Well, mostly I’m not: as it is for many of you, it’s fiction that tugs hardest at my heart.
But Bron’s personal reading project for 2026 is headquartered here, and I liked the idea of seeing how comfortably just two volumes of non-fiction could nestle into my stack each month.
Particularly pulled from a certain set of shelves that had become increasingly crowded during the past year, after Mr BIP surprised me with several bookish volumes and writers’ memoirs/biographies. (I wouldn’t want to deter additions there, later this year, right?)
You already know about some of these, like Isabella Cosse’s book about Mafalda and Rebecca Romney’s Jane Austen’s Bookshelves, but here’s a quote from near the end of Romney’s book, describing the sense of connection between readers and books:
“Every time I read a new book or article saying something smart about these women, I momentarily felt sheepish for having missed their work for so long. But all of us who dare to navigate the labyrinth of the past will feel this way at some point. The most important realization was that I was not alone in that labyrinth.”
Mélikah Abdelmoumen’s Baldwin, Styron and Me and Edwidge Danticat’s We’re Alone—were both also featured in February’s ReadIndies, contemplating more bookish relationships.
Abdelmoumen writes: “I write, I write my life, I rewrite, I evolve, I change, but in all my writings, whether they are good or bad, failures or successes, predictable or unexpected, those that resonate with books written by others, and those that seem to come out of nowhere, it’s always still me, addressing you, the reader. It’s me attempting to make a connection with you the reader. The Other.”
In contemplating creativity, Danticat quotes D’Angelo Neard (“…people write, it’s because the world is an act of language”), Adrienne Rich (“…writing is re-naming”) and Audre Lorde (“…no new pains. We have felt them all already” which nods to James Baldwin).
Then came Stacey D’Erasmo’s The Long Run (2024), a memoir like a “desire path” that explores how one continues to create art over time: a “subjective, partial, incomplete” work that engages in conversation with others on this theme, including writer Samuel Delaney and visual artist Cecilia Vesuña.
Often, when writers’ memoirs shift into discussion of art forms and artists other than writing, I feel as though I’m actually learning more about the memoirist’s friendships and relationships, and I simply long to return to the topic. D’Erasmo highlights their creativity, and even though she begins the memoir with talk of how disorganized she’s felt at times, I ended up interested in each one of these artists, whether a dancer or a landscape architect.
But, ultimately, it’s D’Erasmo’s connection with stories and language that secures my affection for this work; here is a long quote about how books intertwine with memories.
“But here we come to the course of my true education, which hasn’t much taken place in classrooms. The first woman I ever slept with was reading Tillie Olson’s Yonnondio. I read Alice Munro because another lover was reading one of her books. The women I asked to dance in The Duchess was reading Elizabeth Bowen’s The Little Girls that summer after she left me; in the fall, I read that book, wanting to know what had drawn her attention. I’ve been a Bowen devotee ever since. A man I was seeing for a while just after I turned fifty was a fan of Yoko Tawada. The man left, but Tawada is with me still. J gave me a copy of Jean Stafford’s The Mountain Lion, and for years thereafter we quoted lines of it to each other; I never pick up that book without smelling J, hearing her voice.”
Elaine Castillo’s How to Read Now (2022) provoked a lot of quiet yes-yes-yes-ing alongside no-no-no-ing, which makes sense because Castillo makes sweeping absolutist statements. There’s not much room for nuance in her work, and that’s part of the appeal: her passion, her declarative tone.
So, for instance, she believes that a certain novel could not have been published unless every single solitary person involved in its making had avoided considering whether the author was appropriately positioned to tell that particular story. (In reality, one might simply have not cared, or one might have cared and had their opinion dismissed, or one might have actually considered it and believed it was appropriate.)
What I really enjoy is how attentively she reads particular texts (and how abundantly she quotes relevant passages) and how much it all matters. This quote is from “Reading Teaches Us Empathy and Other Fictions”:
“The story I’m telling is not just something for you to feel sympathy for, rage against, be educated by: it’s a story about you, too. This work has left a will, and we are all of us named in it: the inheritances therein belong to every reader, every writer, every citizen. So, too, the world we get to make from it.”
Jazmina Barrera’s On Lighthouses (2017; translated by Christina MacSweeney, 2020) landed in my stack with Cross Stitch (which Rebecca recommended, same translator) but, as usual, I dragged my heels ; with her non-fiction.
Fans of Valeria Luiselli’s essays will likely enjoy these six short pieces, regardless of one’s feeling about lighthouses. (But, really, does anyone actively dislike lighthouses?)
Her travels to specific destinations with friends and acquaintances make you feel that you’re part of the trip, whether a reservation has gone wrong or an accidental but fortuitous encounter. And the bookish bits (Robert Louis Stevenson, Jonathan Franzen—for instance) and musings on solitude and how one approaches and avoids danger on the rocks were especially good reading.
“There’s only one part of that story I should include here; at the end of that day, after dark, I found a postcard with the definition of the Celtic word hiraeth: the nostalgia for a home to which one cannot return or that never existed. I wonder if, during his travels through Scotland, [Sir Walter] Scott ever heard that word.”
Later in April, I’ll read Aisha Sabatini Sloan’s Dreaming in Ramadi in Detroit (2024). And, in May, I will finish the letters exchanged between two Jewish writers, childhood friends in Poland, who lived on different continents after WWII: one immigrating to Canada and one to Sweden. (I started these at the end of last year: wonderful.)
On the same bookcase—but poetry isn’t non-fiction in my mind, only in the Dewey Decimal system—is Reginald Dwayne Betts’ new poetry collection.
His Felon was one of my favourites in 2020; I borrowed it from the library, renewed it as long as I could, and finally bought my own copy. Sentenced as an adult for a crime (carjacking) he committed at sixteen, Betts spent nine years in adult prisons. His 2010 memoir reflects on his experience and, as W.W. Norton & Company summarises, “homelessness, underemployment, love, drug abuse, domestic violence, fatherhood, and grace.”
When I read about Doggerel (2025), I wasn’t keen, but I knew that he would change my mind. It turns out it’s not doggerel verse (although why do I think I’m informed as to what verses I like and what ones I don’t /shrug) and, also, there are actual dogs. It also turns out that I can’t really say why I love his poems, except that it seems like he spends a hundred years on each one, but also like they’re birthed whole in a sneeze that’s over in a millisecond. And that I’ll be buying the next collection too.
Do you think of poetry as non-fiction? Are you riding along, informally but investedly, with someone else’s reading plans for 2026?
Note: PLEASE COPY YOUR COMMENT before you clicky-clicky… just in case…
Thanks so much for these great books! Just added Dreaming of Ramadi in Detroit to my to-read list and with a high ranking on that list too (: Poetry as nonfiction is a question I’ve pondered before, I’m by no means an expert on the topic though my first instinct is to say yes if the poetry is about factual events that have happened.
Aisha Sabatini Sloan’s essay collection was thoughtful and lyrical; it made me add Borealis to my list of her books for “next”.
That’s interesting… fits with WG’s comment which suggests that it’s a more complicated quesiton than it seems. And it calls to mind, for me, poetry collections like Olive Senior’s shell (about Caribbean islands and the legacy of slavery) which immediately seemed to me as though they should be included in a history class.
I’d like to read Barrera’s book on lighthouses. I started off with nonfiction with her, her work on becoming a mother.
I didn’t get anywhere with that Castillo collection. The tone made me uncomfortable. Of course, some would argue that that’s all the more reason to read something. But I chose to move on instead. I imagine you’ll enjoy What’s So Great About the Great Books? by Naomi Kanakia.
When I do my reading statistics, I always have three categories: fiction, nonfiction, poetry. Edelweiss classifies poetry with nonfiction (and graphic books with fiction). It’s very much its own thing!
I’m not sure which I’d prefer of her, really? Usually I respond most to either NF or F when it comes to a certain author.
Was she trying to be provocative, cultivating the absolutist approach even if it’s not her nature but for effect, do you think? Or is it simply that her questions (about how the publishing industry and many buyers and readers) touch a nerve, saying that the stories of white protagonists are centred at the expense of other characters? I’m not sure, maybe a bit of both. I disagree with much of what she writes, especially when she presents a single reading of a long passage, because I think other readings (i.e. mine, in that moment LOL) are also valid, but don’t support her thesis. But she does give evidence, and that gets me interested.
How curious! Especially the graphic books: Maus as fiction? Right there alongside Heartstopper? But of course it just reminds us that it’s all kind of random, this categorisation business.
Romney’s quote – truer words have never been spoken! It’s how I feel whenever i read these book blogs by others. It’s almost a guilty pleasure though
There are so many passages in Romney’s book like this one; even if I hadn’t been interested in her theme, I think I would have liked her book, just for these scattered observations throughout.
I’ve only finished two nonfiction books this year, one on audio. But I’m in the middle of three others right now! Fiction just calls to me more, especially this year. I know poetry is shelved with nonfiction in the Dewey decimal system, but it does seem like it’s own special category. Storygraph counts it with nonfiction, I think.
Oh, that’s interesting. I like hearing how other platforms categorise things. Now that I’ve done a quick check, I can see that, so far this year, I’ve read less non-fiction (as a %) this year than I have for over a decade. But I’ve also been away from the library since the snow fell, so that might reflect my buying habits more than my reading habits. Over the weekend, the sidewalks finally clearly fully, so I will get back to the library soon… and we’ll see if I load up with NF. (lol Any bets?)
Great variety of non-fiction reading picks. I still need to read Dreaming in Ramadi in Detroit too. The Danticat book really intrigues me. I need to read more of her work.
I’ve only just read the first essay, if you want to jump in! There aren’t that many Danticats in my local library, but I will it out and let you know which ones. Her thoughts on courage and creativity are just what we all need right now!
This issue of whether poetry is nonfiction came up somewhere else recently – or was it here? I don’t think so. Anyhow, no I don’t think poetry IS nonfiction.
I think poetry is more like a form and can be compared with prose. Poetry is written in lines, stanzas with an eye (ear) to rhythm, while prose is written in sentences and paragraphs. Theoretically, you can have nonfiction written as poetry. You can certainly have a novel written as poetry. You can have narrative poems (like a short story perhaps or flash fiction?). You can have protest poems – are they fiction or nonfiction. Are they a poetic form of a prose piece – a speech perhaps – promoting a point of view?
In other words, I think poetry CAN be anything pretty much, but because of its form it lends itself to abstract expressions of feelings, impressions, thoughts more than the facts that underpin nonfiction. So, I don’t think we can say it’s one thing or another. And, I think while libraries classify it as literature mostly, though if it were a verse novel, say, some might file it under fiction and others under poetry. Then we could throw graphic works into the mix? We have poetry as I have roughly defined it, prose as I have roughly defined it, and then there are what people generally call “graphic novels” except they aren’t all novels are they? They are works which combine text and image, and are often fiction but there are graphic memoirs, like Maus.
Which brings me to Bron’s nonfiction. I think you can argue for whatever you like! But I would not count as nonfiction, poetry which relies imagination, like a novel, rather than fact to convey an idea. But, once again, I can feel my inner voice looking at all the edges and wondering how I can defend them all!!
BTW I did enjoy your discussions of the books you list here too, but this idea of poetry as nonfiction issue always gets me going!
As Bill says, from bottom to top, then! hehe That’s quite alright: I’m quite happy to have the conversation in comments go any which way: all one big bookish convo in the end, eh? And all of this has me spiralling around different ideas, which I love.
What an excellent point, to consider the different ways that one writes/reads poems, rather than focus on the broadest overarching term/classification. I suppose that’s just the natural tendency when one hasn’t developed the habit of noting that kind of distinction…it’s just all poetry. But Reese’s preference for more narrative-styled poems, and a recent convo on Bron’s blog about protest poems… yes, of course, it’s not all the same.
Similarly, for most people, reading is reading, books are books, and they aren’t necessarily thinking about the kind of distinctions that we obsess about daily. Even non-fiction and fiction, as categories, aren’t necessarily meaningful terms/categories for someone who spends time reading as a hobby among many other pasttimes rather than an… obsessive way of life? (Well, speaking for myself! /ahem)
I’ll spend some time with my bookshelves, and find the earliest collections I have, and see where my expectations and preferences started to take shape… and which poets have challenged those assumptions, over the years.
I consider poetry its own separate genre, it is definitely NOT nonfiction!
Since my father-in-law was born in a lighthouse and his mother was keeper there until he was 3, I had to add On Lighthouses to my library wishlist. When will I managed to get around to reading it? Who knows!
That’s funny: I thought you might consider it NF (because of your librarianship status, I suppose)!
It’s a very slim volume, and at least two of the essays are cup-of-tea length, so you might get to it sooner rather than later.
Thanks for riding along Marcie 🙂
I’m finding it harder than I thought to read two non-fiction titles a month too. Not because I don’t enjoy them and learn from them and find them stimulating when I do dive in, but fiction, bestill my beating heart! I read to get lost in someone else’s world, to be transported, inspired. Some NF can do this too, but not enough. It engages another part of my brain instead and I have to be in the right frame of mind to be prepared to access it.
Sometimes I think I make too much of categories, but with a bookselling background that’s inescapable too, I think. Yuo’re always thinking about where a book would be shelved! heheh And ultimately it comes down to how you feel that you’re connecting with a book. There ARE some non-fiction volumes that create that sense of immersion (or, maybe I create it, because I’m just more passionately interested in certain subjects or certain essayists’/ biographers’ styles) but it doesn’t happen often for me either. (I read a Katherine Mansfield biography a couple years ago that stood out.) Mostly I feel like I’m sitting in a straight-backed chair, making mental notes if not actually making notes with a pen, and paying attention in class!
I’m thoroughly immersed in Bettany Hughes’ account of the ancient wonders of the world atm, so I understand that passion for non-fiction completely 🙂
And I suspect we read the same KM bio a few years ago – it was amazing (was that the one the combined reading some of her stories with her bio)?
I had to look it up cuz I can never remember her name: Kathleen Jones! It was the structure (not chronological) that struck me, more than its reliance on Mansfield’s own writing (but that was prominent too, and might have stood out more to another reader). I bought the others by her that I could find (one on Christina Rossetti and one on Catherine Cookson) but haven’t found my own copy of KM yet.
I’m usually around 20% non-fiction, though I see this year so far I’m running a third. But I don’t think of poetry as non-fiction, so that would up the percentage. Mostly I like poetry that tells stories anyway, so that makes it even less non-fiction-y.
Hah, that’s true, I tend towards the poetry that meshes well with the fiction I enjoy: bits of narrative or musings on memory and time or the interconnectedness of life, that kind of thing. It does sometimes feel more fictiony. I think the highest percentage I’ve recorded was in the mid-30s. Someone (it might be Liz?) has a loose goal of keeping half F and half NF in their stacks, which I think makes sense, but …
I have so many NF titles I want to get to, but somehow fiction always calls more strongly! Maybe I should try having one of each on the go…
I remember steadily working through Edith Hamilton’s Myth0logy as an early NF proejct, reading just one chapter when I had a partidular day shift, so it became associated with that, almost like a ritual. Variations on that technique have worked well for me over the years, but this year I’m stalling on my longer NF project.
Poetry is difficult to classify, really, as either fiction or non-fiction – so I tend not to, if I’m honest! But I do enjoy reading it…
I find myself reading more non-fiction as I get older and I have several chunky volumes on the reading table. But it’s finding the time to commit to a chunkster, as always!!
I wonder whether more people would read poetry if it was interfiled in the fiction section rather than segregated. As a kid, I didn’t think of poetry as being separate (and I loved Enid Blyton’s poems… connecting to another convo in comments elsewhere… for instance)!
As it happens, I’m really struggling to keep up with this year’s chunky NF volume; I’ve had good luck reading a chunky NF over several months in the past, but it’s not working for me now.