Published : 2021 || Format : print || Location : Colombia ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ What was it about the country that kept everyone hostage to its fantasy? The previous month, on its own soil, an American man went to his job at a plant and gunned down fourteen coworkers, and last spring alone there were four different school shootings. A nation at war with itself, yet people still spoke of it as some kind of paradise.. Thoughts : Infinite Country follows two characters - young Talia, who at the beginning of this book, escapes a girl’s reform school in North Colombia so that she can make her previously booked flight to the US. Before she can do that, she needs to travel many miles to reach her father and get her ticket to the rest of her family. As we follow Talia’s treacherous journey south, we learn about how she ended up in the reform school in the first place and why half her family resides in the US. Infinite Country tells the...
This is my favorite week of Nonfiction November - as if I haven't already gotten enough recs so far, this week is sure to explode my list. This is the week to provide or request suggestions on a topic.
What's Nonfiction? is hosting the week and she's asking -
Three ways to join in this week! You can either share 3 or more books on a single topic that you have read and can recommend (be the expert), you can put the call out for good nonfiction on a specific topic that you have been dying to read (ask the expert), or you can create your own list of books on a topic that you’d like to read (become the expert).
One of my favorite categories of nonfiction titles are those that are written in narrative style. So in that sense, they read like stories, like your favorite fiction titles, except that these stories actually happened. Depending on what they are about, it can sometimes feel as if truth IS stranger than fiction. Here are some of my favorites.
Jon Krakauer is likely my favorite author in this category. I haven't yet read everything he has written but I have enjoyed all of his that I have read. His Into Thin Air is an account of his own journey to climb Mt. Everest along with several other veteran mountaineers, some of whom died during the journey. It's sad just how close some of them were to safety when they died. Under the Banner of Heaven tracks the story of several Mormon Fundamentalists - at the core of this book is the story of how two felt they were called by God to murder a woman and her baby. Into The Wild pieces together the journey of Christopher McCandless as he trekked through the Alaskan wilderness and also died there.
Some of the best narrative nonfiction books can leave you wondering about the battles of nature vs human and amazed at the resilience of the human spirit. Lost in Shangri-La follows a small group of US military survivors after their plane crashed into a remote location in New Guinea, killing 21. Dead Mountain is probably among the spookiest I've read - it narrates the still unresolved Dyatlov Pass incident, during which nine experienced hikers are killed under extremely mysterious circumstances. You should hopefully be no stranger to Unbroken - it tells the story of Louis Zamperini's life, especially from the time his plane crashed into the Pacific Ocean and then being picked as a prisoner when he is found after many days of drifting through miles of open ocean.
Is there a narrative nonfiction that you have loved? What did you love about it?
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