Doing Dewey non-fiction reading challenge
As you can see, there's no specific reading challenge, just suggestions on what one could use as such.
For example:
January - Biracial Awareness
February - Black History Month
March - Women's History Month
April - Arab Heritage Month
May - Asian/Pacific Islander History Month
June/July - LGBT Pride Summer
August - Mental Health Awareness
September - Hispanic History Month
October - Physical Disability Awareness Month
November - Native American History Month
December - Religious Minorities
Or
Read a non-fiction book from each Dewey Decimal System Category
Read a book from the 000s - Computer science, information & general works
Read a book from the 100s - Philosophy and psychology
Read a book from the 200s - Religion
Read a book from the 300s - Social Sciences
Read a book from the 400s - Language
Read a book from the 500s - Pure Science
Read a book from the 600s - Technology
Read a book from the 700s - Arts and Recreation
Read a book from the 800s - Literature
Read a book from the 900s - History and Geography
26 Very Important Nonfiction Books You Should Be Reading
1. Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine
2. This Changes Everything by Naomi Klein
3. Yes Please by Amy Poehler
4. Negroland: A Memoir by Margo Jefferson
5. Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy by Gabriella Coleman
6. Why Not Me? by Mindy Kaling
7. The Ugly Game by Heidi Blake and Jonathan Calvert
8. The Last Act of Love by Cathy Rentzenbrink
9. The Sex Myth by Rachel Hills
10. Smoke Gets in Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty
11. The Sisters Are Alright By Tamara Winfrey Harris
12. What Comes Next and How to Like It by Abigail Thomas
13. Severed by Frances Larson
14. Blackout by Sarah Hepola
15. Headscarves and Hymens by Mona Eltahawy
16. Who Cooked Adam Smith’s Dinner? by Katrine Marçal
17. Dirty Chick by Antonia Murphy
18. Penelope Fitzgerald by Hermione Lee
19. Spinster by Kate Bolick
20. Trans: A Memoir by Juliet Jacques
21. Women in Clothes by Sheila Heti, Heidi Julavits, Leanne Shapton, and 639 others
22. Long Time No See by Hannah Lowe
23. Scandals of Classic Hollywood by Anne Helen Petersen
24. It's All in Your Head by Suzanne O'Sullivan
25. On Immunity by Eula Biss
26. The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl by Issa Rae
Or perhaps the Pulitzer Prize winners for Non-Fiction or the Baillie Gifford Prize winners
One could also choose to read the winners of European Book Prize for non-fiction.
United States of Europe by Guy Verhofstadt
Postwar by Tony Judt
Europe for Dummies by Sylvie Goulard
Beauty and the Inferno by Roberto Saviano
The Crime and the Silence by Anna Bikont
Europe's passage by Luuk van Middelaar
The French, Gravediggers of the Euro by Arnaud Leparmentier
Turbulent and Mighty Continent by Anthony Giddens
You could choose any of the GoodReads' non-fiction lists and read it through
Lists that look interesting to me are
Best Science Books - Non-Fiction Only
Must Read Non-Fiction
Recommended Nonfiction Books
Non-fiction - Something for Everyone
Interesting and Readable NonFiction
Time Magazine's All-TIME 100 Best Non-Fiction Books
Best Non-Fiction Books
Atomic Habits by James Clear (the list creator's own book, so...)
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
Sure You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! by Richard P. Feynman
Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond
Manual for Living by Epictetus
Influence by Robert Cialdini
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
This is Water by David Foster Wallace
Read through this list The Greatest Nonfiction Books by The Greatest Books - the book lists here are created by algorithm from several sources
The 100 Best Non-Fiction Books of the Century by National Review
The Guardian's list of the100 best nonfiction books of all time
Now... I do not recommend this list, as there are books like a couple of dictionaries, the Bible, Modest Proposal and Shakespeare's tales on this list, but use your discernment.
1. The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert (2014)
2. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (2005)
3. No Logo by Naomi Klein (1999)
4. Birthday Letters by Ted Hughes (1998)
5. Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama (1995)
6. A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking (1988)
7. The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe (1979)
8. Orientalism by Edward Said (1978)
9. Dispatches by Michael Herr (1977)
10. The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins (1976)
11. North by Seamus Heaney (1975)
12. Awakenings by Oliver Sacks (1973)
13. The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer (1970)
14. Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom by Nik Cohn (1969)
15. The Double Helix by James D Watson (1968)
16. Against Interpretation by Susan Sontag (1966)
17. Ariel by Sylvia Plath (1965)
18. The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan (1963)
19. The Making of the English Working Class by EP Thompson (1963)
20. Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (1962)
21. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S Kuhn (1962)
22. A Grief Observed by CS Lewis (1961)
23. The Elements of Style by William Strunk and EB White (1959)
24. The Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith (1958)
25. The Uses of Literacy: Aspects of Working-Class Life by Richard Hoggart (1957)
26. Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin (1955)
27. The Nude: A Study of Ideal Art by Kenneth Clark (1956)
28. The Hedgehog and the Fox by Isaiah Berlin (1953)
29. Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett (1952/53)
30. A Book of Mediterranean Food by Elizabeth David (1950)
31. The Great Tradition by FR Leavis (1948)
32. The Last Days of Hitler by Hugh Trevor-Roper (1947)
33. The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care by Dr Benjamin Spock (1946)
34. Hiroshima by John Hersey (1946)
35. The Open Society and Its Enemies by Karl Popper (1945)
36. Black Boy: A Record of Childhood and Youth by Richard Wright (1945)
37. How to Cook a Wolf by MFK Fisher (1942)
38. Enemies of Promise by Cyril Connolly (1938)
39. The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell (1937)
40. The Road to Oxiana by Robert Byron (1937)
41. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie (1936)
42. Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain (1933)
43. My Early Life: A Roving Commission by Winston Churchill (1930)
44. Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves (1929)
45. A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf (1929)
46. The Waste Land by TS Eliot (1922)
47. Ten Days That Shook the World by John Reed (1919)
48. The Economic Consequences of the Peace by John Maynard Keynes (1919)
49. The American Language by HL Mencken (1919)
50. Eminent Victorians by Lytton Strachey (1918)
51. The Souls of Black Folk by WEB Du Bois (1903)
52. De Profundis by Oscar Wilde (1905)
53. The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James (1902)
54. Brief Lives by John Aubrey, edited by Andrew Clark (1898)
55. Personal Memoirs by Ulysses S Grant (1885)
56. Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain (1883)
57. Travels With a Donkey in the Cévennes by Robert Louis Stevenson (1879)
58. Nonsense Songs by Edward Lear (1871)
59. Culture and Anarchy by Matthew Arnold (1869)
60. On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin (1859)
61. On Liberty by John Stuart Mill (1859)
62. The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands by Mary Seacole (1857)
63. The Life of Charlotte Brontë by Elizabeth Gaskell (1857)
64. Walden by Henry David Thoreau (1854)
65. Thesaurus by Dr Peter Mark Roget (1852)
66. London Labour and the London Poor by Henry Mayhew (1851)
67. Household Education by Harriet Martineau (1848)
68. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass (1845)
69. Essays by RW Emerson (1841)
70. Domestic Manners of the Americans by Frances Trollope (1832)
71. An American Dictionary of the English Language by Noah Webster (1828)
72. Confessions of an English Opium-Eater by Thomas De Quincey (1822)
73. Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb (1807)
74. Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa by Mungo Park (1799)
75. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin (1793)
76. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft (1792)
77. The Life of Samuel Johnson LLD by James Boswell (1791)
78. Reflections on the Revolution in France by Edmund Burke (1790)
79. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano by Olaudah Equiano (1789)
80. The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne by Gilbert White (1789)
81. The Federalist Papers by ‘Publius’ (1788)
82. The Diary of Fanny Burney (1778)
83. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon (1776-1788)
84. The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith (1776)
85. Common Sense by Tom Paine (1776)
86. A Dictionary of the English Language by Samuel Johnson (1755)
87. A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume (1739)
88. A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift (1729)
89. A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain by Daniel Defoe (1727)
90. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke (1689)
91. The Book of Common Prayer by Thomas Cranmer (1662)
92. The Diary of Samuel Pepys by Samuel Pepys (1660)
93. Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial, or A Brief Discourse of the Sepulchral Urns Lately Found in Norfolk by Sir Thomas Browne (1658)
94. Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes (1651)
95. Areopagitica by John Milton (1644)
96. Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions by John Donne (1624)
97. The First Folio by William Shakespeare (1623)
98. The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton (1621)
99. The History of the World by Walter Raleigh (1614)
100. King James Bible: The Authorised Version (1611)
Non-Fiction Book Bingo
a book that’s been made into a movie –
a self-help title –
a title by an indigenous author –
a biography –
a title by a Canadian author –
a Baillie Gifford award winner –
a celebrity or public figure memoir –
a true crime title –
a title by a person of colour –
a book about science & technology –
a book about feminism –
a book about nature or the environment –
a 2019 release –
a book about parenting or relationships –
a book on religion or spirituality –
a pre-2000 non-fiction title –
a book about a medical condition –
a title that was a 5-star read for a friend –
a book about travel –
an essay collection –
a book about food, wine, or cooking –
a book set outside of North America –
a Goodreads winner (from any year) –
a non-fiction book that has been translated –
Another non-fiction book bingo:
Art and Photography
Autobiography and Biography
Diary and Memoirs
Business and Finance
Food and Lifestyle
Cultural and Social Issues
Current Affairs and Politics
Gift Book or Coffee Table Book
Health and Medical
History, Home Decorating and Design
How To, Humor
Journalism
Military
Music and Entertainment
Nature and Ecology
Outdoor Adventuring
Philosophy
Pop Culture and Celebrity
Psychology
Relationships
Religion and Spirituality
Science and Technology
Self-Help
Sports
Travel
True Adventure
True Crime
Women’s Issues
and yet another (this one is for kids, and it's quite possible to read a children's non-fiction book a day - and there's nothing wrong with reading children's non-fiction for non-fiction reading challenges :-D)
Read a book from the window display
Read a book from the 700s section
Read a nonfiction book about an animal
Watch a learning video on Epic
Read a recipe, cook/bake the dish
Read a how-to book
Read a nonfiction book recommended by a teacher
Read an article from SIRS Discoverer
Read a Nat Geo Kids magazine article
Read a book from the bottom shelf of the nonfiction section
Read a Ranger Rick magazine article
Read a biography
Learn something new on the DK Find Out! website
Read a book from the 500s section
Explore Culture Grams
Read a book from the top shelf of the nonfiction section
Read a book about North Carolina
Re-read a nonfiction book you love
Read or listen to a Pebble Go article
Read a book about art or an artist
Read a World Book Online article
Read a nonfiction book recommended by a friend
Read a book from the 300s section
Read a nonfiction Eager Reader
(You could replace some of these categories with
1) recommended by a celebrity, bookclub, publisher, magazine etc.
2) go to Wikiroulette, read the random article and find a non-fiction book about the subject. Feel free to wiggle, twist and tweak as much as you need to, to find a book to read. It's easy if you get Queen Elizabeth I, but not so easy if you get an obscure geographical place. Just remember, this is supposed to challenge you, so don't just take an easy way out. (I don't believe in coincidences... there is a reason to why you got that article, you will find a book that fits and will read something that will be of great value to you.
3) You could read a book about North Carolina, but I think you should learn more about the history of the city, state, country, region, you live in. Try to pinpoint it. The country you live in, the state/county/region of the country, the city/town/village you live in, the neighborhood you live in...
The Non-Fiction Growth Challenge
1. Read a book that teaches you how to problem solve.
2. Read a book that teaches you how to think critically.
3. Read a book that teaches you how to become more creative.
4. Read a book that teaches you how to make better decisions.
5. Read a book on emotional intelligence.
6. Read a book to improve your communication skills.
7. Read a book about how to learn.
8. Read a book that teaches you leadership skills.
9. Read a book about extroversion or introversion.
10. Read a book about psychology.
11. Read a book about an ideology that is not your own.
12. Read a book to help you master social media.
13. Read a book about your favorite hobby to become better at it.
14. Read a collection of essays.
15. Read an autobiography/biography of a woman written by a woman.
16. Read an autobiography/biography of a man written by a man.
17. Read a book about someone’s journey; inner or outer.
18. Read a book about science or technology.
19. Read a book about a religion or philosophy
20. Read a book about a topic you have always wanted to learn more about.
The 10 Best Nonfiction Books Of All Time You Should Not Miss
10. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond
9. Hiroshima by John Hersey
8. Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
7. On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King
6. Maus: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History by Art Spiegelman
5. Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal by Eric Schlosser
4. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
3. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
2. Black Boy by Richard Wright
1. The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein
Bookriot's 50 of the Best Nonfiction Books
Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow
The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson
Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy
Between the World and Me by Ta-nehisi Coates
Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott
Black Boy by Richard Wright
Boys of My Youth by Jo Ann Beard
Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot
H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald
Hunger: a Memoir of (my) Body by Roxane Gay
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
The Liars’ Club by Mary Karr
Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward
Negroland by Margo Jefferson
A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
The White Album by Joan Didion
Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang
The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston
1776 by David Mccullough
All the President’s Men by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward
Columbine by Dave Cullen
Hidden Figures: the American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly
Killers of the Flower Moon: the Osage Murders and the Birth of the Fbi by David Grann
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt
A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn
S.p.q.r.: a History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard
Stamped from the Beginning: the Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi
Unbroken: a World War Ii Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand
The Warmth of Other Suns: the Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson
Borderlands/la Frontera: the New Mestiza by Gloria E. Anzaldúa
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond
The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
Just Mercy: a Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson
Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
Nickel and Dimed: on (not) Getting by in America by Barbara Ehrenreich
A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: a Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures by Anne Fadiman
White Trash: the 400-year Untold History of Class in America by Nancy Isenberg
Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande
The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan
The Emperor of All Maladies: a Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee
I Contain Multitudes: the Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life by Ed Yong
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
Neurotribes: the Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity by Steve Silberman
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
Sapiens: a Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
50 Essential Non-Fiction Books (You'll Actually Read)
A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown
The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat by Oliver Sacks
Hiroshima by John Hersey
Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen
H is For Hawk by Helen Mcdonald
The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
Never Cry Wolf by Farley Mowat
We Wisht To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families by Philip Gourevitch
The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf
Night by Elie Wiesel
Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby
We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Endurance by Alfred Lansing
A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
Alive by Piers Paul Read
How To Cook a Wolf by MFK Fisher
Bad Blood by Lorna Sage
Kitchen Confidential by Athony Bourdain
A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow
If They Come In The Morning by Angela Y. Davis
Stalingrad by Antony Beevor
Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama
How to Win Friends and Influene People by Dale Carnegie
Locking Up Our Own by James Forman Jr.
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Himself
The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell
Friday Night Lights by H. G. Bissinger
Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
Wild Swans by Jung Chang
Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Himself
Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain
The Medium is the Massage by Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan
I'll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara
No Logo by Naomi Klein
Ariel by Sylvia Plath
Bossypants by Tina Fey
The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves
The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B.White
The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe
A couple of suggestions from the comments:
The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal
Will in the World by Stephen Greenblatt
The Wives of Henry VIII by Antonia Fraser
In The Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette by Hampton Sides
A Tale of Love and Darkness by Amos Oz
A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush by Eric Newby
Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana Jr.
The Worst Journey in the World by Apsley Cherry-Gerrard
Eastern Approaches by Fitzroy MacLean
The Living Mountain by Nan Shepherd
Barnes and Nobles' 50 Nonfiction Books that Will Make You Smarter in 2018
1776, by David McCullough
Alexander Hamilton, by Ron Chernow
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot
In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex, by Nathaniel Philbrick
The Origins of Totalitarianism, by Hannah Arendt
The Six Wives of Henry VIII, by Alison Weir
Cleopatra, A Life, by Stacy Schiff
MAUS I, by Art Spiegelman
We Were Eight Years In Power, by Ta-Nehisi Coates
The New Jim Crow, by Michelle Alexander
Night, by Elie Wiesel
How Google Works, by Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg
Big Magic, by Elizabeth Gilbert
How We Got to Now, by Steven Johnson
The Crown, by Robert Lacey
Mistress of the Vatican, by Eleanor Herman
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, by Mark Manson
Love Warrior, by Glennon Doyle
It’s Okay to Laugh, by Nora McIerney
The Autobiography of Malcolm X, by Malcolm X
Devil’s Bargain, by Joshua Green
Spark Joy, by Marie Kondo
Bullies, by Alex Abramovich
Hidden Figures, by Margot Lee Shetterly
Stamped from the Beginning, by Ibram X. Kendi
Being Nixon, by Evan Thomas
In the Garden of Beasts, by Erik Larson
Escape from Camp 14, by Blaine Harden
Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson
Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls, by Elena Favilli
What Happened, by Hillary Clinton
World Without Mind, by Franklin Foer
The Blood of Emmett Till, by Timothy B. Tyson
Shrill, by Lindy West
Sex Object, by Jessica Valenti
Muslim Girl, by Amani Al-Khatahtbeh
Orientalism, by Edward Said
Welcome to the Universe, by Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Michael A. Strauss, and J. Richard Gott
Salt: A World History, by Mark Kurlansky
Cooked, by Michael Pollan
Yes Please, by Amy Poheler
Bossypants, by Tina Fey
Wild, by Cheryl Strayed
Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand
Victoria the Queen, by Julia Baird
A Season With the Witch, by J.W. Ocker
Radium Girls, by Kate Moore
Year of Yes, by Shonda Rhimes
We Should All be Feminists, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay
Memoir Reading Challenge
Mental Illness Memoir
Other Illness Memoir
Political Memoir
Food Memoir
Animal Memoir
Music Memoir
Travel Memoir
Written by a person of color
Written by a woman
Written by a person who identifies as LGBTQIA
Written by an actor or a comedian
Written by an author or journalist
Written by any other celebrity
Written by someone under 40
Written by someone over 40
Written by someone from a country different from your own
Memoir of high school or college events
One you find thought-provoking
Made into a movie
Graphic Novel memoir
Bestselling memoir
Humorous memoir
Fictional memoir
Published in 2019
Published in 2018 or earlier
Under 300 pages
One you want to re-read
Subject of your choice
Author of your choice
3 memoirs of your own choice
(I do have some STRONG opinions about this list...)
A couple of biographies that are NOT about a USonian person:
Mary, Queen of Scots by Emily Hahn
Queen Elizabeth and the Spanish Armada by Frances Winwar
The Birkenhead Drill by Douglas W. Phillips
My Enemy... My Brother: God's Grace in the Life of a Palestinian by Hanna Shahin
Hiroshima by Laurence Yep
Artist of the Reformation: The Story of Albrecht Dürer by Joyce McPherson
As you can see, there's no specific reading challenge, just suggestions on what one could use as such.
For example:
January - Biracial Awareness
February - Black History Month
March - Women's History Month
April - Arab Heritage Month
May - Asian/Pacific Islander History Month
June/July - LGBT Pride Summer
August - Mental Health Awareness
September - Hispanic History Month
October - Physical Disability Awareness Month
November - Native American History Month
December - Religious Minorities
Or
Read a non-fiction book from each Dewey Decimal System Category
Read a book from the 000s - Computer science, information & general works
Read a book from the 100s - Philosophy and psychology
Read a book from the 200s - Religion
Read a book from the 300s - Social Sciences
Read a book from the 400s - Language
Read a book from the 500s - Pure Science
Read a book from the 600s - Technology
Read a book from the 700s - Arts and Recreation
Read a book from the 800s - Literature
Read a book from the 900s - History and Geography
26 Very Important Nonfiction Books You Should Be Reading
1. Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine
2. This Changes Everything by Naomi Klein
3. Yes Please by Amy Poehler
4. Negroland: A Memoir by Margo Jefferson
5. Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy by Gabriella Coleman
6. Why Not Me? by Mindy Kaling
7. The Ugly Game by Heidi Blake and Jonathan Calvert
8. The Last Act of Love by Cathy Rentzenbrink
9. The Sex Myth by Rachel Hills
10. Smoke Gets in Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty
11. The Sisters Are Alright By Tamara Winfrey Harris
12. What Comes Next and How to Like It by Abigail Thomas
13. Severed by Frances Larson
14. Blackout by Sarah Hepola
15. Headscarves and Hymens by Mona Eltahawy
16. Who Cooked Adam Smith’s Dinner? by Katrine Marçal
17. Dirty Chick by Antonia Murphy
18. Penelope Fitzgerald by Hermione Lee
19. Spinster by Kate Bolick
20. Trans: A Memoir by Juliet Jacques
21. Women in Clothes by Sheila Heti, Heidi Julavits, Leanne Shapton, and 639 others
22. Long Time No See by Hannah Lowe
23. Scandals of Classic Hollywood by Anne Helen Petersen
24. It's All in Your Head by Suzanne O'Sullivan
25. On Immunity by Eula Biss
26. The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl by Issa Rae
Or perhaps the Pulitzer Prize winners for Non-Fiction or the Baillie Gifford Prize winners
One could also choose to read the winners of European Book Prize for non-fiction.
United States of Europe by Guy Verhofstadt
Postwar by Tony Judt
Europe for Dummies by Sylvie Goulard
Beauty and the Inferno by Roberto Saviano
The Crime and the Silence by Anna Bikont
Europe's passage by Luuk van Middelaar
The French, Gravediggers of the Euro by Arnaud Leparmentier
Turbulent and Mighty Continent by Anthony Giddens
You could choose any of the GoodReads' non-fiction lists and read it through
Lists that look interesting to me are
Best Science Books - Non-Fiction Only
Must Read Non-Fiction
Recommended Nonfiction Books
Non-fiction - Something for Everyone
Interesting and Readable NonFiction
Time Magazine's All-TIME 100 Best Non-Fiction Books
Best Non-Fiction Books
Atomic Habits by James Clear (the list creator's own book, so...)
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
Sure You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! by Richard P. Feynman
Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond
Manual for Living by Epictetus
Influence by Robert Cialdini
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
This is Water by David Foster Wallace
Read through this list The Greatest Nonfiction Books by The Greatest Books - the book lists here are created by algorithm from several sources
The 100 Best Non-Fiction Books of the Century by National Review
The Guardian's list of the100 best nonfiction books of all time
Now... I do not recommend this list, as there are books like a couple of dictionaries, the Bible, Modest Proposal and Shakespeare's tales on this list, but use your discernment.
1. The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert (2014)
2. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (2005)
3. No Logo by Naomi Klein (1999)
4. Birthday Letters by Ted Hughes (1998)
5. Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama (1995)
6. A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking (1988)
7. The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe (1979)
8. Orientalism by Edward Said (1978)
9. Dispatches by Michael Herr (1977)
10. The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins (1976)
11. North by Seamus Heaney (1975)
12. Awakenings by Oliver Sacks (1973)
13. The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer (1970)
14. Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom by Nik Cohn (1969)
15. The Double Helix by James D Watson (1968)
16. Against Interpretation by Susan Sontag (1966)
17. Ariel by Sylvia Plath (1965)
18. The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan (1963)
19. The Making of the English Working Class by EP Thompson (1963)
20. Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (1962)
21. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S Kuhn (1962)
22. A Grief Observed by CS Lewis (1961)
23. The Elements of Style by William Strunk and EB White (1959)
24. The Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith (1958)
25. The Uses of Literacy: Aspects of Working-Class Life by Richard Hoggart (1957)
26. Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin (1955)
27. The Nude: A Study of Ideal Art by Kenneth Clark (1956)
28. The Hedgehog and the Fox by Isaiah Berlin (1953)
29. Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett (1952/53)
30. A Book of Mediterranean Food by Elizabeth David (1950)
31. The Great Tradition by FR Leavis (1948)
32. The Last Days of Hitler by Hugh Trevor-Roper (1947)
33. The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care by Dr Benjamin Spock (1946)
34. Hiroshima by John Hersey (1946)
35. The Open Society and Its Enemies by Karl Popper (1945)
36. Black Boy: A Record of Childhood and Youth by Richard Wright (1945)
37. How to Cook a Wolf by MFK Fisher (1942)
38. Enemies of Promise by Cyril Connolly (1938)
39. The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell (1937)
40. The Road to Oxiana by Robert Byron (1937)
41. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie (1936)
42. Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain (1933)
43. My Early Life: A Roving Commission by Winston Churchill (1930)
44. Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves (1929)
45. A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf (1929)
46. The Waste Land by TS Eliot (1922)
47. Ten Days That Shook the World by John Reed (1919)
48. The Economic Consequences of the Peace by John Maynard Keynes (1919)
49. The American Language by HL Mencken (1919)
50. Eminent Victorians by Lytton Strachey (1918)
51. The Souls of Black Folk by WEB Du Bois (1903)
52. De Profundis by Oscar Wilde (1905)
53. The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James (1902)
54. Brief Lives by John Aubrey, edited by Andrew Clark (1898)
55. Personal Memoirs by Ulysses S Grant (1885)
56. Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain (1883)
57. Travels With a Donkey in the Cévennes by Robert Louis Stevenson (1879)
58. Nonsense Songs by Edward Lear (1871)
59. Culture and Anarchy by Matthew Arnold (1869)
60. On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin (1859)
61. On Liberty by John Stuart Mill (1859)
62. The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands by Mary Seacole (1857)
63. The Life of Charlotte Brontë by Elizabeth Gaskell (1857)
64. Walden by Henry David Thoreau (1854)
65. Thesaurus by Dr Peter Mark Roget (1852)
66. London Labour and the London Poor by Henry Mayhew (1851)
67. Household Education by Harriet Martineau (1848)
68. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass (1845)
69. Essays by RW Emerson (1841)
70. Domestic Manners of the Americans by Frances Trollope (1832)
71. An American Dictionary of the English Language by Noah Webster (1828)
72. Confessions of an English Opium-Eater by Thomas De Quincey (1822)
73. Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb (1807)
74. Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa by Mungo Park (1799)
75. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin (1793)
76. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft (1792)
77. The Life of Samuel Johnson LLD by James Boswell (1791)
78. Reflections on the Revolution in France by Edmund Burke (1790)
79. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano by Olaudah Equiano (1789)
80. The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne by Gilbert White (1789)
81. The Federalist Papers by ‘Publius’ (1788)
82. The Diary of Fanny Burney (1778)
83. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon (1776-1788)
84. The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith (1776)
85. Common Sense by Tom Paine (1776)
86. A Dictionary of the English Language by Samuel Johnson (1755)
87. A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume (1739)
88. A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift (1729)
89. A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain by Daniel Defoe (1727)
90. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke (1689)
91. The Book of Common Prayer by Thomas Cranmer (1662)
92. The Diary of Samuel Pepys by Samuel Pepys (1660)
93. Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial, or A Brief Discourse of the Sepulchral Urns Lately Found in Norfolk by Sir Thomas Browne (1658)
94. Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes (1651)
95. Areopagitica by John Milton (1644)
96. Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions by John Donne (1624)
97. The First Folio by William Shakespeare (1623)
98. The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton (1621)
99. The History of the World by Walter Raleigh (1614)
100. King James Bible: The Authorised Version (1611)
Non-Fiction Book Bingo
a book that’s been made into a movie –
a self-help title –
a title by an indigenous author –
a biography –
a title by a Canadian author –
a Baillie Gifford award winner –
a celebrity or public figure memoir –
a true crime title –
a title by a person of colour –
a book about science & technology –
a book about feminism –
a book about nature or the environment –
a 2019 release –
a book about parenting or relationships –
a book on religion or spirituality –
a pre-2000 non-fiction title –
a book about a medical condition –
a title that was a 5-star read for a friend –
a book about travel –
an essay collection –
a book about food, wine, or cooking –
a book set outside of North America –
a Goodreads winner (from any year) –
a non-fiction book that has been translated –
Another non-fiction book bingo:
Art and Photography
Autobiography and Biography
Diary and Memoirs
Business and Finance
Food and Lifestyle
Cultural and Social Issues
Current Affairs and Politics
Gift Book or Coffee Table Book
Health and Medical
History, Home Decorating and Design
How To, Humor
Journalism
Military
Music and Entertainment
Nature and Ecology
Outdoor Adventuring
Philosophy
Pop Culture and Celebrity
Psychology
Relationships
Religion and Spirituality
Science and Technology
Self-Help
Sports
Travel
True Adventure
True Crime
Women’s Issues
and yet another (this one is for kids, and it's quite possible to read a children's non-fiction book a day - and there's nothing wrong with reading children's non-fiction for non-fiction reading challenges :-D)
Read a book from the window display
Read a book from the 700s section
Read a nonfiction book about an animal
Watch a learning video on Epic
Read a recipe, cook/bake the dish
Read a how-to book
Read a nonfiction book recommended by a teacher
Read an article from SIRS Discoverer
Read a Nat Geo Kids magazine article
Read a book from the bottom shelf of the nonfiction section
Read a Ranger Rick magazine article
Read a biography
Learn something new on the DK Find Out! website
Read a book from the 500s section
Explore Culture Grams
Read a book from the top shelf of the nonfiction section
Read a book about North Carolina
Re-read a nonfiction book you love
Read or listen to a Pebble Go article
Read a book about art or an artist
Read a World Book Online article
Read a nonfiction book recommended by a friend
Read a book from the 300s section
Read a nonfiction Eager Reader
(You could replace some of these categories with
1) recommended by a celebrity, bookclub, publisher, magazine etc.
2) go to Wikiroulette, read the random article and find a non-fiction book about the subject. Feel free to wiggle, twist and tweak as much as you need to, to find a book to read. It's easy if you get Queen Elizabeth I, but not so easy if you get an obscure geographical place. Just remember, this is supposed to challenge you, so don't just take an easy way out. (I don't believe in coincidences... there is a reason to why you got that article, you will find a book that fits and will read something that will be of great value to you.
3) You could read a book about North Carolina, but I think you should learn more about the history of the city, state, country, region, you live in. Try to pinpoint it. The country you live in, the state/county/region of the country, the city/town/village you live in, the neighborhood you live in...
The Non-Fiction Growth Challenge
1. Read a book that teaches you how to problem solve.
2. Read a book that teaches you how to think critically.
3. Read a book that teaches you how to become more creative.
4. Read a book that teaches you how to make better decisions.
5. Read a book on emotional intelligence.
6. Read a book to improve your communication skills.
7. Read a book about how to learn.
8. Read a book that teaches you leadership skills.
9. Read a book about extroversion or introversion.
10. Read a book about psychology.
11. Read a book about an ideology that is not your own.
12. Read a book to help you master social media.
13. Read a book about your favorite hobby to become better at it.
14. Read a collection of essays.
15. Read an autobiography/biography of a woman written by a woman.
16. Read an autobiography/biography of a man written by a man.
17. Read a book about someone’s journey; inner or outer.
18. Read a book about science or technology.
19. Read a book about a religion or philosophy
20. Read a book about a topic you have always wanted to learn more about.
The 10 Best Nonfiction Books Of All Time You Should Not Miss
10. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond
9. Hiroshima by John Hersey
8. Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
7. On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King
6. Maus: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History by Art Spiegelman
5. Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal by Eric Schlosser
4. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
3. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
2. Black Boy by Richard Wright
1. The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein
Bookriot's 50 of the Best Nonfiction Books
Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow
The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson
Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy
Between the World and Me by Ta-nehisi Coates
Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott
Black Boy by Richard Wright
Boys of My Youth by Jo Ann Beard
Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot
H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald
Hunger: a Memoir of (my) Body by Roxane Gay
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
The Liars’ Club by Mary Karr
Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward
Negroland by Margo Jefferson
A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
The White Album by Joan Didion
Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang
The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston
1776 by David Mccullough
All the President’s Men by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward
Columbine by Dave Cullen
Hidden Figures: the American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly
Killers of the Flower Moon: the Osage Murders and the Birth of the Fbi by David Grann
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt
A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn
S.p.q.r.: a History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard
Stamped from the Beginning: the Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi
Unbroken: a World War Ii Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand
The Warmth of Other Suns: the Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson
Borderlands/la Frontera: the New Mestiza by Gloria E. Anzaldúa
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond
The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
Just Mercy: a Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson
Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
Nickel and Dimed: on (not) Getting by in America by Barbara Ehrenreich
A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: a Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures by Anne Fadiman
White Trash: the 400-year Untold History of Class in America by Nancy Isenberg
Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande
The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan
The Emperor of All Maladies: a Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee
I Contain Multitudes: the Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life by Ed Yong
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
Neurotribes: the Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity by Steve Silberman
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
Sapiens: a Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
50 Essential Non-Fiction Books (You'll Actually Read)
A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown
The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat by Oliver Sacks
Hiroshima by John Hersey
Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen
H is For Hawk by Helen Mcdonald
The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
Never Cry Wolf by Farley Mowat
We Wisht To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families by Philip Gourevitch
The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf
Night by Elie Wiesel
Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby
We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Endurance by Alfred Lansing
A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
Alive by Piers Paul Read
How To Cook a Wolf by MFK Fisher
Bad Blood by Lorna Sage
Kitchen Confidential by Athony Bourdain
A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow
If They Come In The Morning by Angela Y. Davis
Stalingrad by Antony Beevor
Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama
How to Win Friends and Influene People by Dale Carnegie
Locking Up Our Own by James Forman Jr.
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Himself
The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell
Friday Night Lights by H. G. Bissinger
Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
Wild Swans by Jung Chang
Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Himself
Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain
The Medium is the Massage by Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan
I'll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara
No Logo by Naomi Klein
Ariel by Sylvia Plath
Bossypants by Tina Fey
The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves
The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B.White
The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe
A couple of suggestions from the comments:
The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal
Will in the World by Stephen Greenblatt
The Wives of Henry VIII by Antonia Fraser
In The Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette by Hampton Sides
A Tale of Love and Darkness by Amos Oz
A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush by Eric Newby
Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana Jr.
The Worst Journey in the World by Apsley Cherry-Gerrard
Eastern Approaches by Fitzroy MacLean
The Living Mountain by Nan Shepherd
Barnes and Nobles' 50 Nonfiction Books that Will Make You Smarter in 2018
1776, by David McCullough
Alexander Hamilton, by Ron Chernow
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot
In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex, by Nathaniel Philbrick
The Origins of Totalitarianism, by Hannah Arendt
The Six Wives of Henry VIII, by Alison Weir
Cleopatra, A Life, by Stacy Schiff
MAUS I, by Art Spiegelman
We Were Eight Years In Power, by Ta-Nehisi Coates
The New Jim Crow, by Michelle Alexander
Night, by Elie Wiesel
How Google Works, by Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg
Big Magic, by Elizabeth Gilbert
How We Got to Now, by Steven Johnson
The Crown, by Robert Lacey
Mistress of the Vatican, by Eleanor Herman
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, by Mark Manson
Love Warrior, by Glennon Doyle
It’s Okay to Laugh, by Nora McIerney
The Autobiography of Malcolm X, by Malcolm X
Devil’s Bargain, by Joshua Green
Spark Joy, by Marie Kondo
Bullies, by Alex Abramovich
Hidden Figures, by Margot Lee Shetterly
Stamped from the Beginning, by Ibram X. Kendi
Being Nixon, by Evan Thomas
In the Garden of Beasts, by Erik Larson
Escape from Camp 14, by Blaine Harden
Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson
Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls, by Elena Favilli
What Happened, by Hillary Clinton
World Without Mind, by Franklin Foer
The Blood of Emmett Till, by Timothy B. Tyson
Shrill, by Lindy West
Sex Object, by Jessica Valenti
Muslim Girl, by Amani Al-Khatahtbeh
Orientalism, by Edward Said
Welcome to the Universe, by Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Michael A. Strauss, and J. Richard Gott
Salt: A World History, by Mark Kurlansky
Cooked, by Michael Pollan
Yes Please, by Amy Poheler
Bossypants, by Tina Fey
Wild, by Cheryl Strayed
Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand
Victoria the Queen, by Julia Baird
A Season With the Witch, by J.W. Ocker
Radium Girls, by Kate Moore
Year of Yes, by Shonda Rhimes
We Should All be Feminists, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay
Memoir Reading Challenge
Mental Illness Memoir
Other Illness Memoir
Political Memoir
Food Memoir
Animal Memoir
Music Memoir
Travel Memoir
Written by a person of color
Written by a woman
Written by a person who identifies as LGBTQIA
Written by an actor or a comedian
Written by an author or journalist
Written by any other celebrity
Written by someone under 40
Written by someone over 40
Written by someone from a country different from your own
Memoir of high school or college events
One you find thought-provoking
Made into a movie
Graphic Novel memoir
Bestselling memoir
Humorous memoir
Fictional memoir
Published in 2019
Published in 2018 or earlier
Under 300 pages
One you want to re-read
Subject of your choice
Author of your choice
3 memoirs of your own choice
(I do have some STRONG opinions about this list...)
Mary, Queen of Scots by Emily Hahn
Queen Elizabeth and the Spanish Armada by Frances Winwar
The Birkenhead Drill by Douglas W. Phillips
My Enemy... My Brother: God's Grace in the Life of a Palestinian by Hanna Shahin
Hiroshima by Laurence Yep
Artist of the Reformation: The Story of Albrecht Dürer by Joyce McPherson
No comments:
Post a Comment