Seattle readers chime in with nonfiction book suggestions

“If you could suggest one book to someone who thinks nonfiction is boring, what would it be?” we asked readers last Wednesday on our Library’s Facebook page. And – wow, what an incredible response. Within minutes we had dozens of suggestions; by the end of the day we had 136 comments. And even though we did say one book, many readers were so excited to share that they listed several excellent nonfiction titles that they thought other readers would enjoy.

So many good suggestions — we just had to share. We took the titles mentioned most frequently and created two booklists in our catalog — Seattle Picks: Your Favorite Nonfiction Part 1 and Seattle Picks: Your Favorite Nonfiction Part 2 — highlighting 64 titles.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot was mentioned a few times, as were the books by Jon Krakauer, especially Into the Wild. Seattle authors Timothy Egan (The Big Burn) and Erik Larsen (The Devil in the White City) were other favorites, as were Mary Roach’s Stiff and her newest, Packing for Mars.

One last thing: Thank you, readers! The passionate and thoughtful readers of Seattle are talking about books every day — and on Facebook.