A bookworm journalist blogs on literature and life
Now that 2011 is gone and we’re trucking along into 2012, I can finally share with you the nonfiction short list for the Indie Lit Awards. This year, Biography/Memoir got split off from the Nonfiction category, which means our nonfiction list is chock full of intensely long and serious nonfiction reads. Seriously. Every book on this list is more than 400 pages long. So much reading!
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My first short list of favorite reads in 2011 — which covers everything I read this year, regardless of when it was published — was more than 25 books long. I managed to cut down my list to five fiction and five nonfiction favorites. Since I don’t think I’ll be finishing any more books this year, I’m posting my fiction picks today and nonfiction picks tomorrow. Let me know what you think!
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I suppose my post title says just about everything I wanted to mention in this post, but I’m sure you’ll forgive me for adding just a little bit more.
The Indie Lit Awards, which are in their second year, are awards given to books that have been recommended and voted on by independent literary bloggers. Nominations are open to all readers, and are then voted upon by a panel of bloggers who are familiar with the genre they represent.
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Despite how much I’ve been writing here, I’ve actually been doing some posts in other places around the Interwebz, which I wanted to take a moment to share.
First up is a review of Jim Lehrer’s book about his time moderating presidential debates, Tension City. I thought this book was a delightfully nerdy and awesome look behind-the-scenes at an event so many people watch but few people understand.
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Today I have a guest post over Jenn’s Bookshelves as part of her Murder, Monsters, & Mayhem celebration this October. For the post, I picked three different nonfiction books I think well-represent murder, monsters, and mayhem… depending on what you’re in the mood for reading.
Unrelated, I also had my first new post up on Book Riot last week in which I confess to my habit of turning classic literature into a daytime soap opera.
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Hey all! Welcome to the first discussion topic hosted by BAND, the Bloggers’ Alliance of Nonfiction Devotees. Each month a new blogger will host a discussion related to nonfiction, and all bloggers (regardless of how much or how little nonfiction you read) are welcome to participate.
Like fiction, nonfiction isn’t a monolithic term. Just like there are sub-genres or types of fiction (literary, women’s, mystery, thriller, horror, the list goes on), nonfiction has many varieties too. There’s creative nonfiction, essay, travelogue, self-help, biography, memoir, and more. With so many types of nonfiction (as well as topics covered), there are nonfiction options for everyone.
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Awhile ago I made an allusion to a super awesome project I was working on with a few other bloggers after BEA, which I’m excited to finally talk about. A group of bloggers and I have decided to found BAND — the Bloggers’ Alliance of Nonfiction Devotees – a group to celebrate the awesomeness of nonfiction.
The idea came up at BEA when a group of us were talking about how we wished there were more bloggers writing about nonfiction, since we all love it so much. Since I always need new projects to work on (sarcasm!), we decided to form a group that would be “advocates for nonfiction as a non-chore,” a slogan coined by Ash (English Major’s Junk Food). Ash also designed the logo, which is fantastic.
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Today I have a guest post over at Birdbrain(ed) Book Blog for Anastasia’s monthly “Classroom Takeover” feature. I wrote my post for a class called Journalists Who Say “I” — a class that would focus on discussing a particular kind of narrative nonfiction in an English department. My favorite part about writing the post — other than imagining what a spectacular teacher I’d be (ha!) — is that I got to form my class entirely around books I’ve already read and reviewed over on the blog, so long-time readers might be familiar with the titles.
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Even though I always love being a book blogger, I feel like there are some especially exciting events and projects going on right now in this corner of the blogosphere, and I wanted to take just a minute to share three of them with you: the Indie Lit Awards, Dewey’s Read-a-Thon, BEA and BCC.
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