This book is the best book to start with, if you’re, just starting with nonfiction, it completely changed my worldview friends. Have you ever thought about picking up a non-fiction book, but are you being held back by this voice in your head? Nonfiction, that’s boring and then there are no unicorns in it, or maybe this one another fiction, that’s for smart people and you’re not! Well stop listening to the voices in your head because they’re lying they’re always lying also, there’s probably a nonfiction book about unicorns. Anyway, I mean there’s even a nonfiction book about beheading. There’s one about trash, doesn’t even what about the salt, something for everyone so give in to your curiosity and read some nonfiction. I used to almost only read fantasy books, but about two years ago I discovered the wonderful world of nonfiction and I completely fell in love. So today I’m going to talk about where to begin, when you want to read nonfiction, and give some recommendations, but first, why should you read nonfiction here are some great reasons.
1. Why Read Non-Fiction Books
It reminds you that learning is fun and voluntary and not something you do only because you have to get a college degree because that’s what society expects from you. You’ve lost all your intrinsic motivation. It can help you better understand other people’s points of view. It can prevent readers' fatigue by switching up your content. It’s a great way to learn more about subjects that interest you that are more affordable and accessible than proper education and more reliable than random internet articles. Oh, I feel so now. Let’s talk about where to start, when you want to pick up nonfiction, there are so many non-fiction books on so many different topics and some are more accessible. If you don’t have any knowledge of the subject, other books are more advanced. Where do you begin?
2. Which Non-Fiction To Read?
My first tip is for when you already kind of know what topic you are interested in. So what you’re going to do is go to a large bookstore, a real one, not on the internet, because you want to be able to look at the table of contents. So just take this as an excuse to go to a bookstore, the larger bookstores, and to have a very wide variety of nonfiction books and the Isles will be categorized based on the topic. So that makes it super easy to find an isle Fool’s book like you’re interested in just take a look around. Take a look at the table of contents because that will give a very quick overview of what it’s going to be discussed in the book and after browsing, I’m sure you will have found a book that piques your interest. My second tip is for those of you who don’t know where to start. This was me: go to a small commercial book store like that kind of book stores, you find in train stations, and bookstores that don’t have a lot of books, but mostly stock the new releases and the bestsellers: that’s why you want to go to a little nonfiction aisle that they probably do have, and here you will find all the non-fiction books that are current bestsellers. So you already know that they have been approved by a lot of people that they’re very accessible, and you also know that they will be relevant to current affairs. Take a little look around and then just pick one.
3. Ideas and Tips for Picking Non-Fiction
All the nonfiction books that I read I find by looking at the little nonfiction section in those small commercial bookstores. It’s easy because there’s only a small selection, so you don’t feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount of choice right and then the third tip is just like a little small extra one and that is to find a book by recommendation. If you already listen to podcasts or watch TV shows or follow certain people that talk about specific topics, usually these people will recommend books or talk about books that they get their information. Take note of those books that they mentioned because they might also be very interesting to you. So those are my tips on where to find a nonfiction book that you will specifically really like, but despite that, I still am going to give you a few recommendations. There are so many types of nonfiction books way too many for me to go through all of them, but I’m just going to go through a few of the most popular. I think categories of nonfiction and talk about a book that I would recommend.
4. Biographies
The first category is biographies. This is a great step if you want to get into nonfiction. Biographies are read like fiction because they usually tend to have a story except it’s someone’s life story.
5. The Order To Live by Yeonmi Park
For me, the first non-fiction book that I ever met was an autobiography and I would recommend it to everyone is The Order To Live by Yeonmi Park. This book is about a woman who fled from North Korea. She talks about her experience living in North Korea. Her experience with human trafficking and then her experience trying to adjust to living in another country. This is the kind of book that I think will be interesting to anyone, even if you don’t normally read nonfiction, because it does read like a story except it’s real, and that makes it even more impactful. If you have a person that you look up to like a celebrity, they probably have a biography or an autobiography of some sort. So definitely just look that up.
6. Popular Science Books
The next category is popular science books. This is a very vague white category and I think some of the other books, I’m going to mention – could technically fall under this category, but it’s just mostly books that are written by academics and they write about their science in a way that’s accessible to everyone. This is personally my favorite type. You could find any topic that you’re interested in, but if you like me, are very interested in like science and space, I highly recommend two books by Stephen Hawking.
7. The Brief Answers to Big Questions by Stephen Hawking
I personally only read this one. This is his last book. The Brief Answers to Big Questions. He is so good and writing about intricate topics like black holes and astrophysics and just makes it accessible and understandable to anyone. I want to read his other books as well, especially a brief history of time, which I think is his most well-known book. So, if you’ve been a little hesitant to pick up one of these books, I highly recommend just trying it.
I know that this one is at least very easy to read and then a little hot tip times it’s a little difficult to distinguish which books are reliable and legit and which ones are. Oh well, look at the back of the book or just go through the book and see if they cite their sources. Usually, at the back, there will be a large new biography. This is not the case for every book like this one does not cite any source, but it’s fine with this one because he’s mostly talking about his own experience and his research. But I’ve read non-fiction books, where the author, like talk about psychological studies and they, don’t cite anything be a little wary. That’s just a little tip there.
8. Politics and Society
Then the next category is Politics and Society. There are myriad books on relevant social issues like feminism and climate change. What the heck are we going to do with artificial intelligence. I also really like these types of books, because they kind of give you an insight into what’s going on in the world. That’s a little more in-depth than just watching the news or reading random internet articles. I don’t have any specific recommendations and that’s because I highly recommend you to just read books in your language from your own country. If I’m going to read a book on like societal issues, it’s going to be Dutch and it’s going to be about the Netherlands. It’s good to know what’s going on in other countries, but just be aware, you know if you’re going to read a book about feminism in America, all the data that they’re kind of using is not going to be relevant to you in your country feel that somewhere else, so this one’s on you.
9. Philosophy
Then the next category is philosophy. Philosophy can sound a little bit daunting, sometimes, but I think it’s accessible to everyone because I think we all have some stupid thoughts. I’m 14, and this is deep philosophical thoughts once in a while, and I just really want to recommend this book, because I think, if you’re going to get into philosophy the most accessible type of philosophy existentialism, because that’s just a bunch of French dudes answering the Question: what’s the meaning of life.
10. At The Existentialist Cafe by Sarah Bakewell
I recommend At The Existentialist Cafe by Sarah Bakewell. This is just a super nice overview of all of these existential philosophers. Not only does she do a great job at explaining, philosophical thoughts. She also talks about Biographical information on their lives, and that’s nice because that gives you way more insight into what in their lives, causes, and influences. Therefore, the circle thoughts which make it easier to remember and understand, obviously older, like original philosophical essays, would also count as nonfiction. But I do not recommend starting with it.
11. Culture and History
Then the last category that I want to mention is Culture and History. It is another kind of a category.
12. Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
I specifically wanted to recommend this book, because I think this book is the best book to start with if you’re, just starting with nonfiction. It completely changed my worldview and it was also one of the very first non-fiction books that I read, and that is Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. I know this is a cliche you’ve, probably heard like anyone, everyone all the time talking about this, but it’s worth the hype. Okay, trust me. This is a brief history of mankind, but it’s unlike what you learn in like high school. It’s focused on humans and human civilization and human behavior, and that brings our current society and your own life in perspective. Whenever we think that we can’t change things, because we believe that things just are, that way, we usually can change them, because things never are just that way right. If there’s one book from this article that you’re going to read, please make it this one.
So those are all the books that I wanted to recommend today, but I mostly hope that, with the tips that I gave, you’re also now capable of finding other books that you might find interesting.