2022 ONTD Reading Challenge discussion

If you don’t recognize this old-school ONTD reference, do yourself a favour and don’t google it. It’s just a fact that this month, our task is to read a nonfiction book.

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Some goodreads lists to get you started:

Best Non-Fiction (no biographies) - https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...

Best Science Books - Non-Fiction Only - https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/6...

Microhistory: Social Histories of Just One Thing (nonfiction) - https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...

Best Non-fiction War Books - https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/8...

You Read a Book about What? - https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/8...

r/books: What are your favourite non-fiction books? - https://www.reddit.com/r/books/commen...

ONTD POST: https://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com...

My possibilities are


The Last Whalers: Three Years in the Far Pacific with a Courageous Tribe and a Vanishing Way of Life

Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow

How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading

Nine Pints: A Journey Through the Money, Medicine, and Mysteries of Blood

Ticker: The Quest to Create an Artificial Heart

Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

On Lust and Longing

On Quiet

She Has Her Mother's Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity

The Secret Lives of Color

Sweet, another month I'm well prepared for, with Last Chance To See, How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain and Black and British: A Forgotten History.

Some reads I recommend:
The Lost City of the Monkey God
The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women
Color: A Natural History of the Palette

I have A LOT for this cause I never find myself going for the non-fiction on my TBR, but I'm gonna try to get through the following:
- We Should All Be Feminists
- Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race
- How to Murder Your Life
- In the Company of Women: Inspiration and Advice from over 100 Makers, Artists, and Entrepreneurs: I own this one irl already (I read almost everything on kindle) and all I've ever done is flip through it despite being really excited about it.

I have a few more, you know, in case that's not enough lol.

Oooh, Secret Lives of Colors looks like exactly my kind of thing! *marks as want to read*

I meander in and out of this challenge lol but I think I’m here for this one!

I'm not nearly done with my February book, but I want to read The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire for this month. What I want to learn more about is the ways in which the Roman Catholic church changed many things, especially related to Christianity as we know it today. So, if anyone knows of a better book on the subject, do let me know!

I've earmarked either The Devil in the White City or West Winging It for this month. I've had Devil in the White City on my to-read list for a while so it's likely to be that.

OK, this will be an easy one! I'm on a big tech feminist kick so I'm doing Weapons of Math Destruction. Got it out the library a couple days ago.

If other people want to read about how tech douchebags and algorithms are ruining our lives I can highly rec Brotopia, Programmed Inequality and Algorithms of Oppression.

I think I might read either The New Jim Crow or Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, since I have both of them and have been meaning to read them.

well just last week i finished Redemption: The Myth Of Pet Overpopulation And The No Kill Revolution In America which would have been perfect for this!

Luckily i have a couple others on my shelf. I probably will start with The Steal: A Cultural History of Shoplifting and then maybe finally dust off the copy of Seduced by Twilight that i've had for probably 6-7 years and havent bothered to read, haha.

EDIT: there's also a new book out, Parkland: Birth of a Movement, by David Cullen, the author of Columbine, that i totally want to get my hands on.

I was planning on reading Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI for this challenge. I'm also travelling to Savannah, GA in a couple weeks and was going to read Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil before I go, so this will count as well!

My female author pick is The Disappearing L: Erasure of Lesbian Spaces and Culture

I plan on reading Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right but I have to turn it in first and check it back out lol. Hope it's not on anyone's waitlist.

I do a lot better with nonfiction than fiction.

My original plan was to read I'll Be Gone In The Dark. I bought a copy when it came out but haven't read it yet. But instead I'll be starting with Monsters of the Gévaudan: The Making of a Beast, because that just came in from the library. Hopefully I'll have time to get to both!

Jamie wrote: "Some reads I recommend:
The Lost City of the Monkey God
The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women
Color: A Natural History of the Palette"

Oh I really liked Lost City of the Monkey God, too!!!

Rochelle wrote: "I'm not nearly done with my February book, but I want to read The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire for this month. What I want to learn more about is the ways in which the Roman Ca..."

WHOA, the Gibbon book?? that's quite an undertaking.

I think Bart Ehrman has some books on the subject you want, but I don't know how good they are.

Does Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup qualify for this category? If it doesn't, I am going to go with The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women.

N. wrote: "Does Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup qualify for this category? If it doesn't, I am going to go with [book:The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shin..."

it does

Lea wrote: "N. wrote: "Does Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup qualify for this category? If it doesn't, I am going to go with [book:The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of Ame..."

Yay! Then I'm doing that one.

FYI, the post will be going up tonight, will post link here when it's up

post is up :) https://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com...

(sorry to the Bachelor fans - we'll have to juggle two posts! LOL)

My possible reads:

Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
We Should All Be Feminists
It Didn't Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle

I'm going to try to read Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Jane Austen at Home and She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth

we'll see if I read all those or anything else. I've actually recently gotten into listening to audiobooks of memoirs or other nonfiction stuff!

Sophie wrote: "I'm going to try to read Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Jane Austen at Home and ..."

You've just reminded me I received Jane Austen, the Secret Radical for Christmas and it also fits the challenge. I'm tempted to pick that up instead.

I posted a list of the books I was thinking of choosing from on the ONTD post, but now I've seen some more on my shelf and I'm thinking of just flipping a coin, haha.

I think I'm leaning towards Flaneuse by Lauren Elkin (if biographies count; I know they are non-fiction but we had a biography category last year so I wondered if it's more like...focus on other types of non-fiction for this month) or SPQR by Mary Beard.

I always feel like I put up contenders here and then never pick any of them, lol. The options I'm looking at for this month, so far, are: A Brief History of Time, Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup (since everyone is talking about it), and I Must Say: My Life as a Humble Comedy Legend.

I'm doing all of my nonfiction via audiobook right now so I'm super excited to see everyone's picks. I've added a bunch of titles to my tbr list on the Libby app.

Right now I'm listening to Roger Ebert's memoir, Life Itself. It's very long and a very traditional memoir, but I like it well enough. It's read by Edward Hermann, which helps a lot.

I'll probably also listen to (because something shorter might be nice):

Astrophysics for People in a Hurry
A Room of One's Own
In the Company of Women: Inspiration and Advice from over 100 Makers, Artists, and Entrepreneurs

I’ve got a whole load of non fiction books on my kindle and my physical book pile I could pull out for this but I think I’ll go with Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness purely because it’s the first one I came to! Otherwise I’d spend half the month deciding.

So i keep finding more and more books on my shelf that fit this, so i'm going to try to read as many as possible this month. i decided to start with the one that's been on my shelf the longest, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures. it seems like it might be a slow read, but hopefully it won't slow me down too much.

I'm currently reading Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books for this month's challenge.

I'm reading The Cases That Haunt Us since it's on my actual bookshelf lol

Per usual, nothing goes according to my plans, but I guess as long as it fits the theme! I started I Might Regret This: Essays, Drawings, Vulnerabilities, and Other Stuff because it's due back the soonest and realized that oh hey, that's non-fiction! So I'll do that one first and if I'm lucky I'll be able to clear out all the non-fiction on my shelf this month (it's not that much, don't be too impressed)

I wasn't able to find the book that I wanted to read but when I was in the library I spotted For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Politics. It sounded good so I think I am going to read this one instead.

I think I'm going to read Zoo Nebraska: The Dismantling of an American Dream. I got it from the first reads with Prime and it seems interesting.

I'm trying to read more books I currently have on my bookshelf, but I'm not a big non-fiction fan. I found this book my friend gave me two years ago Curse of Rocky Colavito: A Loving Look at a Thirty-Year Slump that I haven't read yet. It's about the Cleveland Indians (a shared favorite baseball team) and how much they stink lol! So I'm gonna pick that one up.

I'm going to read the 'Howard Zinn Young People's History of the United States', and maybe Ted Rall's graphic biography of Trump.

I'm in a YA Lit class and would be really interested in any recommendations anyone has for well-written/engrossing YA nonfiction!

So, I actually decided to read This Star Won't Go Out: The Life and Words of Esther Grace Earl because I've wanted to for a while but kept forgetting about it. It took me a while to actually remember the title because I never put it on my TBR list. Haha.

I'm picking The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean by David Abulafia, because it's been on my shelves for 5 years now. I doubt I'm going to finish it this month because it's MASSIVE but I can only try

Ι read This Is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor and I loved it. It highlighted all the struggles of being a doctor in the NHS with lots of added humorous incidents.

I love Slavenka Drakulić's books, I HIGHLY recommend How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed

Also really liked listening to the audiobook for "Kitchen Confidential" for all my Bourdain fans since its narrated by Anthony himself 3

I'll be reading Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil since my bf and I wanna visit Savannah sometime this year.

Despina wrote: "Ι read This Is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor and I loved it. It highlighted all the struggles of being a doctor in the NHS with lots of added humorous incidents."

I love this book! Glad you liked your challenge pick!

I ended up reading Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche, by Haruki Murakami (which made this month's rec post). It was fucking bonkers. I wasn't really familiar with the story of this attack so it was really shocking to read. It's a heavy book (subject-wise) but I would recommend it if you're interested in reading about cults or terrorism and its aftermath.

So, I listened to Astrophysics for People in a Hurry. It was fine, I guess, but then I looked up Neil Degrasse Tyson and aaaaauuuuuggggghhhh. Men.

I love nonfiction so I'm hoping to read a couple this month! I just finished The Complete Persepolis, which I read for the first time 10 years ago and wanted to revisit because I've been watching and reading a lot of Iranian works lately.

I'm reading Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower for another book club, and I'm hoping to either read The Woman Who Would Be King: Hatshepsut's Rise to Power in Ancient Egypt or America's Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines as well.

I read Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup and LOVED it. A wild, wild story. Super engrossing and really well told (and clearly exhaustively researched). I wish there was some sort of... something... with Holmes directly but obviously understand why there wasn't.

I picked up a children's nonfic book about aliens/UFOs lol. It's super short, I'm starting it now. I reckon I'll be done with it very quickly :D

I ignored my own recs and I’m reading Zoo Nebraska: The Dismantling of an American Dream

I finished The Devil in the White City earlier than I thought I would so I'm going to try and squeeze in Jane Austen, the Secret Radical before the end of the month.

trumpydoesmagic here! First time I've been able to participate in the challenge!

I just started Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men. I'm only on 13 pages in and I'm already heated.