After some careful curating, our metadata librarians have come up with a new and exciting genre in nonfiction books for adults — Nonfiction that reads like fiction! These are books that while grounded in fact, biography or memoir, create a reading experience much like reading a novel. Think In Cold Blood, Educated: A Memoir, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, or I’ll Be Gone in the Dark.
While our adult nonfiction collection focuses on books that have a readable, narrative style and are accessible to a general audience, our NTRLF titles have that extra something that really pulls the reader in, whether it’s compelling people, an engrossing storyline, non-stop action, or just an extremely entertaining writing style.
Think of these as great book club picks for your nonfiction readers or books that are captivating enough to make nonfiction converts out of fiction-only patrons. Using book reviews, librarian-curated lists, and word-of-mouth recommendations, we’ve pulled together titles that most readers will lose themselves in, whether they are lovers of nonfiction or not. And the stories run the gamut – adventure, exploration, war stories, espionage, investigations, life stories and memoirs of every stripe, and a ton of true crime. No matter the subject, every selection in NTRLF provides readers with a terrific story that they will want to see through to the end!
You can pull up a browsing list of all NTRLF titles by doing an exact genre search — just type the string GX nonfiction that reads like fiction in the NoveList Plus search bar. But if you’re looking for something to suit a specific reader’s tastes, experiment with limiting your search — either with the properties on the left sidebar or by adding on to the original string. For instance, get a wide selection of biography by adding AND GN (life stories). Or try different subjects by adding AND SU [keyword] — spies, murder, travel, if you can tell a good tale about it, we have suggestions! Helping younger readers find similar kinds of reads? No problem! Check out our related genre Narrative nonfiction for kids and teens. Both genres are great for readers' advisory and nonfiction displays. With so many great nonfiction books available, you finally have an easier way to spotlight them.
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Clay Boyer is a Metadata Librarian for NoveList. He is currently reading Jazz: A History of America's Music by Geoffrey C. Ward.