Week 1: (Oct 30 to Nov 3) – Julie @ JulzReads: Your Year in Nonfiction: Take a look back at your year of nonfiction and reflect on the following questions – What was your favorite nonfiction read of the year? What nonfiction book have you recommended the most? What is one topic or type of nonfiction you haven’t read enough of yet? What are you hoping to get out of participating in Nonfiction November?

I LOVE Nonfiction November!  I definitely think that nonfiction books don’t get enough love.

One thing that I notice when I do my monthly wrap ups is that when I read fiction it is overwhelmingly by female authors and about 1/3 POC authors.  My numbers change a lot when I’ve been reading nonfiction books though.

Here’s what I mean for the books I’ve read in 2017.

POC Female Authors (3 East Asian, 2 Black, 1 Middle Eastern, 1 South Asian)

POC Male Authors (1 Middle Eastern, 1 South Asian, 1 African-American)

White Female Authors

White Male Authors

See what I mean? It is way off balance.

I’m not saying that these books by white men aren’t good. Most of them were outstanding and I’d highly recommend them.  But, I’m not getting the variety I like.

So, for this month my challenge will be to read nonfiction only by authors who aren’t white males. 

In memoirs this is pretty simple but it gets more challenging when you are looking at history and social science books.  I’ve updated my Diverse Nonfiction page if anyone else is looking for recommendations but even there a lot of the books especially about racial issues are written by white people .

Since I started this post I’ve picked up some nonfiction books that I couldn’t wait until November to read.  It’s a start.