TS: Fiction VS Non-Fiction writing

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In the past five years, I've probably read two novels, one of which I couldn't be bothered to finish. I'm sure there's something to be gained from reading a good novel, but I'd much rather just watch the movie version instead and spend the rest of my free time reading a book about the Bay City Rollers instead.

Non-Fiction: Classic, all the way.

― may pang (maypang), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 05:15 (twenty-two years ago)

I fear I have no soul.

― may pang (maypang), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 05:15 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm a member of the Non-Fiction Fan Club too. I can't really remember the last fiction novel I got excited over, but I get almost deliriously excited over every Robert D. Kaplan travel narrative/history lesson/prognostication essay I encounter in book stores and libraries. I loved reading All The President's Men. I consider a book about the Texas death row a "guilty pleasure" reading. I'm more of a fan of The Passion Of Ayn Rand than of any of Ayn Rand's works of fiction. And the Sweet Potato Queens series, which always makes me laugh, is more non-fiction than fiction.

In fact, aside from Lorrie Moore and the Bridget Jones novels, whenever I think of fiction I think, "Awful, terrible, torturous English assignment." Ugh, the essays. Ugh, the horror.

― Mellow Dee (Dee the Lurker), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 06:20 (twenty-two years ago)

Non-fiction is what I read here and I keep coming back. If I wanted to read someone telling me a story, I'd the National Review.

― Pleasant Plains (Pleasant Plains), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 06:30 (twenty-two years ago)

I'd read it, too.

― Pleasant Plains (Pleasant Plains), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 06:57 (twenty-two years ago)

I alternate usually. I just finished "The Wanting Seed" by Anthony Burgess, it was fantastic. Next up is some book about the blues.

― Gear! (Gear!), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 07:27 (twenty-two years ago)

The pan is to altenate, but it never happens. I used to be excusivly non-fiction - these dyas, fiction is all I read. I guess its a different mind set, something about suspension of disbelief I would imagine. I would talk more, but havn't had my morning coffee yet.

― Johnney B (Johnney B), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 08:36 (twenty-two years ago)

I go wherever.
I do have to make more of an effort when it comes to fiction though, because with non-fiction you can just pick up a book and say, hmm, this topic interests me. And if it's poorly written or even dull, you still have that implicit interest in the topic to keep the pages turning. But fiction, oy!
I never know where to begin when I go to the fiction section. I always wind up crapping out with another crime novel. Which I like, but rarely produce the same life-consuming effects as a really good novel.

― Huck Everlasting (Horace Mann), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 16:56 (twenty-two years ago)

I read something about how the editor of the NY Times book review section is going to start running almost exlusively non-fiction reviews.

― Aaron W (Aaron W), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 17:12 (twenty-two years ago)

Wow. The non-fiction mindset is pretty alien to me...I mean, I've read some good stuff, but I live for good novels.

― Jordan (Jordan), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 17:16 (twenty-two years ago)

I thought I was in the minority, preferring non-fiction. I thought I had a personality disorder. Do you mean, I'm ok?

― run it off (run it off), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 17:16 (twenty-two years ago)

It's all about the balance... I read about 65% non-fiction, and about 35% well-chosen fiction that I know I'll finish. Biographies and travelogues: it's hard to tell which header they fall under.

― andy, Tuesday, 27 January 2004 17:51 (twenty-two years ago)

Biogs and travel are non-fiction [I'm not a librarian]

― run it off (run it off), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 17:53 (twenty-two years ago)

running almost exlusively non-fiction reviews

You mean the reviews they've been running have been largely fictional

― Har Har (Horace Mann), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 17:58 (twenty-two years ago)

'I always wind up crapping out with another crime novel'

Heh. I always end up with those, cuz the 'setting' always gives them a reassuring non-fiction feel, like I read James Ellroy and think "this is good, it's about American history"

― dave q, Tuesday, 27 January 2004 18:39 (twenty-two years ago)

detective fiction is fiction for non-fictioners because they're about knowledge and facts and clues and stuff. The same goes for ex-SAS novels that tell you tricks of survival and facts about weapons and survival while you follow this guy into the jungle.

― run it off (run it off), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 20:17 (twenty-two years ago)

OTM! That makes the old people clientele at the bookstore I used to work at so much more clear (the women, at least the ones who weren't in the book club crowd, bought mysteries, the men bought Clancy and the like).

― Jordan (Jordan), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 20:24 (twenty-two years ago)

detective fiction is fiction for non-fictioners

Ha! This explains why the majority of novels I read are crime/mysteries.

― tokyo rosemary (rosemary), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 20:34 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm shamefully under-read on fiction. This probably has as much to do with my job as anything--though I probably have my job because of my bent for nonfic more than the other way around. Damn you People's Almanac 1 & 2 for instilling a truth-is-better-and-stranger-than-fic aesthetic in me early!

― M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 20:44 (twenty-two years ago)

I love fiction and I love detective stories. Sometimes I read detective stories where I already know the plot to check on the characters (though I have to admit I am usually disappointed).

what can your job be to inspire this?

― isadora (isadora), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 20:44 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm a journalist

― M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 21:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Hi M Matos!

― Huck Everlasting (Horace Mann), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 21:03 (twenty-two years ago)

(that was supposed to be an AA joke, but I don't think that came across)

― Huck Everlasting (Horace Mann), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 21:04 (twenty-two years ago)

I have a profound admiration for fiction writers, but I'm mostly a non-fiction reader.

― Jeanne Fury (Jeanne Fury), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 21:08 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm a journalist who started out wanting to be a fiction writer and still hold out hopes of becoming a novelist. But, uh, even I barely buy/read fiction, so sometimes I wonder if that wannabe-novelist in me is just another by-product of my R.C. upbringing.

― Huck Everlasting (Horace Mann), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 21:11 (twenty-two years ago)

Mostly nonfiction as a read for me as well. Generally more interesting...but my larger writing is fiction because I don't want to spend five years researching something. ;-)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 21:19 (twenty-two years ago)

What I really dislike is fiction which uses real people. What would have happened if... Vicent O Sullivan just wrote one about that woman who ran a baby farm. And there's one about Elizabeth Barret Browning's maid.

I like certainty about what is fact and what is fiction. Or to, put it like Ned, if the author bothers with five years' research, why baulk at the last step (composing the book) and start making things up?

― isadora (isadora), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 00:20 (twenty-two years ago)

The People's Almanac rules.

― tokyo rosemary (rosemary), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 00:48 (twenty-two years ago)

The Book of Lists!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 00:54 (twenty-two years ago)

those books changed my life utterly and completely

― M Matos (M Matos), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 01:11 (twenty-two years ago)

Quite so. I starting reading those when I was, what, eight? The sex section confused me at the time.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 01:13 (twenty-two years ago)

at the time¿

― dyson (dyson), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 15:12 (twenty-two years ago)

+ all i read is books about war - non-fiction atw¡

― dyson (dyson), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 15:15 (twenty-two years ago)

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