Here me out, non-fiction can be tricky to rate bc a memoir/autobiography is someone’s real life story. A book on world events, it’s educational, how can I minimize the value of being informed on things that have taken place over the course of history. These are things that people lived through. And ofc there are the other niche topics.

I feel like I would be doing a great disservice to rate a non-fic book by how easy it was to follow along, or how interesting it was when it’s something sensitive like history or someone’s life.

How do you guys rate your non-fiction books?

  • Mehitabel9@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago
    • How interesting/relevant (to me, anyway) the subject matter is.
    • How well it’s written - that matters just as much in non-fiction as in fiction.
    • If it’s research-based, how well it’s been researched (I do look at the footnotes).
    • If it’s about a subject that is or may be at all controversial, what others in the field have to say about it.

    I’m far more likely to read a research-based biography than I am an autobiography, but that’s not a universal rule for me. I’m not interested in autobiographies or biographies of so-called celebrities. The biographies on my bookshelf include books about my favorite 18th- and 19th-century British and American writers, historical figures (e.g. the Tudors, Eleanor of Aquitaine), and interesting/influential women (e.g. Georgia O’Keefe, Victoria Woodhull).

    I assiduously avoid what I call political nonfiction – the kinds of books written by politicians and so-called pundits that exist solely to push a particular political agenda.