Never too Late to Read Classics discussion

Based on our ambitious nonfiction schedule for 2022, some members of this group very much enjoy reading nonfiction. Why do you enjoy nonfiction? What about it draws you in? What types of nonfiction do you most enjoy reading? Why? Feel free to discuss your favorite nonfiction titles as well. Let us explore our nonfiction preferences.

My favourite non-fiction has to be History, and I'm particularly interested in Scottish history and political history.

Next favourite would probably be biography/autobiography.

Third would be "political" books.

I very rarely read non-fiction on my Kindle; I much prefer printed books for non-fiction - and the heftier, the better!

The best non-fiction is both entertaining and informative, and can also be beautifully written - for example, the essays of Wendell Berry.

As the old saying goes...Truth is stranger than fiction!

Yes, Jazzy is right. That's why I prefer factual history to Game of Thrones.

My favourite subjects are history, psychology, neurology, sociology, literature, music, maths and science.

A lot of the non-fiction I read (excluding the technical books I read for work) are popular science books focused around economics (or Freakonomics), psychology and technology. I have always been partial to a good history book too.

For years I ignored non-fiction, and even fiction to some extent, reading almost nothing but technical books in an endeavour to be the best I could be in my work. Two books started to appear, initially in references, but soon and frequently directly in the texts. These were Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game and Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets. I eventually picked them both up and almost immediately started cussing myself for having not done so for so long. I realised that idly exploring connected ideas and differing viewpoints was far more interesting and beneficial for my career than being proficient in the latest tech.

More specifically to this group, I nominated Natasha's Dance: A Cultural History of Russia because I wanted a better understanding of the context in which several books I have recently read were written. It's apparent how long a shadow Napoleon casts over Russia from War and Peace but also how much French society influenced Russia too in Crime and Punishment. I finished Eugene Onegin: A Novel in Verse today, I can also affirm that having read War and Peace and Chekhov's A Life in Letters, they helped me with many of the metaphors and references Alexander Pushkin makes.

I'm not much of a nonfiction fan. When I read it I like science and history so I don't think the classics are good for that because new things are always being learned.

John, Bernard, and Jazzy, I did notice many of our nonfiction readers in the group enjoy a good history book as well as biographies and autobiographies. Interesting to see what other types of nonfiction books y'all like as well.

Oops! I forgot the biographies !!!

Mike, reading nonfiction books that somehow connect to what you do in life makes a lot of sense. Nice to hear how you started branching out, though! I also think learning about culture and history can be very beneficial for understanding the context of many books, especially classics. Have to agree with you there.

Book Nerd, I see your thinking. Do you prefer science fiction, historical fiction, at-history and those sort of books as opposed to nonfiction?

I read a lot of history and love the fact that for many subjects there is no end to how deeply you can dive into them. I’ve read a bunch on WW1 this year and I could continue to do so for another 10 years without feeling that I had mastered the massive a fascinating subject.

Chad, that's a great point about history. Any historical event can be covered as deeply or as broadly as you'd like to go. You can even pinpoint down to one individual's experience of the event, such as someone's diary.

A friend of mine, her father reads as many books as he can find on WWI and WWII survivors.
It is the gumption and endurance of the survivors and the history that he wants to learn more of.

Samantha wrote: "Book Nerd, I see your thinking. Do you prefer science fiction, historical fiction, at-history and those sort of books as opposed to nonfiction?"
Usually I prefer fiction. Nonfiction has to be a subject I'm interested in and be readable(not a text book). I think the only nonfiction I've read this year was a book on African history.
One classic I want to read eventually is On the Origin of Species.

Good afternoon! I read Natasha's Dance: A Cultural History of Russia by Orlando Figes a few years ago and found it a fascinating look into a closed society. I also just finished the unabridged audiobook of Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle by Dervla Murphy. Published on the first day of 1965, my second-birthday year, it chronicles her 1963 ride through Europe and Asia on a bicycle she named after Don Quixote's horse.

I have inscribed upon my shield the motto "Truth is stranger than fiction!" .

I saw a new book release on Twitter earlier that reminded me of this thread, Why We Read. It's a collection of responses from 70 accomplished non-fiction writers as to why we read non-fiction, including two I have enjoyed, Malcolm Gladwell and Michael Lewis.

Now to don my Librarian hat and find a cover for this...

I have started The Story of my Life by Helen Keller. It is very good, written in easy simple language, describing the simple extraordinariness of daily life which we usually do not notice, its similar to what Proust wants us to acknowledge, the only difference is Keller tells us to observe nature and feel through senses, Proust is all about mental processes of making and preserving memories.

I finished reading A Glimpse of America by Bram Stoker (I’m going through Bram Stoker’s books). He describes his impressions of America after visiting. My favorite part was the description of 1880’s fire departments. Very vivid, and it was interesting to hear some of the things they had back then that they used.

My favourite subjects are philosophy and historical fiction.

I'm reading now The Cellar-House of Pervyse: The Incredible Account of Two Nurses on the Western Front During the Great War by G.E. Mitton. I like switching between fiction and nonfiction.

I agree with you , Bernard. Nonfiction is the stranger, the more surprising of the two.

I love non-fiction but don’t read too much of it. My favorites are modern history, science (mostly medical), and the occasional biography. I like reading mid-grade non-fiction for information because I get the high level info without the minutiae, there are illustrations and photographs, and they are quick reads. (I remember that Jeopardy! super champ James Holzhauer said that was one of his strategies for preparing for Jeopardy.) I also like True Crime books like American Kingpin, American Heiress (the Patty Hearst story), and Killer of the Flower Moon. Usually, I hear about non-fiction on podcasts. True crime, to me, is interesting because usually we know something about it from the news or another source but not the whole story. And, we find out that truth is often stranger than fiction!

I read nonfiction, but not as much as fiction. More than I used to, but my tastes in it vary. I prefer literary nonfiction which precludes classics for the most part since it's a newer style. Right now I'm reading Shanghai Faithful: Betrayal and Forgiveness in a Chinese Christian Family which isn't literary nonfiction but is very interesting since it's written by the great niece of Watchman Nee whose grandfather (Nee's brother in law) was also a big name in ChineseChistianity during that era. However, that's from 2017.

One classic auotbiography that I liked in recent years was My Lord, What a Morning by the opera singer, Marion Anderson.Marian Anderson

I read history, biographies and autobiographies, true crime, and travel books. I enjoy reading about unsung heroes. I've been reading a lot of true crime lately. The book Midnight in Peking: How the Murder of a Young Englishwoman Haunted the Last Days of Old China by Paul French was enthralling.

I love reading non-fiction and over the past few years have read non-fiction more than fiction. It helps that I really like to listen to non-fiction on audio which I do while crafting, housework, and exercising. Whereas I don't get on with listening to fiction as I can't seem to get pass the irritation of "being read to" that I don't get with non-fiction.

At the moment I'm listening to The English and their History by Robert Tombs - a brilliant survey of English History. I'm about 3/4 through and ready to call it a 5 star read.

I recently completed The Empire Must Die: Russia's Revolutionary Collapse, 1900-1917 by Mikhail Zygar. I'm well versed in this event in history but this 500+ page book really zoomed in on those years and gave me so much more detail and nuance that helped me understand so much better how and why history unfolded as it did. I had no idea how influential Tolstoy was as the leader of a philosophical movement that became political, that he was so much more than a literary figure in Russia, how irresponsible Alexandra was and how late in the piece Lenin came onto the scene as a leader.

Another recent read was Pax Britannica: The Climax of an Empire by Jan Morris a classic in it's own right as it was first published in 1968. This is the middle book of a trilogy about the British Empire, I haven't read the first or third yet but I believe those two are linear history books, the first focusing on the British Empire up to Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897, and the third book on the empire post 1897. The middle is a bit more of a narrative thematic overview, a snapshot of the empire as a whole in 1897 and it was amazing. I live in New Zealand, a former colony/dominion now commonwealth member and I found the history/culture she was relating so familiar.

The next non-fiction book I want to read starting in January 2023 Global Crisis: War, Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century by Geoffrey Parker.

My next nonfiction will be either A Rose for Winter or Alone on the Ice: The Greatest Survival Story in the History of Exploration. I will most probably get to them in 2022.

I enjoy non-fiction, but like many readers, prefer history and literature to scientific NF, simply because I do not have the technical background for certain subjects. Otherwise, all is grist that comes to my mill. I wish your NF readers a great time exploring the what, the how and the why of our world!

Thanks Mbuye, good grist to you too. As some kind of scientist, I read about the history of science and the heroes of yesteryear.

That's the kind of stuff I understand, Bernard! Thanks

I am making my way though Paul Mariani’s gargantuan biography of William Carlos Williams, A New World Naked.

I like WCW’s work very much, and he is an especially meaningful figure for me because he lived right across the Passaic River from my boyhood home. My mom the nurse worked under Dr. Williams at Passaic General Hospital in the Fifties, and my pediatrician, Dr. Albert Hagofsky, was a colleague of his; their offices were only a few blocks apart. Hence I am well-disposed towards Williams, and always thought of him as a nice guy.

But the biography, perhaps unsurprisingly, undercuts that. I was frankly horrified by an incident in Williams’ late 30s when, frustrated by his lack of recognition at that point, he wrote and published a big old hatchet piece in which he attacked basically every other poet and critic in America, including many close friends, as lacking in talent and principles. Many colleagues took a long time to forgive him, and some never did. He was not a kid; he was a medical doctor, for goodness sake (“Do no harm”); he was bitter and angling for attention. The incident puts him in a terrible light.

On the more amusing side, it is fun to read of Williams’ uneasy rapprochement with Wallace Stevens, whom he reasonably enough considered as his chief rival; and his unwillingness for a long time to engage with the alarmingly talented upstart Hart Crane. Aficionados of choice literary gossip will find a lot here.

Steven Purvis / Jeff Hulbert, Guy Burgess: The Spy Who Knew Everyone - One key takeaway here is that if hadn’t been Burgess et al, it could easily have been others, because everything in Britain was based on the old boys’ / Oxbridge network, with minimal background checking, and this made the entire system very porous indeed. This despite the fact in Burgess’s case that he obviously carried on in a “quite extraordinarily dissolute and indiscreet” manner, dropping red flags in his path like confetti.

I just found this discussion. I am reading more nonfiction than I thought I would and it's been amazing and always surprises me. I try my hand at a mixture from biographies to lit to history etc.

What's amazing for me is I never saw myself as reading nonfiction.

Patrick wrote: "I am making my way though Paul Mariani’s gargantuan biography of William Carlos Williams, A New World Naked.

I like WCW’s work very much, and he is an especially meaningful figure for me because h..."

Thanks for the pointer to a biography about WCW, this year one of the books I have lined up is Imagist Poetry.

Anisha that is actually awesome that you are finding another genre you enjoy.

I have a shelf of non-fiction that I have only had a chance to read one of. It was a really great read. I learned alot from it. Have more respect for the person he was than I already did.

Lesle wrote: "Anisha that is actually awesome that you are finding another genre you enjoy.

I have a shelf of non-fiction that I have only had a chance to read one of. It was a really great read. I learned alot..."

it's wonderful when this happens Lesle 😊

Good afternoon. I just got back from my local library where I picked up The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arent, originally published in 1966.

James wrote: "Good afternoon. I just got back from my local library where I picked up The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arent, originally published in 1966."

I also have this, I probably won't get to this this year but I hope to soon