I’m always excited when I start seeing the discussions about Non-Fiction November each year. I wait to see what the prompts are going to be and how people interpret them; dig through my pile of unread non-fiction books to see what I have that fits prompts and in general, just add more books to my TBR pile like crazy 😉

One of the first things that I normally do when I prep this intro post for the year is to go back through my Goodreads records and count up how many non-fiction books i’ve read in the lead up to November and reminise on which ones were favorites of mine.

After I look at my year in review of non-fiction; then I start digging into the books that I want to read this month. Sometimes those choices are driven by various reading challenges that I participate in. For example, this year, the first two books on my Non-Fiction November pile are books to finish out my Fall 2020 Seasonal Reading Challenge (SRC). SRC is a Goodreads group where every three months you read books based on a series of tasks/prompts – these prompts are either developed by the moderators or if you finish the challenge, you get an option to develop a task. These two books are Seven Signs of Life (Aoife Abbey) and Eliza Hamilton: The Extraordary Life and Times of the Wife of Alexander Hamilton (Tilar J. Mazzeo)

Next up in the developing a Non-Fiction November reading pile is any books that I have on my Advanced Readers Copy shelf that I need to get caught up on. However, since i’ve been deployed for the last five months, I’ve really dialed back on the number of ARC’s i’ve requested – so for year, this will likely be a low number of books (but i’m sure I have a couple I could dig out of the pile).

Finally, I get to the prompts given to Non-Fiction November participants by the organizers. For 2020, these prompts are: 1) Movement, 2) Buzz, 3) Discovery and 4) Time. Its up to the participants to determine how to interpret those prompts. This year, I have the limit that because I’m not home with a ready access to my normally awesome library for print books – I’m sticking to books in the Overdrive or Hoopla apps that I can borrow – but in some ways this is fun/entertaining because I discover books that I never would have found otherwise.

For movement, the first thought/image that came to mind was ballerina’s dancing and moving to the music. There was one cover that had caught my eye about a year ago at the library that I decided had to go on the pile -the cover of Taking Flight to me is the epitome of movement – a ballerina flying through the air.

For Buzz, I was hoping to read a new non-fiction that is getting a lot of attention (aka Buzz) – Unfortunately, the list of holds at my library for the book I wanted to read (Group – Christie Tate) is about 6 months for ebook/audio right now. So my alternative is a book where the featured subject buzzes…the annoying Mosquito.

Right now, I have a choice of two books for the discovery prompt that I’m considering. Oh, who am I kidding? – I’m going to try to read/listen to both of them. These came when I searched science +discovery in the Overdrive catalog and then narrowed down the results to non-fiction (this search method has typically rewarded me with fairly solid choices to consider).

For the final prompt – time – there is a diverse range of options – from the self-help books about how to manage time better (always interesting to “time” being a common word found in many political memoirs – but we’re just not going to go there right now….

Right now I have this prompt narrowed down to three books – 1) a book about solving murders from a specific time period (the Civil Rights era); 2) a book about a specific time/place in history (World War 2 in Oak Ridge, TN) and 3) a biography “time”less classic movie – The Princess Bride (I just watched this less than a month ago and even 20 years later – for me – it still stands the test of time).

So that’s my intro to Non-Fiction November! Who else is participating and what books are you most excited to read?