an intimidating feat, often labelled as ‘boring’ and viewed as lesser than fiction. This attitude is rather understandable because for many, just the word ‘non-fiction’ conjures up images of books like Atomic Habits or Rich Dad Poor Dad, or any of the other ‘life-changing’ business bro books that populate the bestselling non-fiction lists.

Culturally, fiction as a genre has been coded as feminine, primarily due to its exploration of human relationships and the inner lives of its characters. Meanwhile, non-fiction has largely been viewed as masculine, a more ‘serious’ and ‘practical’ pursuit of ‘knowledge’. To that I say, if you don’t learn anything from reading fiction, you’re probably not a very good reader.

Undoubtedly fiction is one of the most powerful tools we have for understanding the human experience. A Cambridge University study found that reading fiction is incredibly important for fostering empathy in young people. I still credit many of the books I read as a child for helping to shape my empathy and emotional intelligence, because reading allowed me to understand my own feelings and the feelings of others. But non-fiction is capable of this too, and if you like reading fiction, I promise you’ll find some non-fiction books to enjoy.

A lot of the ambivalence towards non-fiction likely stems from people approaching it in the wrong way. The idea that non-fiction is only valuable if it teaches you something in a quantifiable way, like how to increase productivity or become a member of the 5am club, is such a limited way of looking at the genre. Like with fiction, the lessons you take away from non-fiction can be more subtle. But non-fiction doesn’t even have to teach you anything, it can offer just as much escapism and tell stories that are just as compelling as any work of fiction.

When it comes to getting into non-fiction, I always recommend memoirs as a starting off point because of their storytelling style and first-person perspective. Another great entryway is narrative non-fiction, which is essentially a marrying of fiction and non-fiction where the facts are presented in a story-like format. From there, you can dig into more niche works on particular areas of interest (I have the occasional penchant for medical non-fiction, probably because I never got over my Grey’s Anatomy fixation), or cultural criticism which usually centres around a theme.

The recommendations I’ve listed below are not necessarily my favourite non-fiction reads (although some are), but books I think are good starting points to get into reading more non-fiction. I’m planning to do a separate post on essay collections, so keep an eye out for that soon.

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MEMOIRS

Born A Crime - Trevor Noah

Becoming - Michelle Obama

Educated - Tara Westover

Crying in H Mart - Michelle Zauner

Everything I Know About Love - Dolly Alderton

Just Kids - Patti Smith

Kitchen Confidential - Anthony Bourdain

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NARRATIVE NON-FICTION

Say Nothing - Patrick Radden Keefe

Three Women - Lisa Taddeo

Hidden Valley Road - Robert Kolker

The Psychopath Test - Jon Ronson

The Story of A Heart - Rachel Clarke

Into Thin Air - Jon Krakauer

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SUBJECT-SPECIFIC

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running - Haruki Murakami

Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma - Claire Dederer

Unnatural Causes - Richard Shepherd

Cultish - Amanda Montell

Let me know if you’ve read any of these or if you have any other non-fiction recommendations you think I’d like! I’m on a big non-fiction kick currently - hence this post.

Also, the next edition of bookmarked will be landing in your inboxes soon 💌