There's a genre lurking in your public library, unobtrusively minding its own business. There's very little professional literature written about this unassuming collection of books, and it can be wretchedly difficult to search for them in the catalog. Book publishers haven't figured out yet how to market toward this niche, and readers are unlikely to ask for it.
Take a quick glance at your shelves, though, and you'll realize that Women's Nonfiction is a force to be reckoned with. It is an unorganized force, to be sure, with no clear category distinction. Is it a budding genre? Perhaps it's better thought of as a reading interest? The best way to identify this group of books is still unclear, but what is certain is that Women's Nonfiction is making inroads; just as with fiction, a great deal of the nonfiction being published today is written with a female audience in mind.
Popular wisdom suggests that most readers of fiction are women and that most readers of nonfiction are men. This may or may not be true, but even if they're in a minority, there are plenty of women who want to read nonfiction, and plenty of nonfiction books written for them.
Many nonfiction books, of course, appeal to both sexes. Erik Larson's Devil in the White City, for instance, remains extraordinarily popular with men, women, and book groups (which, incidentally, tend to be composed of women). But a significant number of nonfiction books are written about women or about women's issues. Collectively, these can be thought of as Women's Nonfiction; after all, if Women's Fiction is a recognized category, it stands to reason that Women's Nonfiction is a category, too, be it a genre or a reading interest.
The trick is to identify Women's Nonfiction titles within the great breadth of the public library—no easy task, especially considering that Women's Nonfiction has no standing as a genre or a recognized reading interest. That is, except with one group:mdash;the woman's bookstore. Think of it this way: Women's Nonfiction titles include (but are not limited to) the sorts of books you might find in a women's bookstore, but once they get cataloged in the library, they get scattered all throughout Dewey and in the biography section. For the purposes of readers' advisory, we can focus on narrative nonfiction, but even discounting how-to manuals and instructional materials, there remain narrative nonfiction books geared toward women in every nonfiction genre: religion, health, travel, true crime, science, social science, memoir, and any other nonfiction area you can think of.
Consider Marjane Satrapi's lovely nonfiction graphic novel Embroideries. Author Satrapi, of Persepolis fame, appropriates her female family members as characters, who spend the entirety of the book discussing marriage, sex, love, and other issues of interest to women. Think of Nora Ephron's I Feel Bad About My Neck, a collection of gently humorous essays on aging and womanhood. Or think of Vicki Leon's quirky Uppity Women series of history books, including Uppity Women of Ancient Times and Uppity Women of the New World. Satrapi, Ephron, and Leon write about diverse topics such as race, politics, age, sex, and history, but they all write Women's Nonfiction.
Elevating Women's Nonfiction into a proper genre or reading interest will take effort from librarians, publishers, and readers, but judging from the wealth of nonfiction titles published for women, the effort will be worthwhile. The books exist, and there are readers who want them. Reconsidering them as a viable collection will help readers of women's nonfiction recognize and articulate their reading interests.
Until that happy day when Women's Nonfiction becomes a commonly recognized genre or reading interest, replete with readers' advisory tools and concerted reader demand, keep thinking about Women's Nonfiction and how it might appeal to your readers. Notice the new nonfiction comes into your library, and how much of it is aimed at women. You may be surprised. Finally, don't be afraid to ask your readers whether they prefer gendered books. Never assume that a woman wants women's books (or that a gay person wants gay literature, or that a Christian wants inspirational books), but do feel comfortable asking about gender preferences as part of your readers' advisory interview. It's unimportant to some readers, but others will be grateful you asked.
Jessica Zellers is Electronic Resources Librarian, Williamsburg Regional Library, Virginia, where she also provides reader's advisory and reference services at the adult services desk; and participates in the remote readers' advisory service "Looking for a Good Book". In addition, she a read-alike developer for NoveList.