Readers tend to be in three camps. There are the fiction readers, who cross the bridge to Terbithia and set up their tent in the middle of a forest with talking bears and deers with heart shaped antlers. Across from the bridge are the non-fiction readers, who have forsaken tents and rented an Airbnb cabin with air conditioning and fast Wi-Fi. Lastly there are the hybrid readers, who hang out on the bridge, nomadic and free, one hand clutching their binoculars and the other holding onto the strap of their backpack.
Which reader are you? Which reader do you want to be?
This allegory is to make it clear that I don’t recommend that you exclusively read more non-fiction. It should encourage you to read as much fiction as you do non-fiction. If you are an inhabitant of fairyland (as I was for most of my life until a giant monster in the shape of post-grad doom dragged me back over the bridge and tossed me outside the campsite) then you might need some direction as to where to begin in non-fiction.
Before I share some recommendations to guide you over the bridge, I suspect that you need further convincing of the appeal of the other side. After all, why would you leave your cosy kingdom of make-believe?
Through the writing of clever people who know how to use their imagination to turn out a profit, reality doesn’t always have to be a large monster coming to remind you of what you are trying to escape. In fact, who says that non-fiction is about reality at all? Sometimes ‘real-life’ can sound as unreal as the white walkers in Game of Thrones. Take, for example, the best sub-genre of non-fiction for beginners: celebrity memoirs.
I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy, Down the Drain by Julia Fox and Born A Crime: Stories from a South-African Childhood by Trevor Noah are among the best of recent celebrity memoirs. The best thing about these autobiographies is that you don’t necessarily feel like you’ve left the magic behind: you’re in the cabin, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the neat non-fiction readers, but you’re all toasting marshmallows over an electric stove, sharing riveting stories of fame, betrayals and wild upbringings. You’ll soon be returning starry-eyed and dazed to your tent of jealous fiction-readers.
We should all be reading more non-fiction. Not because it will make you smarter or somehow validate your reading in this some-what strange culture of competitive reading we have thanks to online book communities, but because there is just as much magic in the ordinary.
“Non-Fiction at VPL Fraserview” by sillygwailo is licensed under CC BY 2.0