Slouching Towards Bethlehem and Play It As It Lays
I’ve decided to review two of Didion’s works (partially because they have been waiting in my to-review stacks for a while, and partially because this is post #222).
Non-Fiction
Non-fiction that has not been adapted creatively. Primarily diaries and primary source documents such as court records.
Non-Fiction is a genre.
You can view all genres, or you can search by language/region, editor/translator, era/movement, book authors, or year of edition.
This House of Grief
A good non-fiction book is just as complicated to write as a fiction one and includes a mastery of many of the same elements. Writing style, writing technique, tone, and description have to be both well done and exist in an ideal balance. If so, then even a boring subject can be compelling. But, if not, even an enthralling subject can be completely dry and unreadable.
Notes of a Native Son
Every essay is a painstakingly, achingly beautiful construction of argument. From word choice to phrasing, he has a way of driving to the point, but also doing so with a biting simplicity.
Flim-Flam!
Randi writes in a way that is accessible to the un-academic reader but is also like a cosy sweater for readers who have experience in academia and the sciences. Reading this book was a joy and a perfect meeting of my interest in the supernatural and my scholarly pursuits.
The Penguin Book of Witches
There’s nothing quite comparable to the experience of reading transcripts and re-printings of primary documents. To read a trial transcript from two hundred years ago and hear the echoes of words spoken so long ago by innocent women accused of crimes that are literally impossible to commit is something powerful and weighty.
Chernobyl Prayer
Chernobyl Prayer is one of the most difficult books that I have ever read. It even took me a year to read it due to stopping and starting and the time I needed to take just to breathe through the amount of raw hurt and fear that she painstakingly documents.
The Ultimate Christmas Cracker
The collection isn’t exactly Christmas-y per se, but all the same the holiday spirit is there in the sense that this book is truly meant to be shared. It’s meant to be read aloud or in tandem and laughed over. It’s meant to bring book people onto the same page, and bring them together.
The Diary of a Country Parson
What I really loved about this diary was the sheer number of random facts that I learned about the late 18th century. Things like when umbrellas first came into use, or the fact that sometimes visits and dinners were postponed due to the lack of a moon to illuminate the roads.