When I was very young I came up with the idea that the most important thing to have in life was knowledge. Knowledge would get you everything else. Well I didn't get everything else but I don't have infinite knowledge. The point is that I read non-fiction because I enjoy learning. It seems that most people read fiction and I was wondering why other people read non-fiction. What is your basic motive to pick up a non-fiction book instead of a story?

What is your basic motive to pick up a non-fiction book instead of a story?

I have an unnatural compulsion to fill my head with as much useless information as it will hold. I have no better explanation.

Plus, nonfiction books more often than not contain the best stories I've ever read.

Posts 1 and 2 pretty much summed up my reasoning, as well. All I can think of to add is, "And because I really, really enjoy it." :)

Agree with 1, 2 and 3. I also like to read about people who have overcome extraordinary circumstances and lived to tell about it. Or didn't and had someone else tell their story.

I used to read a lot of fiction, but with few exceptions I finished the book and realized I didn't get much more out of it than I get from a TV sitcom. And it took a lot longer than a half-hour! I read nonfiction (mostly history) because it helps me understand the world, why people and societies do what they do. Other kinds of nonfiction can give you valuable skills in any area you can think of.

Agree with all the above - and although I do read more fiction than non-fiction, I mainly read fiction to learn about different ways of life and experiences, countries, moving life and country etc etc. OK, some of it is just escapism, but I can just as happily escape into a set of entries in the abridged Samuel Johnson Dictionary.

I often feel non-fic has more "value" than fic, too, and feel odd if I haven't read any for a while.

I have to agree with the rest of you. I read fiction and nonfiction about equally -- they each offer a different perspective on the world. There is serious fiction as well as frivolous nonfiction and vice versa. I've found that reading fiction and nonfiction about a certain topic helps me get a better overall view.

I mostly agree with what's been said. I would add, though, not to limit learning to nonfiction. I've learned a lot about life, about social customs --and improved my vocabulary by reading good fiction.

About 10 years ago, I joined a nonfiction book club to "force" myself to read nonfiction. I thought it would be good for me. I have found that I've come to really enjoy nonfiction and about 1/3 of the books I read each year fall into this category.

Plus, nonfiction books more often than not contain the best stories I've ever read. (#2)

Well, unlike in "Recommendations," my Larousse Concise French/English English/French Dictionary came in handy here. I looked up histoire and found that of its four senses, the first is "history" and the second is "story."

I enjoy fiction, but I read much more non-fiction because I have a passionate curiosity of learning why groups of people do the things they do, the ways they do them, etc. Hence, I prefer to read history, social sciences and current events ... same reason I prefer to watch documentaries than TV sictoms I guess ... which doesn't preclude my occasionally enjoying a good novel or a good story on film ...

Because I want to understand everything. And truth is not only stranger than fiction it is also more compelling, to me anyway.

I used to read more Fiction, but now almost none. Now my reading is almost exclusively historical primary sources. I find they are just as entertaining as fiction since they provide the same 'transportation' to another place, time, and mindset. It's very much like time travel, without the dust and bad food.

I have an strong sense of curiosity and a lazy streak. Therefore, I don't want to invest my life in some obscure pursuit of arcane knowledge. For instance, what is the ratio of white hairs shed vs. black hairs in the skunk population of New Jersey when compared to skunks in Florida. But reading the results and reasons that someone else took the time and effort to explore and put down in a book or article fascinates me to no end. Earth, our solar system and our universe are full of wonder and awe inspiring things, beauty, ferocity, and plain absurdity.

Probably over half the non-fiction I read is about current emerging knowledge and speculation about the future. Even so, I just tickle the edges of what is becoming of our world. The future makes a lot of people nervous. I've read some stuff that makes me queasy but I still find it intriguing. I've had people tell me that reading non-fiction is sooo boring but I rarely feel bored.

I concur with all these fine reasons for reading non-fic but have to wonder why 5 of the 9 books listed as most shared on the front page for this group are novels. I must be too hard core although I will confess to reading the first two Harry Potter books.

I've always gravitated towards non-fiction because I'm a huge nerd that likes to learn things. Most fiction can't keep my attention long enough in order for me to finish. Plus I kind of feel like I'm wasting time if I'm not learning something while reading. The same is true for my tv watching. My top channels are always: History Channel, Military Channel, Discovery Channel, and National Geographic Channel.

Non-fiction helps me to put things into context. A lot of my non-fiction reading is history (particularly early American) or science (particularly ecology), and these I've found have helped me grasp a broader picture, or the gestalt of, where we've been and, broadly, why events happen as they do.

I still have that childhood desire to know everything about everything.

I'm one of those people who likes to read both fiction and non-fiction.

Since my nonfiction reading is mainly history, sociology, and anthropology - I seem them as related - I like to find out about people and their cultures and these types of books help me with that. The novels inform the history etc. and vice-versa,

Even cookbooks and books on gardening can lead me to other worlds and ways of thought.

...because I didn't learn much in college and probably major in the wrong subjects!!! I was much more practical in my youth (finance & computer science). Thank goodness I grew-up and corrected my ways.

..and I agree and identify with #13 VisibleGhost

I fit right in with posts #17 and #18 from ellevee and hk-reader -- I too want to learn as much as I can about as many topics as I can; and I have found nonfiction to be another venue to broadening my knowledge of other cultures and world views.

I dropped out of college at age 20 to get married and raise a family, and went back and earned two Bachelor's degrees in my very late 30s. This second time around I discovered that nonfiction was not the dry-as-dust, boring torment it seemed during my youth. I discovered that many nonfiction authors were witty, informed, and quite capable of informing me about their topic, without any attendant pain or teeth-pulling. So the ice was broken.

But the circumstances of my life often demanded an anodyne for difficulties I needed to surmount -- so I fell back on my tried and true method of temporarily escaping from my problems through fiction. I am still an avid reader of fiction, and generally read three or four works of fiction for every one of nonfiction.

I turned to nonfiction when I was hired to teach U.S. history to 11th and 12th graders. Although I have a B.A. in history, my knowledge of U.S. history was nowhere near the level of expertise I felt the job demanded. So in an effort to fill in the many gaps in my own data base, I turned to nonfiction with a heightened sense of urgency. That was three years ago, and I soon found that my old desire for new knowledge and insights was easily revived. What I thought was going to be a chore turned out to be a pleasure.

Most of my nonfiction reading tends to be related to the subjects I teach -- but that is because those are the subjects that really interest me. However, since history encompasses all aspects of human behavior, my reading tends to be fairly broad -- including everything from old cookbooks and "receits" for early medicinal remedies to popular works on anthropology.

By the way, I too wondered about the inclusion of novels in the list of favorites for this group.

If I could add a few nonfiction favorites of my own, they would be:
The Descent of Woman by Elaine Morgan and
The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan as well as
With Charity Toward None by Florence King,
They Went Whistling by Barbara Holland and
The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman.

One question -- does nonfiction work, according to this group, include works by humorists? If so, I would recommend All the Trouble in the World by P. J. O'Rourke and Please Don't Eat the Daisies and Penny Candy by Jean Kerr.

This quote from George Santayana pretty much sums it up for me.

"Read nothing but history and biography, for that is life without theory."

Nonfiction allows me to go anywhere and anywhen.

I do enjoy reading science fiction.

I'm a bit surprised by both the question and the existence of this group! It never occurred to me that some people only read just fiction or just non-fiction. Reading to me has always covered both and one often sparks the other. If I read a historical novel then I want to go off and read the non-fiction version of history. If I read a thriller where the good guys use psychological profiling then I want to read all about the real science of profiling. If I read about some new scientific theory I almost immediately think it would be a cool basis for a story. I wouldn't want to live in a world without access to both fiction and non-fiction.

Ah basilisksam #22,

But who would want to be discussing let's say "real" medieval history and have someone interject with some alternative history stuff. Rather at cross-purposes, don't you think.

>22
The existence of this group shouldn't be surprising. People read nonfiction and they want to talk about it. Nowhere is it said that fiction can't be read by these same people.

Uh- ho. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with this group (otherwise why would I join?) I'm merely expressing my surprise that people have an allegiance to fiction or non-fiction. So it's just my world view - oh, how interesting that people distinguish between fiction and non-fiction. Reading is reading to me but I'm sure I'll enjoy this forum as I do others.
No, I will go further. Let's take history which is a passion of mine. All historical works construct a narrative which may or may not represent the truth. Facts may be presented but the way in which they are interpreted are highly dependent on who is writing, who the audience is, what the context is, when it is read etc. In that respect fiction may often do just as good a job in presenting history (1984, To Kill a Mockingbird etc).
Anyway, I'm not trying to persuade anyone of anything. Just musing.

Oh, we're just musing back at you BasiliskSam. No offense taken.

As to history I usually try to read more primary sources than secondary texts because of the interpretative factors. To me, they represent a closer approximation of the truth.

I'm with BasiliskSam. For example, I read For Whom the Bell Tolls, which got me interested in the Basque people. So, I read Basque History of the World by Mark Kurlansky, which got me interested in Basque culture and literature. I then read Rossetti's Obsession, which is a novel by a Basque writer, Ramon Saizarbitoria.

The only thing I really disagree with in this thread is those who think you can't learn anything from fiction!

I always tell people that I am a book snob whenever someone asks what I read. I have probably read 2 fiction books in the last couple of years and they were The Iliad and The Odyssey. Not exactly Stephen King or James Patterson, but it was fiction.

I suppose I am the same as those who posted before me. I have an unquenchable desire for learning. History, science, religion, etc. Anything that happened, is happening, or will happen is interesting to me. I, like others, prefer to watch TV where I can learn something. My favorite TV show is "How It's Made" on the Science and Discovery channel. I could watch that show forever. When my first child was born, I decided I wasn't going to be one of those dads who just sat on the couch and said "Ask your mother". I wanted to be able to answer all of my kids' questions without having to make stuff up. That desire to be the never ending fountain of useless information has driven me to an almost obsessive(my wife would say it's far beyond obsessive) attempt to cram as much information about the world as my head will hold. Whenever I am at Goodwill, a used book sale, or some other thrift store, I can rarely make it out of there without a handful of books. People ask me if I am going to read all of those books. I just tell them that I have a book disability. I can't stop buying them. My wife has learned to accept my "hobby" and doesn't even bat an eye anymore when I display my inability to walk into a book store and come out empty handed.

I realize that some people will only read fiction. It appears that they are the majority since the sections I like (history, biography) in the book store take up a small space when compared to the fiction section. I don't have anything against fiction, I just don't like to read it as I consider it time wasted when I could be learning something. Some people view that as snobbish, my wife included.

I only read non-fiction because time is valuable and I consider it a waste of time to read something that is just a figment of someone's imagination.There is so much to learn, so many books, I can't imagine spending time on something that is not real.

Fascinating answers. I *do* read fiction, but I have realised that a lot of it is about other cultures, countries etc - I have learnt an awful lot about Asian cultures, America in the 1950's, the experience of immigration, of illness, of marriage etc etc... from fiction. Not a criticism of anyone who doesn't read it, just a comment.

I read a lot of non-fiction, and rarely fiction. My reasons echo those above: I enjoy learning and knowing everything about, well, everything; especially odd knowledge like the history of a mundane object - those are my favourites. I read fiction not because I enjoy the carefully crafted stories but because I like to know what authors care about, what's important to them, and how they've tried to communicate their message. I always try to buy a book with a little 10-or-so biography which gives the author's historical context. 'pose it resolves to non-fiction in the end.

Actually, thinking about it, I read more book reviews than books these days.

I generally read more non-fiction than fiction. Main reason for that is that I'm a student in ancient history and literature. So, I read non-fiction because I have to. I don't mind, though, because I want to know more about anything. I'm trying to understand how language and literature work and how the past has been. At the moment, during the summer in which there aren't lectures, I read non-fiction I've heard about in those lectures.

To add to my mind's store, non-fiction is valuable and without fail fills me with knowledge that gives me a richness. The wealth stored then becomes my challenge to weave through the pillars and pathways I pass.

"Plus, nonfiction books more often than not contain the best stories I've ever read."

I'm down with this, too. I read a lot of off the wall stuff--histories written decades ago are my some of my favorites. I like to read a history of something that happened in the 1800s written in 1930, for example, because then you get both the history of the 19th Century event and the perspective of a 1930s writer that might be different from a 2008 writer. So I'm learning two histories at the same time, in a way.

Anyhow, I read history and fiction about 50-50, all told. Sometimes, I'll be reading some obscure history that I found in a thrift store and somebody will ask, "Why are you reading that?" And I'll say, "It was on the list." And the person will say, "What list?" And I'll say, "Well, my project is to read every interesting book ever written, and this one was on the list."

But, to finally curtail my rambling here, I'll just say that my immediate thought when I saw this conversation topic mirrored fleela's.

I read non-fiction because I like a good story.

Yes, I'm a bi-reader too :)) I read both fiction and non-fiction. I love 'crossing over' to some other world in fiction. But I am invariably curious as well. I'm trying to read Twilight in the Desert, and I feel I know sooo little about basic chemistry. A whole new basin of knowledge waiting for me!

And I recently discovered I like science fiction red mars

Message edited by its author, Jul 9, 2008, 2:25pm.

Today I was reading the essay, "An Englishman Abroad," the first entry in Julian Barnes' collection Something to Declare: Essays on France and French Culture. I came upon the following passage, which is part of a discussion of the historian Richard Cobb and reminded me of this discussion thread:

"The historian . . . is a sort of novelist, but one who instead of inventing plot and character is obliged to discover them; who instead of setting characters in motion against one another with some foreknowledge of their natures and destinies tries to guess at what often incoherent characters were up to amid a distraction of lies and suppressions. This may well be the harder kind of work, especially when the sought plot proves nugatory,* fragmented, trampled into indetectablility by previous searchers; or, when found, is unpleasing to the reader or even to the historian himself."

* I had to look up the word "nugatory." It means "trifling or worthless."

Love that quote, Rocketjk. Especially about the part that historians are 'obliged to discover them'.

And thanks for "nugatory". Great word.

I am new to LT, and find myself conflicted about reading some of the most up to date fiction being read by members and my passion for reading non-fiction and particularly theory. I read theory, (feminist theory for the most part) to calm my nerves. Yep, it does it every time. Anyway, the non-fiction I am reading right now is Robert Schlesinger's White House Ghosts. I'm enjoying it because in my professional life as an assistant I wrote for executives. The book illustrates how speech writers for FDR to GWBush have influenced the policy of Presidents.

Welcome SRubinstein!

And you are right about LT. One of the problems about hanging around here is that you are introduced to so many interesting books that it's hard to know what to read next. I have two TBRs (fiction and non-fiction) and they are both teetering and threatening to come crashing down.

dupe.

Message edited by its author, Jul 15, 2008, 6:29am.

Like some other posters, I find NF informs my Fiction, and I read a fair amount of both. I'm a moody reader, so I find I often burn out reading too much of one type of book for too long. Oddly, I think my NF reading stands up better to interruptions than Fiction, because I get so caught up in whatever world I'm pulled into with Fiction, that I can be quite cranky when I have to put it down and tend to my real life responsibilities.

As for NF, I mostly gravitate toward History, the occasional biography (mainly of historical figures), Travel Literature, and the Natural Sciences. Because I have so many interests, I've never felt like I've been able to develop deep knowledge in any one topic. Maybe someday I'll read enough to feel like I'm more than just a dabbler wandering from here to there.

Message edited by its author, Jul 15, 2008, 9:30am.

Well I've had a healthy dose of feminist theory: finished Audre Lorde's Sister Outsider on the train to my vacation spot and almost done with Perfect Madness. Perfect Madness afforded me the historical perspective on the woman's movement I was looking for. Unfortunately it doesn't look good for the present or the future. But Lorde's book got under the skin of "the other" who is often conveniently overlooked. Invaluable.

I stayed oceanside at a "share house" and there were collections of books everywhere and my hostess said help yourself, so of course I did. All fiction. Anita Diamant's The Red Tent, Jody Picoult's Vanishing Acts, Kaye Gibbon's Charms for the Easy Life (which I may have read along with Ellen Foster), and Susan Howatch's The High Flyer. Looks like I'll read The Red Tent next.
This is madness! I keep making lists.

Message edited by its author, Jul 20, 2008, 2:37pm.

I read whatever looks appealing to me. I enjoy all fiction, including fluff at times..classics..mysteries, horror, thrillers etc. Whatever appeals to me at the time.

I enjoy all sorts of non-fiction from biographies to memoirs to history and so on.

I read to suit myself, not to impress anyone.

My reading is MINE and mine alone. No one to answer to or impress. Just mine for me.

I am one of the people that enjoys both fiction and nonfiction. I am very much of a "mood" reader - I read whatever appeals to my mood at the moment and frequently go on reading jags of one particular author or subject.

When I was a kid and was alone, and I felt the desire to be connected with people, I usually turned the TV on to something live. In other words, watching cookie cutter characters on TV didn't make me feel the least bit involved with the world. However, if I tuned the TV to something like live news or sports, I didn't feel the loneliness that I was experiencing before. Things that are fake are...so shallow to me.

It's the same way with reading. If I can read something that actually happened or someone's opinion on things, I feel much more prepared to face the world and to come to terms with the time I am spending reading. I like to be a productive person, and I feel totally useless just sitting around reading stories.

However, if I do read a story, I do want it to be totally pointless and sappy. Every blue moon I like to totally suspend my disbelief and get into it. I want my other reading to be "work," but I don't want to work hard to read a story.

Message edited by its author, Aug 5, 2008, 5:56pm.

I admire fiction, but nonfiction usually holds my interest better. I often find, with fiction, that I wish the characters the best and hope their lives go well, but I don't feel a need to know how their stories end.

Nonfiction - particularly history or personal essays - is appealing to me because it wrestles to explain or illuminate facets of reality. Great fiction, on the other hand, creates a world that is somehow truer to life than reality allows. There are fiction authors whose judgment is so keen that I can readily trust the wisdom of their works, but I appreciate the discipline that nonfiction imposes on an author. It feels to me that great fiction must be harder to write than great nonfiction, but I suppose that depends on the gifts of the writer.

How do you decide on the next book to read?

I like variety and to mix things up a bit. So, if I've just finished a biography, I'll read something different, like a commodity history. This is what I usually do, although I did go on an Einstein "binge" in the spring.

I usually just look around on the shelf for something that looks interesting to me at the moment.

I like to read literary criticism about my favorite fiction writers (Toni Morrison, for instance) after I've read their work. I find I appreciate the fiction in a deeper sense. I like an occasional biography too.

#48 I just read Walter Isaacson's book on Einstein. Any other books you binged on?

It was Mr. Isaacson's book that got me going. I decided I needed to understand more about physics, so I bought Einstein for Dummies. Feeling newly knowledgeable, I then tackled Einstein's own book: Relativity: the Special and the General Theory. It was billed as being something "anyone could understand", but alas, I think I took too large a leap from "Dummy" to Einstein himself! Finally, I read Driving Mr. Albert: A Trip Across America with Einstein's Brain, a nonfiction account by Michael Paterniti.

#51 Thanks for the binge list. I've been forewarned!

Sometimes it is easy to decide what to read next. If one book is part of a series I may read the next one. Sometimes a news story plants the seed for the next read.

At other times it's hard to decide on the next book. Occasionally, I just wander around my library for a couple days, sampling a few things from a number of books. Eventually something clicks and I have the next book.

Sometimes I have a problem finishing what I'm reading. I'll be going along and there will be a reference or footnote to something else, and I'll google and get off-topic, or else go 'oooh' I have to know about that and end up buying or borrowing some book or article.

1491 was terrible for that. Still haven't finished it.

Life is good.

Message edited by its author, Aug 7, 2008, 9:24am.

#54 What you're describing sounds like the mark of a true researcher. I think reading references, footnotes, prologues, afterwords, endnotes, introductions and acknowledgments are increasingly more important especially in non-fiction. I know of authors who actually put more into their footnotes than they do into the book itself. Sort of like hiding the bushel under the mushroom.

Agree with you that life is good.

#54 - my friend read 1491 and was very excited about it until he found out the author didn't have any credibility. I don't know if that is true or not...but he was very sad. I guess there are some websites that discount him completely.

But to answer the question...I read non-fiction books because they make me feel smart! It's the same reason I watch The Discovery Channel!

56> I think it was 1421 that was discredited.

Robert

I don't know about 1421, but i agree with #54 about 1491, with 53 pages of endnotes for a 541-page book, the volume of cross-references and the quantity of information sometimes bogged down my reading --- it seemed as if the author simply wanted to throw in all information he came across without distinguishing between the essential and the merely interesting. I felt that his writing was a bit all over the place, lacking rigor. The author was not a specialist in the field, but was a journalist who had some interest in the subject, so perhaps this explains the writing style.

Message edited by its author, Aug 8, 2008, 4:13am.

I never read 1421.
I remember my teacher, in a recent history college about European expansion, the sinologist professor Leon Blussé, called it fairy tales.

Sorry the touchstones don't work. Blussé wrote some fine books, that are here in LT. He is also one of the persons behind http://www.tanap.net

Message edited by its author, Aug 8, 2008, 4:50am.

#56 = You are right! My fault. That's what I get for writing things while sleep deprived!

54, The Pam - this is exactly what happens to me and I fret that my powers of concentration are lacking because I find myself going off at a tangent so frequently. I recently discovered Ted Hughes' book of poetry, "Crow", and this led me to Ted Hughes: The Unaccommodated Universe by Ekbert Faas, a critical analysis, which led me to Letters of Ted Hughes and his fascinating work Shakespeare And The Goddess of Complete Being and now I'm reading Norman Davies' "The Isles". This has led to Beowulf by Seamus Heaney, Heaney's moving address at Ted Hughes' funeral and then Finders Keepers Heaney's prose and back to The Bog People by Professor Glob (an old favourite) which has returned me to The Isles. All this involves the internet, libraries and both second-hand and new bookshops, scanning, photocopying, downloading. It's stimulating and absorbing but I worry that I'm skimming the surface on my own without having someone to discuss it all with to embed it into my critical faculties. I love being able to fossick around in the references and endnotes of non-fiction, following them up. It's an endless curiosity. Fiction and non-fiction are enmeshed for me like this.

Along with the obvious reasons, such as love of learning, I have been burned too many times by fiction. Reading is an investment of time and attention, two elements I can rarely spare.

Fiction is a gamble. Maybe it will be good, and worthwhile, and change your prospective. Maybe you will carry the characters in your mind for years, and reflect on them.

Maybe it will be a waste of time, and you will woe and lament the hours frittered away. You don't know until the end.

Whereas with non-fiction, at the very least you get some small morsel of knowledge to take away that justifies your investment.

If I had nothing to do the rest of my life but read, I would still not have enough time for all of the books that interest me.

Message edited by its author, Sep 15, 2008, 1:11pm.

I recently joined my local library and have found it to be a great resource for non-fiction books which I would normally not purchase myself. I'm hoping to read a lot more non-fiction in 2009!

I find that reading non-fiction gives me a lot of information that makes my fiction books more enjoyable. Also, when I read a fiction book, and I wonder what a certain reference means, I find myself on a new tangent of study in non-fiction. I can't separate the two, and I sometimes find that there should be more grey area between them for the world of semi-fiction, such as entertaining biographies and the like.

Mostly though, I read non-fiction because I love information. A lot.

I do not see why fiction &non-fiction should be mutually exclusive. Reading should be about what you enjoy. It's your life!

I have an unending need to learn new things. I read both fiction and non fiction. Most of the non-fiction I like to read is True Crime, Natural Disasters, Archaeology, Anthropology, Architecture. Sometimes something in my fiction reading will make me what to look up and read about the real thing. Like I just read a fiction book Pope Joan by Donna Cross and I the next day I went over to the library to find anything non-fiction about her.

For the pure, unending pleasure it gives me!

I much much much prefer nonfiction, for many of the reasons already mentioned. I love to learn. My brain is a sponge.
I don't dislike fiction however - once in a while I'll read a novel or something. But I find that (in general), fiction isn't challenging enough for me to read, and I get bored because I find the stories long-winded. There are exceptions of course. But with nonfiction those things usually aren't a factor.

I like to read non-fiction because I don't like not understanding things, or in other words, I want to understand everything. I read quite a lot of popular and less popular science books, and some philosophy too, in the areas that interest me. Altogether I probably read a similar amount of fiction too, it can be more relaxing. One problem with reading a lot of non-fiction I find is how much more often you realise that other poeple know absolutely nothing about many of the most interesting and important things that there are. Sometimes this is frustrating, but most of the time it is easy enough just to smile and carry on.

I was almost surprised to hear my ex-wife (PHD-Univ./Md.) tell someone that I had more curiosity and love of learning than anyone she had ever met. So much to learn and understand and so little time! I'll probably be dead before they discover what the Dark Matter and Dark Energy are.

I enjoy non-fiction primarily. Samuel Clemens (?) Mark Twain, etc. put it best when he stated, "Truth is stranger than fiction."

I myself am working on a book, non-fiction, which outlines my 365 day ordeal as a white woman facing off the KKK in 1996. The story is so surreal that no one believes it happened. It's incredulous but true. To protect myself though, it has become apparent that I must not divulge actual names (to protect myself and my children) means it will become categorized as fiction. How ironic is that?

To me non-fiction is just more interesting than fiction. I usually end up disappointed when I read a fiction book. I just finished a new title of fiction that received great reviews. By the time I got to the end, I felt I had wasted my time. When I read non-fiction I feel like I am learning something.

I like to read nonfiction that is a story...that is, nonfiction that focuses on the human element, the emotions, and the things in the real world that tell us about something not mentioned...in other words, nonfiction that's like fiction except true. And that's what I write, too.

I see little reason to make stuff up, i.e. to write fiction. Whatever it is that fiction does, nonfiction can do it with more power because it's real.

As they say, the trouble with writing nonfiction is, you have to make it credible.

I read non-fiction because it is as compelling in its own way as is fiction. There are amazing stories, amazing facts, an astounding diversity of topics just as thought-provoking as fiction, but with real-world implications.

For an introduction to non-fiction reading, try:

The real story : a guide to nonfiction reading interests, by Sarah Statz Cords, edited by Robert Burgin, published by Libraries Unlimited, 2006.

'The truth is stranger than fiction'

I read nonfiction cause it gives me insight to write fiction.