Readers and Reading discussion

Chat away here!

Newsweek has a list this week of 50 books to read now. I find I have only read 14 of them: Nos. 2,5, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29, 31, 33, 35, 40, 42, and 47.

How many have you read?

(Such a relief that they had a cover for subscribers with the 50 books list on it rather than Michael Jackson. There is a section on him, which is easily skipped, but the book lists are right interesting.)

Oops--that's only 13. Theone I missed is no. 12.

Schmerguls said: "(Such a relief that they had a cover for subscribers with the 50 books list on it rather than Michael Jackson. There is a section on him, which is easily skipped, but the book lists are right interesting.) "

The mailman hasn't brought my Newsweek yet, but this IS a relief to hear. I don't much like Newsweek's new format, though I'm trying to give it time while I adjust. I'm hoping that a "book" issue will help me with the adjustment.

Jan O'Cat

here is a link for their top 100

http://www.newsweek.com/id/204478

Newsweek's Top 100 Books: The Meta-List
Declaring the best book ever written is tricky business. Who's to say what the best is? We went one step further: we crunched the numbers from 10 top books lists (Modern Library, the New York Public Library, St. John's College reading list, Oprah's, and more) to come up with The Top 100 Books of All Time. It's a list of lists — a meta-list. Let the debate begin.

Newsweek Web Exclusive
Jun 29, 2009 | Updated: 12:01 p.m. ET Jun 29, 2009

I haven't read 4 of the top 20 - Middlemarch, Divine Comedy, Things Fall Apart and Beloved. I would still put Pride and Prejudice first. War and Peace is a great book, but I haven't the fondness for War and Peace I have for Austin. I expect fondness isn't one of the criteria :)

Bunny wrote: "I haven't read 4 of the top 20 - Middlemarch, Divine Comedy, Things Fall Apart and Beloved. I would still put Pride and Prejudice first. War and Peace is a great book, but I haven't the fondness ..."

Alias Reader wrote: "here is a link for their top 100

http://www.newsweek.com/id/204478

Newsweek's Top 100 Books: The Meta-List
Declaring the best book ever written is tricky business. Who's to say what the best..."


I find that on Newsweek's Top 100 books I have not on my 'list of books read' 23. However, three of the 100 are Hamlet, King Lear, and Othello, and I have read those but not as books. So that leaves 20 of the 100 unread. I am not going to read all of the unread ones--I can't, e.g., see myself in this postCommunist age slogging thru Das Kapital. But I might read some of the unread ones such as The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. No. 100 is Churchill's The Second World War, which is six volumes and would be a major undertaking. If I were 20 years younger ....

Forget the 20 years younger, Schmerguls, and go for the abridged. "Memories of the Second World War" is the abridgement -- it's 1,000 pages in its own right, and great history reading. It took me months, but you could probably do this one in a long weekend. The time was worth it, to me, even if I suspect that Churchill whitewashed his record a little bit here and there. His comments on FDR and the way America looked from the British perspective were of great interest by themselves, but there is so much more, too, of course.

Schmerguls wrote: "

Michael, if you read the PB of "Memories of the Second WW, how would you characterize the print size?

I tend to read trade paperbacks because the print size is easier to read then small paperbacks.

Thanks.

I guess the print size is small, because I see I even misread the title of my paperback edition -- it's "Memoirs of the Second World War." The print inside is small, but not impossible; my prescription is way out of date, but I can still read it quite well.

This is so much more than history, of course. This is a unique book because the man who, first, made the case subsequently proven right by actual events; and, second, who then led the Free World for years until finally yielding to our greater might; tells the whole story from 1919 on. Imagine, say, if Lincoln had written the story of his role in the nation's life from 1854 on, or so.... but Churchill's is a story on a worldwide scale, of course, with even greater consequences.

Before he plunges in, Churchill provides his story's moral, as he sees it -- really, his own credo, of course. "Moral of the Work: In War: Resolution; In Defeat: Defiance; In Victory: Magnanimity; In Peace: Goodwill."


Alias Reader wrote: "Michael, if you read the PB of "Memories of the Second WW, how would you characterize the print size? ..."

Thanks for the info on print size, Michael. I'll test a library copy before I buy it.

The first book in the series,The Second World War, Volume 1: The Gathering Storm (Paperback)is only around 700 pages. That's not so huge. So I may check that out first. Amazon has it for $14.

http://www.amazon.com/Second-World-Wa...

It covers the period from the end of WWI to the start of WWII. It might be a good idea to read the unabridged on that as it is the set up.

Though my library has a 600p version from 1959 that is titled: The Second World War, by Winston S. Churchill and the editors of Life that I may also check out.

However, I won't be able to hear the speech as I don't have a record player that plays 33 1/2 If that is what they are referring to. I'm not sure. It would be quite odd for the library to have such an item in general circulation.

This is how the library discribes it.

v. (615 p.) illus. (part col.) ports., col. maps. 36 cm. and phonodisc (2 s. 10 in. 33 1/3 rpm)
NOTE Issued in a case.
"Specially abridged by Denis Kelly from Sir Winston Churchill's six-volume memoirs entitled The Second World War, excerpts from which were published in Life from 1948 to 1953. The picture essays were written by Robert Wernick and the map captions by David Bergamini."

"The war speeches of Winston Churchill: famous passages selected by the editors of Life" on phonodisc.

I have only read six of this list of the Hot 50, or whatever they might label them..... (http://www.newsweek.com/id/204300) But I was certainly pleased to see Faulkner's The Bear up at number 5. And for an accurate reason, too. Also the Tannenhaus book Whittaker Chambers; a great biography covering a controversial period (and personalities) that we in the past oversimplified at our own risk. In addition to those, I've read numbers 12, 16, 21 and more than enough of 30 to "get it" .... and 20 is sitting on the table waiting to be read one of these days. The list of those I've never heard of would be longer.


Schmerguls wrote: "Newsweek has a list this week of 50 books to read now. I find I have only read 14 of them: Nos. 2,5, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29, 31, 33, 35, 40, 42, and 47. How many have you read?"

Good grief, I've only read about 6 of them. What's worse is that I have no intention or interest in reading the rest. Ah, I'm a lazy reader.

Bunny wrote: "Good grief, I've only read about 6 of them. What's worse is that I have no intention or interest in reading the rest. Ah, I'm a lazy reader."

DITTO, Bunny!

By the way, a friend just e-mailed me to tell me that Michael Jackson died, just in case I had not heard.

What a farce! He was a pervert and a weirdo, not a god and an icon as he has been portrayed in the medial. This has been sickening. One of his brothers said "maybe now they will leave him alone". What the hell?....he brought ALL of this on himsef.

I've read 11 of the Hot 50: 2,12,16,19, 24,28,33,34,40,41, and 47. Since it was such a popular book, I'll make myself unpopular by saying that #41, The Botany of Desire, is one of the worst books I've ever read. A few interesting tidbits buried in shallow discourse, distortion and misapplication of philosophy, oh-so-hip mocking of middle America, innuendo substituting for data and reasoning faculty. If this guy can get rich off this kind of book, anyone can.

Libyrinths wrote: " Since it was such a popular book, I'll make myself unpopular by saying that #41, The Botany of Desire, is one of the worst books I 've ever read. A few interesting tidbits buried in shallow discourse, distortion and misapplication of philosophy, oh-so-hip mocking of middle America, innuendo substituting for data and reasoning faculty. If this guy can get rich off this kind of book, anyone can.
..."

Oh, my, I absolutely LOVED your "review" of this book!!!

I looked up this book's synopsis at Amazon....not appealing to me at all. What inspired you to read it?

JoAnn >What inspired you to read it?<

I wasn't exactly inspired, it was the monthly voted-on choice for the Odyssey book group a number of years ago. I went into it thinking it would be a nice, light read. But my irritation with the book overshadowed any of the neat things contained in it. It was blessedly short.

Thanks for saying you loved my review. I expected to be pelted with 35 different strains of rotten apples, LOL! Of course, there's still time. ;-)

Libyrinths wrote: "Thanks for saying you loved my review. I expected to be pelted with 35 different strains of rotten apples, LOL! Of course, there's still time. ;-) ."

I think you should post your review at Amazon.... it was that good.

JoAnn, thanks for the compliment. :-)

I already discussed this on BNC, but Schmerguls, I think you'd enjoy reading Churchill's work in the unabridged. I've read 3.5 of the 6 volumes (and it's been quite a while since I did that), but I thoroughly enjoyed it. It reads a lot faster than the number of pages would indicate, and you don't have to read every volume back to back. I think if you only read the first volume you'd be happy you did. And might get hooked, LOL!

While I agree with Michael that Churchill certainly defends criticisms of his decisions and actions, his insights and writing ability far outweigh any natural bias he evinces.

I've always found abridgements unsatisfactory, myself. They'll do in a pinch, but unless it's all I can find, they're not to my liking.

Re: Michael Jackson news. I read the coverage of the funeral service the next day, and I found myself relieved to see that it seemed somewhat like an actual funeral service, more than a political rally. But the coverage -- bizarrely fawning coverage from the AP, carried on the Philadelphia Inquirer's front page -- did include Al Sharpton's great (no, make that GG RRRRR ATE !!!!, according to the reporter) eulogy..... at least part of whose message, as quoted, was: "Wasn't nothing strange about your daddy! It was strange what your daddy had to deal with!"

The guy can't draw a breath without finding, or creating, a new "victim." In this society, I guess he'll never run out of dough, will he? If Tom Wolfe had created the character of Al Sharpton, he'd have been criticized for yielding to over-the-top satire. God only knows what would have been said about him had he created a character like Michael Jackson.


JoAnn/QuAppelle wrote: "What a farce! He was a pervert and a weirdo, not a god and an icon as he has been portray..."

Michael wrote: "The guy [Sharpton:] can't draw a breath without finding, or creating, a new "victim." In this society, I guess he'll never run out of dough, will he? If Tom Wolfe had created the character of Al Sharpton, he'd have been criticized for yielding to over-the-top satire. God only knows what would have been said about him had he created a character like Michael Jackson. ."

I have seen him called Al "Will be outraged for $" Sharpton, which is pretty close to the mark, I think. He is a despicable human being who just loves to create controversy.

As for a novelist creating characters like Sharpton or Jackson - it would have to be some kind of bizarro fiction!

But Sharon, with all due respect (here it comes, LOL), that still leaves you with 2.5 of the 6 volumes unread. That's 40% of the work. Abridged is a word that makes serious readers cringe, I agree; but this was an abridgement that measures 1,000 pages.

There are points to both sides on this, but I would probably never have gotten through all six volumes. There was a tremendous level of interesting detail in the "Memoirs" volume, that much I can attest. What I missed, I'll never know. But that latter half of the history, heavily involved with FDR and Stalin, as well as war decisions that worked and those that didn't, is well worth the reading.

Libyrinths wrote: "Schmerguls, I think you'd enjoy reading Churchill's work in the unabridged. I've read 3.5 of the 6 volumes and it's been quite a while since I did that), but I thoroughly enjoyed it.."

Michael, I agree with you about getting through the whole set, and the aid an abridgement can be for that. What I did read was some 30 years ago during a period of unemployment, so I had far more time at that particular moment. Perhaps if I hadn't found a job when I did I would have finished the set!

One thing is that Schmerguls reads more quickly than most people, and can devour long books faster than most of us mere mortals, so I think he'd not only find the task do-able if he found the series of interest, but probably enjoy it.

The other thing is that I've also read abridgements of multivolume works, and just found them lacking. Two come to mind. First is John Julian Norwich's abridgement of his 3-volume set on Byzantium. I liked what I read in the abridgement, but always kept feeling that the stories went by too fast, and still feel the unabridged version would be more satisfactory. However, as you point out with the Churchill, I might still be reading on those 3 volumes if I'd chosen to go that direction right off the bat.

Another was a 1-volume Toynbee abridgement which was the only thing available. It felt so disjointed I finally gave up on it. There have been others, but those two come to mind immediately.

Also, I felt the first volume of Churchill's work, The Gathering Storm, was just outstanding in its own right, and even if someone chose to go to the abridgement after that, it would still have been worth it just to read that. With all this talk of this, I was looking over that again, and now am interested in rereading that some time in the near future. I'll probably appreciate it more than I did 30 years ago, knowing more about the period now than I did then.

Another thing in favor of abridgements is that sometimes there's only so much you want to know about a topic, or only so much you want to read of someone's writing on a particular topic. And, sometimes that's the only thing available. One can always go to the full version if one likes what one reads in the abridgement. My only problem is that I've not had great satisfaction with the abridgements I've read. So it's not so much a thing about being a purist. Clearly you're one who found the Churchill abridgement very worthy, and perhaps it would be an exception to what I've encountered elsewhere.

Libyrinths wrote: "Michael, I agree with you about getting through the whole set, and the aid an abridgement can be for that. What I did read was some 30 years ago during a period of unemployment, so I had far more t..."

If I had not seen it was your message, Libyrinths, I would have thought I wrote it and had forgotten I had done so in regard to what you say about John Julius Norwich's Byzantium history--my feeling exactly. There was so much of interest in the history that the abridgment seemed not to well cover it
As to Toynbee's work, I read the one volume abridgment long ago (well, finished it Feb 17, 1952, to be exact), and later met a guy who had read the unabridged ten volumes and this made me envious--but I have never read the unabridged volumes, and in fact have subsequently decided it was not worhwhile doing so as Toynbee's work has declined in reputation, to my mind.
Anyway, I avoid reading any abridgment, though I think I have read a few such accidentally--the most notorious instance being Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo (read 13 Apr 1975)

I don't know where to put this, and JoAnne, if it should be elsewhere I hope you move it:

What I Read in July 30 Years Ago (1979)

1524 The Day America Crashed, by Tom Schachtman (read 3 July 1979) This book pretends to be a history of October 24, 1929. It is poorly written and a waste of time--it was a reporter's book, not an historian's. I could tell the book wouldn't be worth reading after a few chapters and should have quit reading it but I didn't.

1525 The Converts, by Tereska Torres (read 4 July 1979) The author is the daughter of Marek Szivar, a Polish Jewish artist who became a Catholic but did not tell his Polish Jewish parents. He lived in Paris, and the author went home to Poland each summer. The book is a sensitive and beautiful autobiography covering the period up till the late 1940's. When the relatives in Poland found out Marek was a Catholic, they would have no more to do with him, so they did not visit again, and Tereska went to a convent school. She tells of their flight from France, and her joining the Free French Army, her marriage to Georges Torres, stepson of Leon Blum, and his death Oct 8, 1944. Very sad story at times--but I enjoyed the reading very much.

1526 The High Citadel: The Influence of Harvard Law School, by Joel Seligman (read 5 July 1979) This was an interesting book, especially the parts about the law school's history. I realize there is a lot I do not know about the history of legal education. But much of the "solutions" the book proposes just plain does not interest me. I am a hide-bound traditional lawyer, I guess.

1527 Chateaubriand: A Biography Volume I (1768-93) The Longed-For Tempests, by George D. Painter (read 11 July 1979) This is the first volume of the only full-scale biography of Francois-Rene Chateaubriand in any language. It covers his ancestry (from 1066!), his birth on Sept 4, 1768. at Saint-Malo, in Brittany, and his life up to 1793. This covers a most interesting part of his life--his experience in the Revolution, and his trip to the United States. In 1792, after Valmy, he made his way out of France: "The lost army of the emigres was mustering for the last time at Arlon in Luxemburg, only to lay down arms and disperse. . .. Outside Arlon a peasant took him five miles in his cart for three sous, and set him down on pile of stones." Later a farmwife gave him a bowl of coffee and milk and a hunk of black bread. He went thru Attert. Do you think my great-great-great-grandfather saw him? This is his home area. I love Chateaubriand's flamboyant language, and much of this book echoes it. It is a good book. I wish the other two volumes of the biography were published. [I have never seen any volume II or III of this work, if such exists.:]

1528 The Man from Ida Grove: A Senator's Personal Story, by Harold E. Hughes with Dick Schneider (read 15 July 1979) This book is obviously written by the co-author, and the style is simplistic and typical to the type of book it is designed to be. Nevertheless it does tell a dramatic and touching story, and I was very moved by episodes therein. {I knew Harold Hughes while he was politically active in Iowa and was an avid supporter of him. He was a foe of capital punishment, and got it abolished in Iowa, and ever since I have been a foe of legalized murder, also.]

1529 The Horse of Pride: Life in a Breton Village, by Pierre-Jakes Helias translated and abridged by June Guicharnaud (read 24 July 1979) This is a book about life in a Breton village. Quite a surprising book for me to read. It was not very interesting to me--how I would love to read a similar book on life in a Sauerland village in the mid-1800's or in a Luxemburg village in that period. My foreign-born grandparents I feel very close to, mainly I think from my seeing their church records in Salt Lake City. Would I could see Eichhagen, Oberhundem, (both in Germany) and Pratz (in Luxemburg)! [the towns in which they were born:]






--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

by Schmerguls
I wish the other two volumes of the biography were published. [I have never seen any volume II or III of this work, if such exists.:]

===================================

From his Obituary

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comm...

and in 1977 the first volume of another venture in French literary biography: Chateaubriand: The Longed-for Tempests. This won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, but was not quite so well received by the critics as the Proust book had been. In it, Painter carefully compared Chateaubriand’s own account of his life in Mémoires d’Outre-Tombe with the ascertainable facts. However, the work was thought by some to be a rather laborious demonstration of what had long been known: that Chateaubriand’s autobiography was a highly imaginative work. Painter never published the intended second volume of the book.

and eventually became an outstanding expert on incunabula, or books printed before 1500 (in his Who’s Who entry he described himself as an “incunabulist”).

I never heard of an incunabulist. Interesting.

"incunabula........I never heard of an incunabulist."

Nor have I, Alias. Thanks for the vocabulary lesson.

Lois

In line with noting the death of an author of a book I have read, I set out the following:

3005 A Reporter's Life, by Walter Cronkite (read 31 Aug 1997) This is a journalistic book, telling of his life since he was born in St. Joseph, Mo. on Nov 4, 1916. He grew up in Houston and Kansas City and was a radio newsman during World War II. He became CBS anchorman of the evening news in 1962, and stepped down in 1981. He tells lots of interesting stories of his years in the news business, and has good ideas about the news. He says no one can be well-informed if he relies only on TV newscasts; reading a good newspaper is essential. This book was not fantastically absorbing to me, but it was well worth reading.

Lovely, intelligent man. I'm sorry he's gone.

We are taking a family trip to NYC in August. Both of my children (20 and 18) are readers. Have any of you visited The Strand? Is it worth going out of our way? Thanks for your thoughts.

After my third trip there, I decided that I will not be going back to the Strand. It is a firetrap. I can only speculate that someone in NYC is getting paid off to allow this building to be occupied.

The basement, where many of the newer books are located, is accessed by very narrow stairs and there is no other way to exit. It was very hot in there and the one and only bathroom was disgustingly filthy.

I never got any great buys there anyway...nothing I could not have found through ABEBooks.com.

How long will you be there, Karla? And what else are you planning to do/see? Where are you staying?

The Strand is interesting. If you like prowling in used books stores and rummaging through book stacks you will enjoy it. If you want a super modern book store this is not for you. In the summer the store can be uncomfortable warm. Also it's a bit dusty, so don't wear your best clothes. If you do buy anything, you can have it shipped home, so you don't need to lug books around. They have a web site and a catalog. They are good with rare books, too.

http://www.strandbooks.com/

The area around there is nice and there are other small used book stores there.

I hope the uncommonly good summer weather continues for you vacation. The temps have been mild 60's/80's and not too humid.

I loved the Strand. It is an old bookstore and full of discoveries. On one of my trips, I bought my first granddaughter a set of the Winnie The Pooh books. I have never visited that I have not had a lot of books sent home. Nice not to have to lug them on a plane back to California.
Cheef

Sounds like I should visit but maybe stay out of the basement! This is our second family visit to NYC, but the last one was in 2002. We are going to do the corniest thing ever--I have tickets to go up to the crown of the Statue of Liberty! We are going to touristy stuff. Our plans include Wicked, MoMA and St. Patrick's Cathedral. We are going to Top of the Rock instead of the Empire State Building.

The basement is the best part!
Cheef

Cheef is right. I think the basement is where the keep the arcs. (advance reader copies)

Yes, the ARCs are in the basement. UGH

Is there I can somehow get to the unread comment without scrolling down through all the prior comments--like we used to be able to do so easily in those good old days...

When you come to the board click on the red NEW posts.

After you read that, look to the right near the search box, under that is UN-READ topics. Click on that after you finish reading each thread. It should take you to the new posts at the end of the next thread.

If you see on the list of threads that you don't want to read any of them, click on MARK READ at the bottom of the list.

The link on GR appear pale gray. Not the best for seeing them. It has been suggested that they change the color on the GR Feedback board.

Anyway, this is how I read the board.

Also at the top of the thread, on top of the first post box, on the right side you will see Date/ Newest. Click on newest.

Hope this helps.

Commenting ondeath of author I've read, here is my note on the McCourt book I read:

3002 Angela's Ashes A Memoir by Frank McCourt (read 14 Aug 1997) (Pulitzer Biography prize in 1997) (National Book Critics Circle biography award for 1996) The author was born in the USA in 1930 but went back to Ireland with his parents and this book tells of his childhood there, up to his return to the USA when he is 19. His father is a drunk and lets his wife and kids starve while he drinks up his few wages and the dole. This may seem richly comic or fascinating to some: I find it repulsive. The author tells of his own thievery--not just when he is starving, but when he isn't. He steals as a matter of course, and delights in telling us about his solitary sin--fortunately not in excessive scatological detail--and how at 15 and 16 he is losing his religion. He has essentially a mocking way of talking about Catholicism and makes fun of it. Much I know is exaggerated, but I cannot admire the author or think he is a person we should admire. But the book is easy reading and his prose reeks authenticity. But that the book should get any prize I cannot agree.

Schmerguls wrote: "Commenting ondeath of author I've read, here is my note on the McCourt book I read:

3002 Angela's Ashes A Memoir by Frank McCourt (read 14 Aug 1997) (Pulitzer Biography prize in 1997) "

Schmerguls....I started reading this book, then skipped around because, like you, I found it not to my liking at all. I would say that I agree with everything you said in your comment.

Schmerguls wrote: "Much I know is exaggerated, but I cannot admire the author or think he is a person we should admire.

I have not read the book, although it's been on my shelf a long time. Nor have i seen the movie, so my comment is not about his literary talent or the book itself.


However, reading his obituary led me to admire him on one important level, at least for me. He worked decades at the responsible job of teaching school in NYC, of which i've read horror stories for years. Upon retirement he started another career, sharing his storytelling talents. Living in a town with a high number of retirees, i see lost retirement opportunities all around me. Therefore, it seems admirable to me that McCourt dared to write, not to mention submit for rejection, his book at a late age.

deborah

You make a good point, Deborah. McCourt did make something solid of his life -- even before writing the book -- when he got the opportunity. The book read, to me, as farfetched and obviously embroidered by the author.... producing some of the same feelings you get from other phony memoirs. Besides, anyone who would believe an Irishman's stories.... ! This AP article tells some of both sides. If the estimate of one local historian that it was 80% true is correct, it would seem to say that the life was dreary and miserable, as described; but then all the really remarkable stories were probably in the 20% that was fiction.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090720/a...


madrano wrote: "I have not read the book, although it's been on my shelf a long time. However, reading his obituary led me to admire him on one important level, at least for me. He worked decades at the responsible job of teaching school in NYC,..."

Mentioning phony memoirs reminds me..... has the publishing world done to itself what the real estate world did? That is, wreck a good portion of its current and future business opportunities by tremendous carelessness? For example, how many people will buy any kind of memoir now, after all the frauds? I figure this happened in the way cycles always run.... writers started to push the envelope, to get noticed, to get published, then to boost attention and raise sales; and editors went along with it to raise their stock inside their firms; and publishers went along with it to have the hottest titles and sell the maximum copies.

And all that shortsighted squandering of editorial standards now has them with a category of writing so tarnished that it would seem unlikely that anything other than a major celebrity's tell-all will get anywhere near the sales that it once might have.

If you look around at American society at this moment, I think you can see a lot of different places where carelessness worked for the short term, but has left a bigger problem in its wake. As the folk wisdom we all imbibed in our childhoods told us it would, but somehow it was too easy to forget those lessons. How could they possibly apply to our ever-upwards, ever-better world?

Michael, great post!

It seems to me that the vast majority of Americans carelessly believe in false promises...and then are amazed when nothing comes of them. Like you say, this carelessness works for the short term. It makes one believe that plain old common sense is DEAD!

I think this whole false memoir business has been spawned by the term "creative non-fiction"...which is actually a major in many colleges. This astounds me....how can something be both creative AND non-fiction?

Thank you for the link, Michael. As mentioned, i haven't read the book so can't judge that aspect. It's hard to imagine that many "begrudgers", but who knows? The human spirit, eh?

Your post about the book industry & real estate industry seems on target. Those short term profits allure, making sense with the short-term lives many lead. I suppose that if they didn't buy into it & saved the increased income, they came out alright. But, i reckon many spent the money quickly, thinking it's about time things went their way.

Frankly, i've never believed memoirs as being fact. This happened because in high school i read Madame Sarah by Cornelia Otis Skinner. It was my favorite book for years and i reread it three times in one decade. About Sarah Bernhardt, Skinner mentions several instances where Bernhardt's own memoirs were either totally false or embroidered. After that i never believed autobiographies or memoirs were 100% true, particularly if the writer was in the creative arts.

Heck, in my own life i have memories which i would swear the True Way something happen, only to find other family members who have different memories of the same incidents. It's jarring, to be honest. Who is misremembering? Sometimes we never find out but other times yet another person sets it all aright & we understand why our memories are the way they are. (Usually combining two different but similar events joined in one's memory, btw.)

I'm never sure what the term "creative non-fiction" means, either. There are different ways of being creative. Bob Dylan's Chronicles, Volume 1 was a creative way of telling his story, which doesn't mean it isn't all true. There is dead dull prose nonfiction, so when a book isn't that but actually sparkles, i'm thinking creative forces are at work.

So while it seems the terms should include, if not mean, that sort of writing, it doesn't. Still, i believe i understand the way it is now used, JoAnn, given the articles i've read about it. It seems a sort of disservice to those who write nonfiction with a creative flair but are telling the truth. I wonder what the class offers--ways to write that way or ways to make certain your readers know you're "creating nonfiction" or something else altogether.

deborah

Deborah, creative nonfiction is not just a class at some colleges, but actually a major (or masters) at many colleges. There are associations for creative non-fiction writers, as well as conferences and literary festivals for the genre.

Here is an "explanation":

http://www.creativenonfiction.org/the...

JoAnn, thanks for the link. I now realize that what i said i liked is what is meant by the term "creative nonfiction". Hurrah! I think it's an excellent idea & wish more nonfic writers would pursue it. Sure, it's catering to those who are not academics but it's those people who are not reading nf the way they used to. It's still the truth, just better-told. I'm coming down on the favorable side of this.

It also might be a way for those who like historical fiction to morph into something with more substance. Maybe? LOL! Actually, i doubt that because it's the love/hate interest which pulls them in & probably couldn't be told properly without moseying into not-quite-the-truth.

deborah

Deborah wrote: It's still the truth, just better-told. I'm coming down on the favorable side of this.

"Better-told" may be okay. But how about embellished? Things added that never happened? Words that were never uttered? I am definitely NOT okay with that.