I couldn't detour from the book posts for too long. Besides, after I promise something (like promising to type up a blog entry including non-fiction that has changed my life or perspective), I get a nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach until I follow through.
Indeed, it causes me to neglect the urge to blog about my recent fascination with schadenfreude--the word and the state of being, about the state my apartment's kitchen is in right now (flooded, though not the entire kitchen), and to write up a review of The Host (short story: I was more impressed t han I expected to be.)
Yea, verily I promised a list of Non-Fiction books that have changed me in some way or other. So here goes.
Corrie ten Boom's The Hiding Place was the first memoir I ever read. I think I was twelve at the time. And I remember being thankful for an absurd number of things I had previously taken for granted. Such a ridiculous number of things, in fact, that I started enumerating them to my mom. She found it rather odd.
In Cold Blood was the first book that ever made me feel sick to my stomach. I think that's important to make note of. The Hot Zone, though, caused far more intense feelings of overall nausea that was harder to control.
The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio caused me no end of gratitude for having a fairly unremarkable childhood that involved two normal, sober parents. And it also caused me to start looking for the heroes among the ordinary. Terry Ryan's mother wasn't entering slogan contests for any type of glory. She did it to feed her kids and to keep them clothed. And she did it because she loved them. So it also made me appreciate my own mom and her sacrifices quite a lot.
Journey into the Whirlwind, like The Hiding Place, made me eternally grateful to be in America. Far away from prisons. And rats. And bad, humiliating, dehumanizing things.
Freakonomics led me to question everything. Including, incidentally, Freakonomics. I wonder if Levitt and Dubner intended that . . .
Most of Bill Bryson's various adventures have shown me that humor is to be found everywhere. In fiction, in non-fiction, in America, in England . . . when life is viewed through the proper glasses, quite a lot of it is funny.
Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader was the first time I ever felt a true kinship with an author whose work I was reading. Fiction, normally speaking, just doesn't get this personal.
Reading Lolita in Tehran drastically changed the way I view Middle Eastern women. Drastically. And I think everyone in the world should read it.
Final mention for this part of the list: The Polysyllabic Spree gave me immense relief. It's a collection of essays by Nick Hornby about his monthly book buying and book reading. And it's a rare, rare month when the "Books Bought" and "Books Read" columns match. In a bizarre way, this gives me hope . . .
4 comments:
Schadenfreude--I learned that word recently thanks to a "word of the day" ad on top of my Gmail. Sadly, I haven't found any opportunities to use it. Guess I just don't hang out with enough sadists (and am not sadistic enough myself!)....
"In Cold Blood was the first book that ever made me feel sick to my stomach. I think that's important to make note of. The Hot Zone, though, caused far more intense feelings of overall nausea that was harder to control." Is this--a recommendation?
Thanks for this list. Good stuff.
PS Have you ever read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee? I'm working on that one right now, though I'm not far into it. Sad stuff.
Sure, it's a recommendation. I'm impressed with any book that can cause an actual physical reaction. And still be interesting enough that I'll keep reading it . . . Although those two books have cured me of reading any type of non-fiction while I eat.
Thanks for the non-fiction post. It is almost as if you wrote it to me. Not really I'm sure but I enjoyed it nonetheless. I might even have to pick up one of these books and add it to my list of books I have to read before I die.
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