Non-fiction?

Just wondering, does anyone here actually read non-fiction passionately? I have been reading a lot of it lately, which appears odd even to myself. My friends are all into fiction, even my mother confesses she hardly ever reads anything that is not at least fictionalized. Am I the odd one out with my travelogues and biographies, or has anyone else discovered the pleasure of reading about women travelling in the 19th century or Polish Jews emigrating to the US?

I seldom touch non-fiction.

I have read "Follow the river" which is based on a true story about a woman that is captured by indians and then escapes by following the river.

Also, "They Cage the Animals at Night" is based on a true story as well. It is absolutely heartbreaking.

As for biographies, I watch them on TV sometimes. An hour is the most they could hold my interest anyway.

It depends on the type of non-fiction. Few subjects rarely disinterest me. For the most part, it is all about how the information is presented. For example, take the subject of King Leopold II of Belgium. He was a tyrant who ruled over the Congo in the late 1800s and early 1900s. One book, King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hothschild presents the information as a narrative. But another book I was assigned (the name slips my mind) was just a fact dump, if you will.

So it is usually about presentation at that point, rather than the subject matter. But there are some subjects, like modern physics, that go straight over my head. Even if the information is presented nicely, I will never understand the topic, so by default, I'm likely to not like the book.

I've recently read Barbara Hodgson's "No Place for a Lady". I wonder if you'd like that, Dara - it is about women travelling in the 1700s-1900s, with heaps of pictures, sources and maps. I dearly love this book, and reread it on a regular basis (i.e., whenever I can).

I rarely read non-fiction, but this year I've been trying to read more of it. That is due to the fact we were required to read a non-fiction book in English my sophomore year. Had I not been required to pick non-fiction, I probably would have continued to avoid it.

Anyway, for what I do plan on reading, the subject has to interest me. I might try to find something on Marie Antoinette, if I can find an accurate-enough book.

I have read very little non-fiction. Not that I wouldn't like to, though. I am awed by the history and biography sections of my bookstore. I just wouldn't know where to begin.

While I don't read non-fiction as much as I do fiction, I do enjoy it, especially history. For American history I loved the three-volume "The Oxford History of the American People" by Samuel Eliot Morison, which covers North American prehistory up to the assassination of JFK. Another good book is "Guns, Germs, and Steel" by Jared Diamond. His theories are interesting in that he blends geography and history to show how Europeans rose from the most primitive society in the world to become the people who branched out and essentially took over everything. I also enjoyed "Seven Ages of Paris" by Alistair Horne and "No Simple Victory" by Norman Davies. The non-fiction work that floored me the most, however was "The Gulag Archipelago" by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn. This work shows the stunning inhumanity man is capable of showing to his fellow man.

I have never really read non fiction on a random subject for enjoyment, but if I am getting in to something with genuine interest I usually am obsessive about getting a non-fiction book or two on the topic.

I do usually have one non-fiction book in progress in regards to writing, always trying to learn more. I don't go through them nearly as fast as a good fiction book, though.

I just finished reading "Manhunt" by James Swanson. It is the story of the search for John Wilkes Booth and his accomplices after the Lincoln assassination. It almost reads like a novel, with dialogue lifted from letters and official transcriptions of witness accounts. I had read many good reviews of it, and while I thought it was an interesting enough read I did not think it was quite that good.

Paul wrote:I just finished reading "Manhunt" by James Swanson. It is the story of the search for John Wilkes Booth and his accomplices after the Lincoln assassination. It almost reads like a novel, with dialogue lifted from letters and official transcriptions of witness accounts. I had read many good reviews of it, and while I thought it was an interesting enough read I did not think it was quite that good.

So, do you mean the dialogues are partly fictional?

Grace wrote:

Paul wrote:I just finished reading "Manhunt" by James Swanson. It is the story of the search for John Wilkes Booth and his accomplices after the Lincoln assassination. It almost reads like a novel, with dialogue lifted from letters and official transcriptions of witness accounts. I had read many good reviews of it, and while I thought it was an interesting enough read I did not think it was quite that good.

So, do you mean the dialogues are partly fictional?

Supposedly the dialogue is based on historical documents and records of words that were actually spoken by Booth and others. I'm sure quite a bit of it is, but who's to say in what context, or under what conditions, the words were spoken. After Booth shot Lincoln and leapt down to the stage of Ford's Theatre multiple witnesses have said that he yelled out "Sic semper tyrannis!", which translates into English as "Thus always to tyrants". That I can accept. Words that he supposedly spoke to others while he was on the run, however, I cannot see how anyone can be too sure about.