Nonfiction is NOT boring!

If you shy away from reading nonfiction because you are afraid it will be boring, fear no more! Most nonfiction bears no resemblance to textbooks you remember from school. There is even a special category of nonfiction that reads like fiction. Those books are called Nonfiction Novels. They tell the story of real people and real events but the writing technique captures the reader's attention the way fiction writing does.

Bill Bryson is an entertaining and informative nonfiction writer who is voraciously interested in EVERYTHING. He hiked the Appalachian Trail with a friend and wrote about it - A Walk in the Woods. He bought a house in rural England and wrote about the house and its furnishings - At Home. He wrote about Charles Lindbergh crossing the Atlantic and Babe Ruth breaking baseball records - One Summer: America, 1927. Not being content to place parameters on his curiosity, he wrote A Brief History of Everything. If you want to learn something without being bored to tears, read anything written by Bill Bryson.

If you have an interest in science, try books by the astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. Want to read a book that mixes sociology and science? Read Why Fish Don't Exist by Lulu Miller. The Map Thief: The Gripping Story of an Esteemed Rare-Map Dealer Who Made Millions Stealing Priceless Maps by Michael Blanding tells a white collar true crime story that has a bit of the lost soul feel of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Anyone interested in books and libraries and the far-off land of Los Angeles, California, will be riveted byThe Library Book by Susan Orlean. Hundreds of thousands of books were damaged or destroyed in a fire at the Los Angeles Public Library in 1986. To date, no one is sure if the fire was set deliberately but Orlean examines the history of the library and the life of the prime suspect in the un-natural disaster.

You can find all of the books described in this blog article at your local library. You can also find nonfiction books newly added to the collection at Scenic Regional Library in the New Titles tab on the catalog page. Give nonfiction a chance to charm you!