What I like about non-fiction is that it covers such a huge territory. The best non-fiction is also creative.
Tracy Kidder
http://www.brainyquote.com/...
Each year I am surprised to see how much non-fiction I have read. There are so many different types, of course.
Wiki says:
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Essays, journals, diaries, documentaries, histories, scientific papers, photographs, biographies, textbooks, travel books, blueprints, technical documentation, user manuals, diagrams and some journalism are all common examples of non-fiction works…
Despite the truth of non-fiction it is often necessary to persuade the reader to agree with the ideas and so a balanced, coherent and informed argument is vital.
An interesting article is here:
WHAT IS CREATIVE NONFICTION?
http://www.creativenonfiction.org/...
…This is perhaps creative nonfiction’s greatest asset: It offers flexibility and freedom while adhering to the basic tenets of reportage. In creative nonfiction, writers can be poetic and journalistic simultaneously. Creative nonfiction writers are encouraged to utilize literary and even cinematic techniques, from scene to dialogue to description to point of view, to write about themselves and others, capturing real people and real life in ways that can and have changed the world. What is most important and enjoyable about creative nonfiction is that it not only allows but also encourages the writer to become a part of the story or essay being written. The personal involvement creates a special magic that alleviates the suffering and anxiety of the writing experience; it provides many outlets for satisfaction and self-discovery, flexibility and freedom.
--Lee Gutkind
Tonight, I want to mention some non-fiction books that are important, poignant and sometimes heart-breaking, and deserve to be praised. I highly recommend these books and will be interested in the titles my posters offer in comments. Many of the books I mention tonight were first recommended to me here.
1. The Cat from Hue: A Vietnam War Story by John Laurence
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/...
Synopsis
John Laurence covered the Vietnam war for CBS News from 1965 to 1970 and was judged by his colleagues to be the best television reporter of the war. His documentary about a squad of U.S. troops, "The World of Charlie Company," received every major award for broadcast journalism. Despite the professional acclaim, however, the traumatic stories Laurence covered became a personal burden that he carried long after the war was over.
In this evocative, unflinching memoir, laced with humor, anger, love, and the unforgettable story of Méo, the Vietnamese cat, Laurence recalls coming of age during the war years as a journalist and as a man. Along the way, he clarifies the murky history of the war and the role that journalists played in altering its course.
The Cat from Hué has earned passionate acclaim from many of the most renowned journalists and writers about the war, as well as from military officers and war veterans, book reviewers, and readers. Now available in trade paperback with a new epilogue, this book will stand with Michael Herr's Dispatches, Philip Caputo's A Rumor of War, and Neil Sheehan's A Bright, Shining Lie as one of the best books ever written about Vietnam-and about war generally.
Book jacket:
http://charlieblack.net/...
This is the true story of a young American reporter who went to Vietnam with an open mind and an innocent heart and was plunged into a world of cruel beauty and savage violence. His experiences in the war faced him to question all his assumptions about his country, the nation’s leaders and his own sanity...
After years of reckoning with his memories, Laurence has made sense of them in this memoir by weaving them into a compelling story. It is laced with humor, anger, love, and the unforgettable tale of a very idiosyncratic cat who was determined to play his part in the Vietnam revolution. In reconstructing his experiences, he has relied not only on his notes and memory, but also on hundreds of hours of film footage shot at the time. It gives the book an uncanny vividness and fidelity to facts...
http://www.thecatfromhue.com
I am still reading this story, but it is so vital that I want to discuss it now. It is written so clearly and carefully that it strikes the heart hard. The author’s voice is authentic and his story is based on carefully kept notes. I knew from the first page that I had to listen to all he would tell me.
Jack pulls no punches about what he was like when he first began reporting. He speaks frankly in his book about the loss of civilian life.
I have read so many books about the Civil War, WW I, and WW II, fiction and non-fiction, but only fiction stories about Vietnam because I was afraid. But it was time to face up to what I had heard on TV and in the papers so many years ago, to face the horror and to remember. This very honest book is a must read.
In Hue, February 4th, 1968
Page 25
Despite the volume of war coverage on American TV, combat as close as this was not often captured on film. Most scenes were shot from farther away. I was determined to show people at home, especially the families, what was happening to their young men, what the price was for having them here.
As I watched out the second-floor window, a group of Marines struggled into the room carrying a cannon-a big, bulky gun nearly twelve feet long and weighing almost five hundred pounds-a 106 millimeter recoilless rifle. The weapon was awkward, virtually all barrel with a loading breech at the end. The men worked with great energy to balance the gun across a wooden table, wrestling with it, aiming it finally out a corner window at the machine gun.
A major commanding the group ordered everybody out of the room. No one knew what to expect. A 106 is not supposed to be fired from indoors. The officer shouted, ’Fire’, and the gunner pulled the lanyard and the long gun exploded with the sound of thunder, a shattering BOOOOOOOM! that rocked the floors and ceilings and knocked plaster off walls and brought a shower of debris down on the gun and the men around it. The blast shook the entire building. For a few seconds no one moved. Everyone seemed to be in shock. Dust fell slowly through the air. Then silence. Scared but not hurt, standing in shrouds of fine white dust, Marines started to point at one another, ‘Oh, man, look at your sorry ass,’ laughing at the sight of themselves…
After a while someone noticed that the machine gun had stopped firing.
Page 301
Our private war movies reeled themselves out, scene after scene, act after act, an unending serial of adventures played against the hot graphic backdrop of the war: men and machines maneuvering for position across the landscape looking for a fight, drawing you into their violent drama from time to time, churning your emotions, testing your sanity with extremes of cruelty and compassion, fear and courage, mayhem and boredom. The routine presence of serious danger had the effect of sharpening your perceptions to a fine-edged blade that cut away the requirement for peacetime conventions of manners and etiquette. Behaving gracefully in extreme danger was considered honorable, even heroic. Physical courage was common. Even love was possible. Each of us played a character in an ever changing newsreel of events, making it up as we went along, playing off whatever happened, trying to find in each situation the appropriate model of behavior from the roles we admired from our cultural past.
Other non-fiction books I have really enjoyed:
2. Voyager by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yaeger w Phil Patton
3. An Alchemy of Mind by Diane Ackerman
4. 1861: The Civil War Awakening by Adam Goodheart
5. Stephen Ambrose
Citizen Soldier
D Day
Wild Blue
6. Frank McCourt
Angela’s Ashes
‘Tis
Teacher Man
7. Battle Cry of Freedom by James McPherson
and Hallowed Ground (Civil War)
8. Homer Hickam
Rocket Boys
Coalwood Way
Sky of Stone
9. Rory Stewart
Places in Between (Afghanistan)
Prince of Marshes (Iraq)
10. Sewing Circles of Herat by Christina Lamb (Afghanistan)
11. The Log from the Sea of Cortez by John Steinbeck
12. A Pirate of Exquisite Mind bio of William Dampier by Diana and Michael Preston
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
13. Stephen Sears
Gettysburg
Landscape Turned Red: The Battle of Antietam
Chancellorsville
14. River-Horse by William Least-Heat Moon
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
15. Vaclav Havel
To the Castle and Back
Letters to Olga
16. Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World by Tracy Kidder
17. Shadow Divers: The True Adventure of Two Americans Who Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of World War II by Robert Kurson
18. Wild Trees by Richard Preston
Diaries of the Week
Write On! A happy third birthday to us all.
by SensibleShoes
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Thursday Classical Music OPUS 64: Beethoven's Ninth Symphony (part 2)
by Dumbo
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Newly bequeathed letter shows Beethoven’s misery
By Reuters
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
http://www.rawstory.com/...
blue jersey mom has a book out: (a hat tip to Mnemosyne)
Comparative Osteology
A Laboratory and Field Guide of Common North American Animals
By Bradley Adams & Pam Crabtree
http://www.elsevierdirect.com/...
460 pages
Trim Size 7 1/2 X 9 1/4 in
Copyright 2012
USD 59.95, Softcover, Reference
Comparative Osteology is a photographic atlas of common North American animal bones designed for use as a laboratory and field guide by the forensic scientist or archaeologist. The intent of the guide is not to be inclusive of all animals, but rather to present some of the most common species which also have the highest likelihood of being potentially confused with human remains.
Readership
Forensic anthropologists/osteologists, medical examiners/coroners, forensic professionals in law enforcement and academia, archaeologists, students in biological, biophysical, biomedical and paleontological sciences.
Happy 125th birthday, Aldo Leopold.
by strobusguy
http://www.dailykos.com/...
NOTE: plf515 has book talk on Wednesday mornings early.