Looking at 2012 nonfiction trends.
06 February 2012
Somewhere in the middle of my neverending nonfiction reading slump I gave a presentation (for the Outagamie Waupaca Library System continuing education program--thanks again for hiring me!) on nonfiction trends in 2012.
As I told the attendees, it was somewhat hilarious for me to be giving a talk on trends. Me and any kind of "trends" are rarely in the same room together. I've never particularly cared what the "it" books of each season are (I do, but more out of professional curiosity than out of a burning desire to read them myself) and I'm definitely not up on fashion trends. I put on a "work outfit" to give the presentation--it was given through web meeting software, and no one could see me, but I find it gives a little "oomph" to your presentation to be dressed professionally (or as "professionally" as I can manage)--and the sweater I was wearing was about fifteen years old. Pathetic. But I was happy to be speaking on a new topic--a topic about newness, if you will, so I read what I could and researched what I could to try and suss out some nonfiction trends of the coming year.
While researching the trends, I threw together a quick spreadsheet of nonfiction titles that will be coming out this year. I entered the authors and titles, the month they're coming out, and then assigned some quick-n-dirty genre headings. You can download that spreadsheet yourself; it can be sorted alphabetically by author or title, by genre (which is how it's sorted now), or by release month. All week I'll be talking about what I learned putting that spreadsheet together, so buckle your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy trends ride.