Fiction v nonfiction. How did I even start to like non fiction?

 I attended a boarding school that had a library that contained tons of fiction books. When we were in session, I read a lot. I read during my free time, during my prep hours, during classes. If the book was captivating, I read into the night after lights out, knowing full well that if my class supervisor caught me I was in trouble. And I got in trouble many times

I picked my first self help book during my summer break after SS1. When I was at home for the break, I didn’t have access to as many fiction books. Most of the ones available belonged to my mum and aunty, and they were, my mother said, ‘not for my age.’ I had read the other few during previous breaks, so this break, I was left with none. My parents got a few I could read, about 2 books a break but it was just too little. 2 days and I’m done. My parents also had a ‘no-phones-in-sec-school’ policy, so I didn’t have access to e-book apps.

I had no other choice for something to read, so I picked up my first self-help(ish) book that my dad had. He was sure happy I was checking them out, ‘good, good, these books will help you,’ he told me. 

I didn’t really fancy these types of books at the time because they seemed adultish, and anything that was adult seemed ~boring~. They didn’t have characters or plots or stories. Just someone talking about how to be ‘successful and positive about life’. The only thing I really wanted to be successful at then was how to dance like AYO and TEO and maybe improve my class position (a couple other things too, but you get the gist) 

The first book I was handed was this neuroscience/cognition book that was ~1000 page long that was about the brain and its capabilities.. neurons and blah blah. I don’t know what made collect it, but the brain seemed like an interesting subject, per Ben Carson and so. So I decided to try. 

When I started reading, I found that I could not understand what the author was saying because the words he used were far above my age grade. I got a dictionary and i opened it literally every 5 minutes, book people know how frustrating this is. He went on and on about cognition and science and complex medical words, and I was like “WHAT IN THE WORLD?”. ~10 pages in, I was exhausted. 

Book people know not to give up on a book too early too, so after some time and some ultimate 14-year old persistence, I started to feel interested in what the author was trying to say. I started to ask my parents, who are doctors, about what I was finding out and it all seemed interesting. 

Persistence eventually waned, outweighed by my frustration from my lack of understanding and I dropped the book. But I learnt something. 

I later picked up a spiritual/Christian faith book written by Max Lucado. I found the book too interesting because Max Lucado is a wonderful story teller. He told beautiful captivating short stories to convey his points. I was invested in this book because Max Lucado gave me interesting things to think about. I could relate with his stories somewhat as well as I related with the ‘The Famous Five’. The book was really short and I could probably have finished it in a day or two, but i thought the lessons would not sink in as I wanted, so I read a couple pages a day to maximize the time I spent reading. I spent over a week on this book, and it was my eye opener into beautifully written non fiction. 

I have read and enjoyed multiple non-fiction books over time from self-help to faith to memoirs etc. 

Right now, I don’t read as much as I used to due to time shortage and multiple other things to do lol. I’m trying to read more and schedule reading time using time stacking method per James Clear.

I hope I’ve convinced you to try non-fiction, even if it wasn’t the aim of this post❤️.