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!

Anyway, here’s what I’ll be diving into (but not posting about) for the next couple of months:

• Berlin 1961 by Frederick Kempe (Putnam Adult)
• In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson (Crown)
• Lost in Shangri-La by Mitchell Zuckoff (Harper)
• Physics of the Future by Michio Kaku (Doubleday)
• The Social Animal by David Brooks (Random House)

I am really excited about this list. Astute blog readers will note that I’ve already read and reviewed In the Garden of Beasts and Lost in Shangri-La in 2011, but I think for the sake of the awards I’ll be rereading both to keep my memory fresh. They were both excellent books (4.5 out of 5 star reads), so that definitely won’t be a chore.

Physics of the Future and The Social Animal are both books I wanted to read in 2011, but never got around to picking up, so I’m excited to finally have the motivation I need to pick them up. And while I hadn’t heard of Berlin 1961 before it was nominated, it looks like an exciting read as well.

If you’re curious about the other lists, head over to the Indie Lit Awards website for more information. I am especially jealous of the Biography/Memoir short list, which is full of books that I have been dying to read as well. It should be a good start of reading for this year.

Indie Lit Awards: Nonfiction Short List is a post from: Sophisticated Dorkiness, © 2010.

Part of this post first appeared on Book Riot on 12/15/11 as part of my Best Books of 2011 recommendation, which you can read here.

Yesterday I posted my short list of favorite fiction reads of 2011 — The Magicians, Domestic Violets, When She Woke, The Art of Fielding, and The Imperfectionists. Today I’ve got five of my favorite nonfiction reads to share. They’re in no particular order — trying to rank them would have just been too difficult! Thoughts?

This Life is In Your Hands by Melissa Coleman

If there’s one book I’ve gushed about and tried to shove into the hands of just about everyone who asks for a memoir recommendation, it would be This Life is In Your Hands. What impressed me most about this book is the way Coleman was able to build narrative tension into the story even though she reveals the big tragedy of the book in the first chapter. Not every writer can do that, and almost none can do it as elegantly as Coleman does in this book.

Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick

For as much as North Korea is always in the news, I never realized how much I didn’t know about that country until I read Nothing to Envy. In this book, Demick interviews North Koreans who have defected from the country to get an insider’s look at what life is like in one of the world’s most oppressive regimes. With North Korea back in the news because of Kim Jong-Il’s death, I can’t recommend this one highly enough.

The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee

I haven’t managed to write my review of this book yet, but suffice it to say I thought The Emperor of All Maladies was a fantastic read. Mukherjee manages to infuse what could be a relatively standard medical history book with the emotional heft that comes from his experiences working with cancer patients as an oncology fellow. This book is a long one, but Mukherjee’s writing is gorgeous and practically makes the pages fly by.

Tolstoy and the Purple Chair by Nina Sankovitch

I’m willing to bet that anyone who loves to read will find something to love in Tolstoy and the Purple Chair. A chronicle of Sankovitch’s year of reading a book a day, Tolstoy and the Purple Chair is a story about loving books that explores what books mean to readers and how we use the greater truths that can be found through the written word to inform our own lives. It’s a lovely read.

Big Girls Don’t Cry by Rebecca Traister

Te 2008 presidential was a fantastically interesting time to pay attention to politics, and Big Girls Don’t Cry is a fantastically interesting look back on that time. As a young, feminist journalist, Traister brings a different perspective to the subject than most other sources. If there’s any one lesson to take from the book, it’s that discussions of sex, race, and politics are — despite years of advancement for women and people of color — still complex and, often, difficult.

Favorite Nonfiction Reads of 2011 is a post from: Sophisticated Dorkiness, © 2010.

Part of this post first appeared on Book Riot on 12/15/11 as part of my Best Books of 2011 recommendation, which you can read here.

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!

The Magician King by Lev Grossman

As I said in my one sentence review of this book, The Magician King was fucking awesome. When I finished this book I was just giddy and couldn’t stop blabbering about it to The Boyfriend. If you like fantasy, even a little bit, I highly suggest picking up Grossman’s first book in the series, The Magicians, so you can read The Magician King.

Domestic Violets by Matthew Norman

I absolutely loved reading Domestic Violets by Matthew Norman. The book is sarcastic, warm, sweet, engaging and laugh-out-loud funny throughout. Norman perfectly captures the absurdity of office life, very much like the hilarious When We Came to the End, but with a lot more affection for every character.

When She Woke by Hillary Jordan

I loved The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, and I have a special, goofy place in my heart for The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, which probably makes me the ideal reader for When She Woke. Even so, this literary mash-up uses many of the best parts of the works that inspired it to create an astute and honest look at sexual politics and personal choice in a world so close to the world we live in now it’s spooky.

The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach

Not everyone is going to fall in love with a more than 500 page book set at a small college in Wisconsin that pays homage to baseball and Moby Dick, but I was charmed by this book. Reading it was one of those immersive experiences where I fell in love with the characters, setting, and story over a long weekend of reading. I can tell this is a book I’ll go back and read again.

The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman

I didn’t have a ton to say about The Imperfectionists when I first read it last summer, but it’s a book that’s stayed with me since I finished it. I loved the use of interconnected short stories, the setting at an international English-language newspaper, and the characters that filled each story with humor and sadness. The stories change tone quickly and kept me off balance, but in the best way possible.

Favorite Fiction Reads of 2011 is a post from: Sophisticated Dorkiness, © 2010.

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.

Nominations opened in September and will stay open until December 31, 2011 at midnight PST. There are also many categories to nominate books in:

This year I’m leading the nonfiction panel with a group of other fantastic bloggers, and I’ve also been working on figuring out what books I’m going to nominate in the other categories. It’s been fun. I hope you’ll click on the links above (which will take you to the nomination forms) and nominate some of your favorites!

What has your favorite nonfiction book of 2011 been?

Don’t Forget to Nominate Your Favorite Books for the 2011 Indie Lit Awards! is a post from: Sophisticated Dorkiness, © 2010.

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. Here’s a couple paragraphs to get your interested:

Through the television screen, presidential debates have a sense of gravitas and cool organization about them. But writing from the perspective of the moderator’s hot seat, Lehrer is able to reveal the pre-debate political maneuvering, serious preparation and unexpected snafus that characterize any live, televised political event.

It also helps that Lehrer is charmingly self-deprecating as he reflects on his own prodigious impact on each debate. He’s not afraid to share his pre-debate rituals — including going with his family to buy a new tie before every debate — and admit his own mistakes.

Over at Book Riot last week, I did a post with some suggestions about football reading for skeptics and fanatics. One of the books I mentioned is a more recent release — Badasses by Peter Richmond (a book for fanatics). Here’s what I had to say about that:

My first book suggestion is Badasses: The Legend of Snake, Foo, Dr. Death, and John Madden’s Oakland Raiders by Peter Richmond which just recently came out in paperback (celebrate!). As the delightfully descriptive subtitle suggests, Badasses is a book about a very particular team at a very particular time, and, to a lesser degree, a look at how professional football has changed since the badasses were around.

This book is basically a love letter from Peter Richmond to the 1970s Oakland Raiders, the team of his childhood that he grew up loving unabashedly. If you love a different football team as much as Richmond loves the Raiders, you might find this book a little hard to stomach — he wastes no love on the Raiders’ biggest rivals at the time (the Steelers and the Dolphins, mostly). And there’s no denying that this is very much a book about football and a love for the game. It is a book for fanatics, hands down.

You’ll have to head over to the post for my two suggestions for skeptics! I’ve also had a few other Book Riot posts that I’m especially pleased with:

• Three Reasons I Hate Hardcover Books, which is likely self explanatory
• GENRE KRYPTONITE: Stunt Memoirs, in which I talk again about my addition to that particular nonfiction sub-genre (but this time with new books!)

Oh, and one more programming note. If you’re a person that comes to the site rather than reading it through an RSS feed, you may have noticed the addition of a couple of ads — one near the top and one in the sidebar. I recently joined the LitBreaker ad network, which is group that does advertising for Book Riot and some other well-respected blogs. I don’t think the ads are especially obtrusive and I’ve seen some great books come up as the ads scroll, so I think it’ll be a good addition.

Photo Credit: J.D. Hancock via Flickr

Programming Notes: ‘Tension City’ and ‘Badasses’ is a post from: Sophisticated Dorkiness, © 2010.

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 and excitement about a new translation of an old book in which a famous hero gets called a son of a bitch. Could that be any more cryptic?

In any case, I hope you’ll hope around the Interwebs and check out some of my other writing this week (and offer your suggestions about bookish decorating ideas for my new office!).

Nonfiction Murderers, Monsters, and Mayhem-Makers is a post from: Sophisticated Dorkiness, © 2010.

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. With that in mind, this month’s question is a simple one:

What is one of your favorite types of nonfiction to read? OR What is one of your favorite nonfiction topics to read about?

Once you write up a post on the topic, leave a link in the Mr. Linky below. At the end of July I’ll post a wrap up of the different types of nonfiction we love. And right below the Mr. Linky is my answer to this question.

Stunt Memoirs: The Candy in My Nonfiction Diet

While I wouldn’t say that stunt memoirs are necessarily my favorite type of nonfiction, I have to admit a soft spot for books that Creative Nonfiction terms “Look What I Did for a Month/a Year/Until I Couldn’t Stand It Another Minute” stories. In these memoirs, the author decides to do or not do something for a length of time, then chronicles what they learn (or sometimes don’t learn) in a book.

The idea of stunt journalism (sometimes called immersion journalism) has a long history. You might be able to take it all the way back to George Orwell — for his memoir Down and Out in Paris and London, Orwell took a job as a dishwasher at “Hotel X” in Paris, then as a chef’s assistant in a new restaurant, and finally decides to be a tramp on the outskirts of London exploring life for the downtrodden. Sounds a lot like a more recent example — Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed, perhaps?

Stunt memoirs cover just about every topic imaginable. In The Year of Living Biblically, A.J. Jacobs spends a year living life following all of the tenants of the Bible as close to the letter as possible. In The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin spend a year working on simple ways to make herself happier. In Moonwalking With Einstein, Joshua Foer spends a year working to become a memory champion. And Stefan Fatsis, he’s a favorite. In Word Freak he spends a year becoming a champion Scrabble player, and in A Few Seconds of Panic he tries to become a professional football player.

As much as I love them, I think of stunt memoirs as the candy in my reading diet because they don’t demand a lot from me. Quite often they’re very easy reads — the writing is usually clean and the stories are entertaining without expecting that I think too much. They don’t often present huge moral quandaries or ethical dilemmas to consider (Nickel and Dimed may be an exception to that one). And while I usually learn something when reading a stunt memoir, most serious takeaways end up being incidental to the sheer entertainment factor in reading these stories.

That said, it does take some skill to pull off a good stunt memoir. It’s important for me to feel like the author actually experienced some sort of significant change during their experiment or that they took the stunt seriously. This doesn’t mean the stunt itself has to be serious, just that the author invested themselves into doing it well. If the story feels like a gimmick, like the author wrote the book entirely because they got an advance to do so, I get turned off. The author also needs to be a good character — there’s no point in reading about someone doing something crazy if that person doesn’t seem like fun.

One recent stunt memoir I was disappointed with was Up for Renewal by Cathy Alter. In the book, Alter spends a year following the advice she gets from women’s magazines, ranging from everything to cooking to organization, relationships to sex. However, it never feels like Alter truly learns anything from the experiment, and her life only improves because of a relationship she gets into soon after the stunt starts. The magazine experiments seemed random and half-hearted, which is disappointing in a stunt memoir.

I’m not going to start reading only stunt memoirs, but when I need a break or just want to read a good story, this is the genre of nonfiction I usually turn to. I love reading about people who try new things and use those experiences to teach me about things I didn’t know I wanted to learn about. Stunt memoirs seem to be all the rage right now, and I for one am glad to keep reading them (in moderation, of course).

Photo Credit: libraryman via Flickr

BAND July Discussion: What’s Your Favorite Type of Nonfiction? is a post from: Sophisticated Dorkiness, © 2010.

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.

The other bloggers who’ve been working on the idea include Cass (Bonjour, Cass!) who came up with the name of the group, Amy (Amy Reads), Joy (Joy’s Book Blog), Kit (Books are my Boyfriend), and Anastasia  (Birdbrain(ed) Book Blog).

Right now, we envision BAND as a monthly online discussion organized like a blog carnival. Participants will take turns hosting the discussion each month by posting a topic/question on their blog that others will respond to in posts, linking back to the original (very similar to how other memes and carnivals work). We’re hoping these topics will bring more attention to nonfiction and prove that reading it can be awesome. Eventually we want to do more, but this is what we’re working on for now.

The first discussion topic will be posted here tomorrow, and we’ll put a link to it on our Tumblr, which is the home base for the group. You can follow us there to keep updated. If you don’t have a Tumblr, you can also follow the blog using RSS in a feed reader.

Anyone is more than welcome to participate — whether you’re a regular nonfiction reader or someone who just occasionally picks up a memoir or the big nonfiction title — we want a range of perspectives and thoughts on what makes nonfiction great. Feel free to leave any questions in the comments or e-mail me directly.  I hope you’ll stop back tomorrow and/or follow our website and join in on our discussion!

Introducing the Bloggers’ Alliance of Nonfiction Devotees! is a post from: Sophisticated Dorkiness, © 2010.

Today I have a guest post over at Birdbrain(ed) Book Blog for Anastasia’s monthly “Classroom Takeover” feature:

Every month, a new blogger creates an ideal college class featuring a subject, author, or genre that they think doesn’t get enough attention in mainstream college classes.

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.

I hope you’ll stop by Anastasia’s place and check it out! I’d also love more ideas for books that could possibly fit into this new curriculum.

My Classroom Coup d’État! is a post from: Sophisticated Dorkiness, © 2010.

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.

2011 Indie Lit Awards

Earlier this year I posted quite a bit about my involvement with the Indie Lit Awards, and my role as the Director of the Non-Fiction panel. Apparently I did a good job last year, because I was asked to take that on again. I’m excited to report that the Non-Fiction panel is mostly intact from last year, with three of our four expert panelists returning.

The biggest news related to non-fiction is that the category has been split, with a new Biography/Memoir category that will be directed by a former non-fiction panelist, Florinda of The 3R’s Blog. Personally, I think splitting non-fiction into two categories is a great decision. Memoirs are such different books than other more fact-based nonfiction, it will be good to assessing them separately.

The bloggers who will be serving as the voting members of the 2011 Indie Lit Award Non-Fiction panel are:

• Debbie at readerbuzz
• Betty at Reflections with Coffee
• Shauna at Evergreen Junior High Library
• Lorren at The Story Girl

Since we’re starting earlier this year, there is more time to pay attention to all of the great non-fiction books coming out this year. If you have suggestions — books you’ve read and loved, or books you think we may miss, please send an e-mail my way so I can keep my eyes open.

The Read-a-Thon is On!

The other most exciting thing in the land of book blogging is Dewey’s Read-a-Thon, which is scheduled for Saturday, April 9. Right now I’m planning to read for the entire day, cheer for other bloggers a bit, and even give away a prize pack (or two) of some ARCs on my shelves.

And, of course, I’m already trying to come up with a pile of books to read. I decided I’m just going to read my own books — no review copies — since I want to just be able to read, relax, and not worry about doing reviews if I don’t feel like it.

I learned last time that books for the Read-a-Thon should be short-ish, have a strong narrative, and remain consistently engaging. I’ve got a few books I hope fit the bill on my shelves, including:

• The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman, a loosely connected set of stories about a newspaper staff in Greece Rome.
• Complications by Atul Gawande, a narrative look at the life of a surgeon.
• Summer at Tiffany by Marjorie Hart, a memoir set in New York in 1946 at Tiffany & Co.
• I’m Sorry You Feel That Way by Diana Joseph, a memoir “about what it’s like to be a modern, smart woman making her way in the world.”
• Nothing Left to Burn by Jay Varner, a memoir about a family connected by fire.

I’m confident the list of possibilities is going to grow, probably with some more fiction, but this is what caught my eye right away.

BEA and BBC in NYC, Oh My!

I just got around to registering for the Book Blogger Convention and Book Expo America yesterday. This is loads earlier than I did all that work last year, so I feel ahead, but it seems like many bloggers are already booking plane tickets. I do have my hostel picked out and some lovely book bloggers to “room” with, so things are getting organized.

If you have the opportunity to go to New York for even just a couple of days, both book events are a lot of fun. Last year I was only there for about two full days, and felt like there were so many more fun things I could have done. But I was a student and not quite employed, so it worked. This year I’ve got my vacation days lined up and some money saved — big city, here I come!

Edited to Add: If you aren’t able to make it to either of these events in New York, which is the case for many people, you can still keep up with the action by following Armchair BEA, a virtual convention for people who aren’t able to attend. It looks like a lot of fun!

Oh, It’s Good to Be a Book Blogger is a post from: Sophisticated Dorkiness, © 2010.