I have more customers asking for help finding non-fiction books to read for pleasure. How do I do non-fiction reader’s advisory?

Library customers in search of leisure reading for enrichment, entertainment, pleasure, and recreation are drawn to non-fiction as well fiction, so it’s useful to move back and forth between the two in order to provide good readers’ advisory service.

Some fiction readers may be open to a non-fiction title with appeal factors similar to a novel they’ve enjoyed.

Although non-fiction can be read for its informational value, those non-fiction titles that tell a good story, develop characters, set a scene, create suspense, and are written in an engaging style appeal most to customers in search of an engaging  read.  Non-fiction that reads like fiction, which can also be called narrative or readable non-fiction, incorporates fiction-like elements in such a way that increases the readability and the appeal of the title.

Some well-known examples of such non-fiction shaped and written like imaginative works include John Berendt’s Midnight In the Garden of Good and Evil, David McCullough’s John Adams, Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran, Sebastian Junger’s The Perfect Storm, and Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air.

Appeal characteristics are those elements of a book which make it attractive, compelling, or accessible to the reader.  Such appeal characteristics as plot/story line, characters, writing style, setting, dialog, theme, pacing or tone are important to both narrative non-fiction as well as fiction. 

In doing booklists and displays mix fiction, non-fiction, and audio-visual titles for broad appeal.

When suggesting readalikes mix non-fiction as well as fiction.  For example, will someone who enjoys Patricia Cornwell’s mysteries also enjoy Ann Rule’s true crime titles? 

Classification of non-fiction serves as a readers’ advisory tool since it provides links between titles. 

Overbooked and Library Booklists both provide annotated booklists of readable non-fiction.