I have always avoided certain genres after reading a couple books of each and realising theyre not for me. then a couple years ago I decided to find atleast 1 book from a genre that i previously avoided to make me like it and it worked ! and was really fun.
I’ve managed to change my mind about science fiction, contemperory romance, and fantasy.
i havent (seriously) attempted memoirs, biology-ish, and comedy books yet as I know they’ll be the hardest to overcome for me.
Memoirs never really appealed to me and I think I read one a decade ago and was just turned off.
Biology-ish I mean like animals and human biology type stuff like An immense World by Ed Young and Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker.
I always find them really interesting and right up my alley in theory but as soon as i start one they feel like my old university textbooks. just way too stuffy and no real narrative or arc? (which is maybe inherit to the genre?) but also sometimes just so basic that im not learning anything at all.
Comedy i genuinely have never read a comedy book in my life theres something about the possibility of not finding it funny that makes me want to crawl out of my own skin it feels like the secondhand embarrassment you get from watching someone flop their standup set because for some reason I imagine all comedy books to be standup in written form which I know cant possibly be the case (can it ?) but I also cant imagine what else it might be
I’d love to change my mind about these genres pls recommend some books you think will sway me.
ps vis a vis memoirs i dont really follow celebrities etc but will read anything that is good regardless of whether or not i know / like the person.
thank u !!
by personpending
17 Comments
On Memoirs I think you really have to find something that you are really interested in and the memoir gives inside info on that.
That said I’m Glad My Mom Died is the one I’d recommend to change your mind. Unlike most memoirs it does not handed a ghost writer and Jeanette McCurdy is actually a great writer who made great story telling decisions.
For a memoir, maybe [Educated](https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/8f8d5178-ee65-450d-aec1-56b200975d89) by Tara Westover
My Best Friend’s Exorcism – Grady Hendrix
Memoir – So, Anyway audiobook read by John Cleese
Biology – A Primate’s Memoir by Robert Sapolsky
Comedy – I really like the Jeeves and Wooster books by P. G. Wodehouse. You could start with The Code of the Woosters.
Biology – The Secret Lives of Bats – Merlin Tuttle
Bats, photography, and caving all wrapped together. The author is a gem. The narration on the audiobook is good.
Memoir – Gathering Moss – Robin Wall Kimmerer
I’m not sure if this counts buts its sort of a combination of a memoir of her life during her children’s youth and an exploration of mosses. It made for a good audiobook (read by the author, I think) and might count as 2 birds with one stone towards your biology goal.
Memoir: Let’s Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson.
Human biology: Gulp by Mary Roach.
Comic: The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody by Will Cuppy.
As far as comedy, you might look into collections of short stories and anecdotes. David Sedaris is famous for this — most of what he’s published is short anecdotal pieces, and if you don’t find it funny and/or it makes you want to crawl out of your skin, you can skip to the next one!
I’d also like to put in a good word for Bill Bryson — he’s pretty dryly funny across the board, but his book A Walk in the Woods about hiking the Appalachian trail (partly with an *extremely* inexperienced friend, which is where a lot of the humor arises) might also scratch your biology-ish itch.
So I have NEVER been much of a nonfiction reader, but the past year or so I’ve been getting into more biology-ish nonfiction books, and two I’ve really enjoyed are:
Eight Bears by Gloria Dickie
Coyote America by Dan Flores
I have another book about beavers that I am excited to read, just haven’t gotten to it yet. It’s called Eager: something something about Beavers and why they matter.
For a comedy you could Try Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
oooh for biology I have several recommendations! If you want to ease your way in via a novel maybe try *Last of it’s kind* by Sibylle Grimbert, it’s about French biologist, mid 19 th century who befriends the last Great Auk and his realization not only that its species is dying out but also that such a thing is even possible. Tragic but beautfiul and you will have a special relationship to Great Auks afterwards!
Second rec is *The Invention of Nature* by Andrea Wulf, a biography of the German scientist Alexander von Humboldt. whose live serves as the main narrative (trust me, it won’t get boring, he was on a six year expedition through South America, founded or co-founded several fields of science, was friends with among other Simon Bolivar, Thomas Jefferson, J.W. v Goethe, Gauss but hated by Napoleon) while explaining the historical and societal context and, thus the title, how his research and nature writing where influentual to our understanding of nature today, as well as lots and lots who followed him, among them Darwin and Thoreau.
And last, but certainly not least, probably the most Biology-ish book on the list: *Otherworlds* by Thomas Halliday. This one doesn’t have a main narrative, but it’s far from being dry! Halliday utilizes nature writing not unlike Humboldt to evoke prehistoric ecosystems from the ice age to way back to the very first complex life in the Ediacarian in a way, that will change your top time travel destinations. From there he goes to explain the ways the organisms interact with each other, the ways ecosystems work and change and the mechanics of evolution.
All three are in my absolute favourites, I may have been on a science streak lately (oh if you want more of 19th centuries explorers: try *Erebus* by Michael Palin)
Pseudo-Memoir + comedy: Based on True Story by Norm Macdonald. Funniest book I’ve ever read.
Biology book: The Coming Plague by Laurie Garrett. It’s got Indiana Jones adventure vibes, following heroes from the CDC solving cases of brand new emerging diseases. You learn the biology, but it almost never feels like a chore. It’s more often edge of your seat. At least for a nerd like me.
Okay, I have some book suggestions for you. You can read ‘The Glass Castle’ or ‘Born a Crime’ for the memoir kind- two of my favorites. Then there are ‘Good Omens’, ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ for the Comedy genre. And finally, for the Biology-ish genre, this one’s a bit tough but I think ‘Lab Girl’ will work for this one.
BIOLOGY-ISH:
Anatomy of Violence: the Biological Roots of Crime by Adrian Raine;
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks
MEMOIR:
Her by Christa Parravani;
Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi;
The Center Cannot Hold by Elyn Saks
All Creatures Great and Small. Comedy memoir about a small-town vet. All your genres in one!
May I suggest *Adolf Hitler, My Part in His Downfall*? It’s by Spike Milligan and is both a memoir and very funny – or at least I laughed uproariously and out loud at it.
Open by Andre Agassi is a memoir about his life & career as a tennis athlete. I couldn’t care less about tennis or celebrity memoirs but this had me hooked
Crying in H Mart by
Michelle Zauner, Tastes Like War by Grace M. Cho, and Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive by Stephanie Land.