9 Weirdly Specific Non-Fiction Books on My TBR | TBR Chronicles

Breath made its way onto my TBR the traditional way: through a bookshop browse. I really enjoy looking through the non-fiction shelves and picking a book that catches my eye. Honestly, that’s how a lot of these books ended up in my possession! I don’t know about you, but I haven’t spent that much time thinking about breathing. So reading an entire book about breath and how we can breathe better sounded intriguing to me.

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I stumbled across Once Upon a Time I Lived on Mars when I was actually looking for sci-fi books like The Martian. Clearly, the search algorithm gods know me well because I also accidentally collect space non-fiction and this book fits right in. Kate Greene was one of the participants in a NASA-simulated Mars mission. For four months, she and her crewmates were exploring Mars…on earth. I had known about simulated Mars missions like this and now I’m really excited to get an account from someone on the inside!

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Wide Awake and Dreaming found its way onto my TBR through the X Bookclub, hosted by Hannah (hannah’s blog) and Kim (Expedition Through Pages) back in 2021. That particular round of the bookclub was about sleep! Julie Flygare writes about her experience with narcolepsy, a topic I know very little about. Back when the bookclub was happening, I never actually managed to read it and the audiobook has sat in my library ever since.

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Listen, it wouldn’t be a bookshelfsoliloquies non-fiction list without at least one death book, right? A Tomb With a View was an accidental find that I came across before it had been released! Unfortunately, I did not manage to get an eARC through NetGalley but I now own the finished copy in all its hardback glory. Unsurprisingly, I really enjoy walking across cemeteries. Naturally, a book that explores the stories of cemeteries, headstones, and the people buried beneath is right up my street!

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This is actually the oldest book on this list! I bought The Origins of Everything in 100 Pages (More or Less) during my trip to Edinburgh in 2018. As the title suggests, it’s a very small book that’s bigger on the inside. From the formation of galaxies to human civilization, the author explores how (almost) everything came to be. I bought it because it sounded unique and I am in fact quite curious about the origins of everything. Having not read it yet, my favourite part of this book so far is definitely the further reading section included at the end.

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This one was an ebook sale purchase. What can I say, weirdly specific non-fiction books on sale are kind of a weakness of mine. Browsing through book sales is also a great way to discover books I otherwise never would’ve heard of! In The Walker’s Guide to Outdoor Clues and Signs, author Tristan Gooley supplies the reader with all kinds of useful information about the nature around us. If you’re wondering about that strange moss you saw or want to know what a rainbow can teach you, this book promises to have the answers.

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A few semesters ago, I took a media studies class about SETI (the search for extraterrestrial intelligence). To this day, it was one of the most fun classes I’ve ever taken! We talked about various theories that exist about potential alien life and how we might communicate with other life forms across space and time. Our professor brought up Extraterrestrial as a debatable but interesting perspective. Loeb argues that ‘Oumuamua (the strangely shaped interstellar object that passed through our solar system in 2017) was a piece of technology from a distant alien civilization. Obviously, that thesis is kind of Out There but I’m curious to see how the author came to that conclusion!

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I loved Mary Roach’s book Stiff (all about, yes, dead bodies) so naturally, I went to see what other books she had written. Spook covers all kinds of theories and perspectives on souls and the afterlife if there even is one! I’ve shelved it with my death books since death is kind of a foundational factor for an afterlife of any kind. Roach’s travels cover everything from hauntings, mediums, weighing souls to near-death experiences. I’m saving this one for a future October because it definitely sounds like a Halloween read.

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Papyrus is the newest weirdly specific non-fiction book I got because it was a Christmas present! And what better present for a reader than a book about books? Papyrus covers the history of books and libraries in ancient times. It sounds delightfully nerdy in the best of ways! I can already tell that this is the kind of book I’ll read bit by bit, probably with a pencil in hand.

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