This week for Nonfiction November, we’re talking about nonfiction that comes in different and exciting forms, not just your standard academic monograph or zippy book from Norton about Satanists or whatever. Pop by Rebecca’s blog to see what everyone else has to say about this!
Nontraditional Nonfiction: This week we will be focusing on the nontraditional side of reading nonfiction. Nonfiction comes in many forms. There are the traditional hardcover or paperback print books, of course, but then you also have e-books, audiobooks, illustrated and graphic nonfiction, oversized folios, miniatures, internet publishing, and enhanced books complete with artifacts. So many choices! Do you find yourself drawn to or away from nontraditional nonfiction? Do you enjoy some nontraditional formats, but not others? Perhaps you have recommendations for readers who want to dive into nontraditional formats. We want to hear all about it this week!
I do, of course, zealously refer you back to Anne Carson’s book-in-a-box, Nox, which blows my tiny mind every time I touch it. But this is not a week to talk about poetry. So instead I’m going to talk about the wonders of illustrated nonfiction.
There is this lady named Lauren Redniss, and every few years, she makes a beautiful nonfiction book with wild and wonderful illustrations. One was about a girl in the Ziegfield Follies. One was about Marie Curie. One is about the weather. I cannot detect a pattern in that progression, which is exciting because it means I have litrally no idea what Lauren Redniss is going to do next.
If you fear you are possibly not so interested in Marie Curie or the weather or whatnot, do not fear! I too was not interested in them! Except then Lauren Redniss drew things that look like this, and come on, y’all, I’m only human.
Have you read any good illustrated nonfiction recently? If yes, tell me about it in the comments pleeeease, I can’t resist an illustrated book.
Oh, you want me to recommend some other form of nontraditional nonfiction? Maybe not necessarily in book format, but not a biopic either because you feel like if you’ve seen one biopic you’ve seen them all?
(Please still love me, guys.)