BBAW: The Unexpected Treasure

It's the midpoint of Book Blogger Appreciation Week, and, for each day of the week, there's a suggested post. Well, today's post is about Unexpected Treasures. And here's the prompt:

Book bloggers can be some of the most influential people around!  Today we invite you to share with us a book or genre you tried due to the influence of another blogger.  What made you cave in to try something new and what was the experience like?

And now my answer...before last year, I was purely a fiction reader. In fact, I could probably count the number of non-fiction books that I read for leisure in one hand. No, wait. I can count it using one finger. Yep, I didn't like nonfiction because, really, where's the fun in real life?


When I began blogging, though, I saw bloggers who'd review nonfiction books, specifically some Bill Bryson books.  I can't even remember which blogs I saw Bill Bryson from, but I do remember the reviews saying that he was hilarious and accessible. Initially, I ignored these, because the books were nonfic. Pretty soon, though, I came across a Bryson book in a local secondhand bookstore. And because I was thinking, "Hey, maybe I should buy that since I'm looking for a nonfiction book to recommend to my students anyway," I eventually did get the book, which was A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail. And I read it. And, by golly, I loved it!


It was the first nonfiction book that I could remember reading for leisure, and I was laughing out loud while learning stuff at the same time. I found out that nonfic could be fun, and didn't necessarily have to be painful. After that nonfiction book, my husband gave me another called The King's English: Adventures of an Independent Bookseller. Though I read that because it was hubby's gift and not recommended by a book blogger, I think it was that first experience with great nonfiction that made me willing to read The King's English, which is now one of my favorite, favorite books.


I've read several nonfiction books already since then, many of them Bryson's. And I think I never would have opened myself up to this genre or found so many nonfic books that I enjoyed had other book bloggers not paved the way for me with their reviews.