Today is a very special Monday because the Bloggers’ Alliance of Nonfiction Devotees has been announced. Our main activity, at least to start, is a monthly discussion topic. The first discussion question will be posed tomorrow by Kim at Sophisticated Dorkiness. I’ve seen a draft and it’s going to start a great conversation. If you ever read nonfiction, you will have an answer of your own — I hope you will share it to participate in this wonderful effort.

For more details, see Kim’s announcement, Introducing the Bloggers’ Alliance of Nonfiction Devotees!, and the announcement at Amy Reads, BAND – Bloggers’ Alliance of Nonfiction Devotees Launches TODAY!

On to my normal Monday post, which just happens to be nonfiction heavy. See how easy it is to be “advocates for nonfiction as a non-chore,” (the tag-line for the Bloggers’ Alliance of Nonfiction Devotees)?

It’s Monday! What Are Your Reading? is a weekly meme hosted by Sheila of Book Journey. Be sure to check out her post today to see her selections and the list of links to all the other participating bloggers.

Read

I finished Bobblehead Dad by Jim Higley, a memoir (yay, nonfiction!) that’s quite amusing given the seriousness of its topics. I’ll post a review this week.

I also finished 13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson in time for the YA for Adults Book Club at Pudd’nhead Books in Webster Groves. The book was fun; the book club was even more fun! We had a big group of women and discussed travel, daughters, mothers, aunts, and men, in roughly that order. Next month, the book will be Ash by Malinda Lo, a retelling of Cinderella. I’m looking forward to it!

Reading

I’m still reading, and enjoying, Watching the English by Kate Fox. This is a nonfiction (yay!) look at the habits and societal rules of the English as revealed by an anthropologist. As she points out frequently, the English have a peculiar brand of humor and it is practiced well in this book. The cool thing is, the more I’m learning about the English, the better I am at getting the jokes.

Since Thursday is Bastille Day, I’m reading My Life in France by Julia Child. She started writing this book with freelance writer Alex Prud’homme, her husband Paul’s grandnephew, and he finished it from the family letters and the interview notes after her death. It reads like a memoir with Julia Child’s unmistakable voice shining through every story. Another nonfiction choice! I am not much of a Francophile, but for some reason, I love to read about expats in France, particularly Paris, and Julia Child had precisely the experiences that a budding foodie like me wants to read about.

Will Read

It seems kind of natural to move from Julia Child’s My Life in France to the new book by Jennet Conant, A Covert Affair: Julia Child and Paul Child in the OSS. (Another nonfiction! See how much fun this is?) I saw Jennet Conant discussing this book earlier this month on Charlie Rose, A conversation with author Jennet Conant. I’m looking forward to learning more of Julia and Paul’s lives before and after they were in France, when they were serving their country in the Far East and later had to defend themselves at a time when service in newly Communist nations appeared suspect while wearing red-tinted McCarthy lenses.