Earlier this year, I ran Book Riot’s first ever Instagram photo challenge. We dubbed it #RiotGrams, and after a successful event in February, I ran it again in June and October. The challenge involved creating a prompt for each day of the month and encouraging readers to take photos of their books relating to their interpretation of the theme (or not!), and then having them tag those images. It was a way to build community, as well as a way to get a whole boatload of amazing book recommendations from die-hard readers.

Despite having created a challenge myself, I’ve never participated in one all the way through. So when I saw the information about this year’s #nonficnov challenge, I decided it would be the one I did. As someone who is continually talking about nonfiction, continually advocating for seeing more of it (particularly in the youth lit world), and writing it, I knew it was the perfect opportunity to have fun, to stretch myself, and to grow my to-read list. I only wish I’d spent more time going through the other posts from participants to be more engaged. But the beauty of a hashtag challenge like this is that those posts will be there for the long haul, so I can peruse and use them from here on out.

And I even managed to remember to take photos in advance to post when I was out of town for a week. It would have been easy to fall behind, but I’m glad I stayed on top of it. I also love how you can tell which cat spends a lot of time in my office.

Here’s a round-up of all my posts from the month, which I hope provides a lot of interesting book recommendations for you all. Many are aimed at adults but are perfectly fine for teen readers. But there are also a lot of YA nonfiction titles scattered throughout, too.