accumulating nonfiction
One of the biggest challenges I face as a reader is—to the surprise of absolutely no one—actually reading my physical books. It’s the age-old story of "so many books, so little time." The books end up piling up on bookshelves, tables, and chairs—and sometimes even on the floor when space really runs out—just waiting to be read.
In an effort to do my part—reading more while also stopping the habit of buying books only to let them gather dust—I found inspiration through bookrecsbyjess and her notebook dedicated to unread physical books. Was it a lot of work to list all my unread books? Yes. But the satisfaction of seeing the complete list and realizing the scale of the problem made the effort worthwhile.
I was surprised to discover that the genre with the most unread books on my shelves was non-fiction.
My journey with nonfiction started with my tween obsession for Nirvana. I read anything I could get my hands on about them, which eventually turned me into Heavier Than Heaven by Charles R. Cross, a biography about Kurt Cobain. What followed were quite a few musician bios and other celebrity memoirs, much to my mom's despair. (She wanted me to read things with more "substance" and that taught me more than that drugs are bad.)
The title that really, really got me into the genre, though, was I'll be gone in the dark by Michelle McNamara. I've always been a person with morbid interests--I'm actually a bit surprised it took me so long to start reading true crime--and McNamara's writing style captured my interest right away. I'll always remember reading this book in the middle of the night, only a lamp on, and scared out of my mind that someone would come through my window. I live on the third floor of a building far away from where the attacks happened and also, obviously, in the 2010s.
From that, I came across Nonfiction November as hosted by abookolive. That opened up my eyes to all kinds of different nonfiction subgenres and titles and, as they say, the rest is history.
Back to my shelves.
I've accumulated quite a few nonfiction titles the past few years. While listing them all, I've realized many of them have to do with feminist/girlhood and... yes, the witchcraft. Thinking about my less personal curriculums, more journeys post, I thought it'd be fun for me to embark on a little themed reading journey to try and knock some titles down from the unread shelves.
The anchor title will be Girl on Girl by Sophie Gilbert. It really caught my attention when I was watching Princess Weekes' video on Romantasy and critical thinking. I've read a few reviews that say the book is like a chronological timeline on why girls hate themselves and their bodies, starting from the '90s to more recent years. Hint: it's pop culture.
From there, I'll see where this journey takes me ~