Non-Fiction Highlights of 2018

Since this month is Nonfiction November, I decided to share some non-fiction books that I've enjoyed this year. These are all autobiographies/memoirs, which wasn't intentional, but that seems to be what a lot of my non-fiction reading has consisted of lately.

The Family Nobody Wanted
The story of a family who adopted 12 children, of various ethnicities, in the 1940s/50s. A light, but uplifting read.

The Girl from Aleppo
This is the story of a young girl with cerebral palsy who fled Syria with her sister, travelling along the refugee trail across Europe to Germany. It covers her life in Syria and on the journey, with a little about adapting to life on Germany at the end. I found it a really interesting read, and would recommend it to anyone who would like to understand more about the experiences of refugees.

Too Marvellous for Words!
Julie Welch writes about what life was really like at a girls' boarding school in 1960s England. (It wasn't quite like an Enid Blyton story, except for the midnight feasts.)

Patricia St. John Tells Her Own Story
The story of Patricia St. John, who was a missionary nurse in Morocco and also wrote children's books, some of which were among my favourites as a child. I was especially interested in reading about how she came to write each of her books, but I the rest was interesting too.

Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me
Karen Swallow Prior writes about the books that helped shape her as a person, intertwining it with stories from her life. I found this a stimulating and thought-provoking read and it has made me want to go and read the books she includes that I haven't yet read - which is most of them - which is an achievement as some I wasn't really interested in before. (They are all fairly well known classics.)

Nonfiction November: Fiction/Non-Fiction Pairings

This month is Nonfiction November, hosted by Doing Dewey, Julz Reads, Sarah's Bookshelves, Sophisticated Dorkiness, and What's Nonfiction?

This week we are invited to pair up fiction and non-fiction books. I struggled to do this with books that I've read, so have included some from my TBR.

Sisters of the Quantock Hills by Ruth Elwin Harris/Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain

The fiction selection here is a series of books about four sisters centred around World War I (the first is The Silent Shore, or Sarah's Story in the US). Testament of Youth is the true story of Vera Brittain's experience in WWI, which I'm currently reading.

The Abbess of Whitby by Jill Dalladay/Aiden, Bede, Cuthbert by David Adam
The Abbess of Whitby is a fictionalized version of the story of Hilda of Whitby, which I found a very interesting read. The second book is one I have yet to read, but the three men whose lives it recounts lived also lived in Northumbria around Hild's time, and at least one of them appears as a character in The Abbess of Whitby, so it seems an appropriate pairing.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen/Eavesdropping on Jane Austen's England by Roy & Lesley Adkins

I could have chosen any Jane Austen book for this one really! Eavesdropping on Jane Austen's England is a fun look at what life was actually like during Jane Austen's lifetime. I haven't yet read the whole thing, as it's a book that can be easily dipped in and out of, but it's one I keep meaning to get back to.

The Queen of Last Hopes by Susan Higginbotham/Lancaster and York by Alison Weir
The Queen of Last Hopes is a novel about Margaret of Anjou, wife to Henry VI, the Lancastrian king during the Wars of the Roses. So it fits well with a non-fiction book about the same time period. (I also enjoyed The Sunne in Splendour, but I think Lancaster and York only covers the period up to 1471, well before Richard III came to the throne, so it fits better with a book about Margaret and Henry.)

Book Review: Surprised by Oxford by Carolyn Weber

Summary (from Goodreads):
A "girl-meets-God" style memoir of an agnostic who, through her surprising opportunity to study at Oxford, comes to a dynamic personal faith in God.

Carolyn Weber arrives for graduate study at Oxford University as a feminist from a loving but broken family, suspicious of men and intellectually hostile to all things religious. As she grapples with her God-shaped void alongside the friends, classmates, and professors she meets, she tackles big questions in search of love and a life that matters.

This savvy, beautifully written, credible account of Christian conversion follows the calendar and events of the school year as it entertains, informs, and promises to engage even the most skeptical and unlikely reader.

I thought this was a good book. It contained lots of interesting reflections, and provided a lot of food for thought. I enjoyed following the author's journey to faith, and the literary allusions and Oxford setting definitely helped as well. There was also a little bit of romance.

I did have some minor issues; I found that some of the dialogue in the book didn't quite feel real, but I realise that, since the author was writing fifteen or so years after the events described, obviously she wasn't going to remember exactly what was said. I also sometimes found the thread of the story and the different characters difficult to keep track of; there are quite a few sidelines into reflections on various topics, which I enjoyed, so this isn't really a criticism (and may also have been because I read the book over a few months; it would probably have been easier to follow if I'd read it a bit more quickly).

Anyway, I enjoyed this book; I intend to re-read it at some point, and would definitely recommend it  Here are some quotes I thought were especially good:
 

Anything of real value lies in relationship, and yet relationships are where we find ourselves the most vulnerable. (p. 185)

Dying to despair, dying for us in spite of despair, so that despair may die. (p.280)
(on Good Friday)
  

Poetry does befriend you if you take it to heart. (p. 234)

  

It is a delicious and dangerous time, this honeymoon of the soul. All sweetness and light. (p. 278)
(on the time following conversion)

Ten Non-Fiction Books More People Should Read

This week's Top Ten Tuesday theme is Ten Books Every X Should Read. I've decided to go with the theme of non-fiction, which is something I've been reading quite a lot of recently, and I've divided it into three different categories, so you can look at the ones that you're interested in.

 

Biography

 

The Small Woman by Alan Burgess

I've already talked about this in a recent Top Ten Tuesday post (here) but I really did enjoy it and think it should be more widely known.

 

Surprised by Joy by C.S. Lewis

C.S. Lewis' story of his early life and his conversion to Christianity. I read this fairly recently and am really glad I did. It's interesting and thought-provoking and I would definitely recommend it.

 

Cheaper by the Dozen by Frank and Ernestine Gilbreth

The (mostly) true story of a family of twelve children growing up in America in the 1910s and 20s. This is a really funny book, and again a great read.

 

How to Be a Heroine by Samantha Ellis

This is basically a memoir where the author talks about the her favourite books and the books that have influenced her, at various stages in her life. There's also a lot of information about her life and her Iraqi-Jewish culture interwoven with it, which I found really interesting.

 

The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

This is one of the books that pretty much everyone has heard of, so I don't feel I need to say much about it, but I think that it is a very important book and one that should be widely read.

 

 

History

 

Foundation by Peter Ackroyd

This book tells the history of England from prehistoric times up to the beginning of the Tudors. It's very readable, with lots of interesting parts although it does feel that the narrative gets slightly repetitive at times (such is the nature of history). I'd definitely recommend it if you're interested in history.

 

Great Tales from English History by Robert Lacey

This is a three-volume series and I've actually only read the first one, but plan to read the others. (I think there is also an abridged one-volume version.) The first book covers a similar time period to Foundation, but is in the form of short chapters focusing usually on a specific person or event. Although it's quite short and doesn't go into much detail about the things it covers, it left me with quite a few interesting people I hadn't come across before and wanted to find out more about, and there is a quite extensive bibliography if you do want to find out more.

 

A Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England by Ian Mortimer

 I liked the concept of this book: it's written as a travel guide for visitors to fourteenth-century England. It's very interesting and informative, and focuses mainly on what life was like in the Middle Ages, covering various different topics such as food and drink, travel, entertainment, and literature, rather than just being a history of important people and events (such as the first two books on this list really are). There is also an Elizabethan version of this, which I haven't read, but it's probably worth checking out if you're interested in that period of history.

 

 

Maths

 

 

How to Lie With Statistics by Darrell Huff 

This is a very short book which explains some basic concept of statistics and the ways that it is often misused or misinterpreted, especially by the media. I definitely think this is a book that more people should read, as it helps you to think critically about figures reported in the media and whether they are actually saying what people claim they are. (Another more recent, but more in-depth book along similar lines is The Tiger That Isn't, by Michael Blastland and Andrew Dilnot.)

 

1089 and All That by David Acheson

This is another pretty short book, which explains various topics in maths up to around an upper high school level in a way that is easy to understand, including some core topics like algebra and calculus as well as other topics which are just interesting. I would recommend this book if you are in school and struggling with some aspects of maths, or if you just want a good explanation of things you might have forgotten or not fully understood.