Week 8: Non-Fiction

Narrative nonfiction (literary nonfiction/ creative nonfiction) is all about telling a good story, that comes from real life. The details and the settings are not created, they are, at least, based on something real and true. People may not always know what they are looking for and in the end they might enjoy reading a nonfiction. Just like the fiction genre, with it's many sub-genre's, nonfiction too has it's many sub-categories and many of them are parallel. For example, mysteries and true crime.

I would recommend the following to someone who usually doesn't read non-fiction titles:

1. Sports 790's - Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer (796.522 Rec/ Outdoor Sports) I would have put this title in adventure or travel, but activities such as hiking or backpacking, may fit into this tiny category in sports.
2. Medical 610's - The Coming Plague by Laurie Garrett (614.4)
3. History 900's - Hiroshima by John Hersey (940.54)
4. Crime  360's - In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (364.152)

Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer

"With enough determination, any bloody idiot can get up this hill. The trick is getting back down alive"(Rob Hall, Krakauer's guide). And that is something the entire crew and everyone else, on Mount Everest, would experience on what was considered the deadliest day and year (until 2014, and then 2015) on the tallest mountain in the world. Into Thin Air will bring into view the decision that brought Jon Kraukauer, the author, to climb to the tallest peak in the world and the devastating storm that will challenge everyone to get down the mountain before it's too late.

For other true stories by Krakauer, check out Into the Wild and Under the Banner of Heaven. Also, check out Anatoli Boukreev's account as a guide from another team during the disaster in The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest and the film adaptation of various view points, Everest.

Hiroshima by John Hersey

The atomic bomb that was dropped, in 1945, on the city of Hiroshima, Japan, killed and injured thousands of people. Hiroshima by John Hersey, is a story of six people who survived the bombing. Starting with their normal day, then to experiencing the bomb, and to how they were affected and their reactions to the bomb, the very real characters in this story paint a picture of how the atomic bomb changed their lives forever. Hersey's publication started an uproar and realization of the impact that the atomic bomb made and could make in the future. Many questioned the decision to drop the bomb and the long lasting affects of nuclear radiation caused by such weapons, after reading this book.