Nonfiction November - Reads Like Fiction

Week four of Nonfiction November!  Thanksgiving has had me running everywhere, and I almost forgot to post!  But I love this book I’m highlighting today, so I can’t miss sharing it with you.

Week 4: (Nov. 19 to 23) – Reads Like Fiction (Rennie @ What’s Nonfiction): Nonfiction books often get praised for how they stack up to fiction. Does it matter to you whether nonfiction reads like a novel? If it does, what gives it that fiction-like feeling? Does it depend on the topic, the writing, the use of certain literary elements and techniques? What are your favorite nonfiction recommendations that read like fiction? And if your nonfiction picks could never be mistaken for novels, what do you love about the differences?

Reads Like Fiction

Nonfiction is hard for me to get through.  Even if I am hungry for knowledge on a certain topic, I simply just read it more slowly than I read a novel. 

There are times when I like to sit with a pencil and underline important facts or jot notes on interesting parts.  It is important to learn from factual sources.

But I just love reading stories.  The characters pull me into their world.  The descriptions pull me into that time and place.  So, writing a nonfiction work that reads like fiction?  Yes, please, I want it!

Often biographies and memoirs are the easiest genres to have “fiction-y” nonfiction.  And my pick for this theme is an autobiography.

Or you could call it a parenting self-help book.

Which, I think makes it the best of all the worlds.

Bringing Up Bébé

The book Bringing Up Bébé is the only parenting book that I finished all the way through.  Not only did I feel like I learned a ton, I was cracking up laughing half the time.  And I felt like I was Pamela’s best friend just having a coffee with her as she imparted all her self-deprecating wisdom.

An American woman marries and Englishman and they move to Paris.  As they begin to start their family, Pamela is struck by the behavior of the French kids.  They don’t throw tantrums.  They eat their vegetables.  They play independently while their moms have a conversation.

*jaw drop*

So, Pamela set out on a mission to find the key to French parenting.

She takes you through being pregnant, teaching your baby to sleep, introducing a toddler to gourmet vegetables, giving your child choices, helping your child practice waiting and much more.  All through the story of her own motherhood experiences.

I laughed at her mistakes.  I underlined all the details.  And I dog-eared the pages with the recipes. 

She also wrote a companion book: Bébé Day by Day that is essentially the spark notes for this book without her autobiography running through it.  My copy had it in the back, and I made my husband read it. 

Basically, the French believe the child is capable of learning anything (yes, even how to sleep through the night!), but also they are not the center of the universe.  French parents have a balance between their adult lives and the lives of their children.  Not because they believe the child is less important than the adults, but because they believe everyone in the family has an important place and needs to be met.  

The French view parenting as éducation – it is teaching them everything they need for life.

Read if…

You are thinking of starting a family

You have young kids at home

You have nieces or nephews or grandchildren

You love to learn about other cultures and laugh along the way!

Nonfiction

I have been trying to expand my nonfiction reading. But I have been stuck reading the same two nonfiction books for quite a while.  Neither read like fiction at all, so I’m thinking that maybe I should make a change for my next nonfiction book. 

And I’m thinking I should probably go back to biography or memoir-type.

I really admire all of you out there who read nonfiction that does not have plot arcs and interesting characters to pull you in and keep you engaged.  You inspire me.  And that is something I need to work on.

I can’t wait to go through the Nonfiction November challenge to get some more book recommendations!

Head over to What's Nonfiction for the rest of the Nonfiction November posts for this week.

What are you reading that reads like fiction?  What should I read next?

Happy Reading!

Hannah

A Book to Heal your Soul

The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George

      I avoided this book the first several times it was suggested to me.  Why would I want to read about a bookshop?  Is the whole book about other people reading?  Sounds boring.

      And then I absolutely lost myself in it. I felt such a warmth and draw to its pages; like it was the place I was meant to be.  The character’s pain and struggles and sadness really drew you in as much as their vitality for life (when they began to discover it).

There wasn’t a character in the book that “looked” like me – I am a mom of little kids, married for five years to the man I love, and a former teacher – the main character was a fifty-year-old man who had been living a closed-off life mourning the loss of his true love 20 years prior. But the idea that we all are growing in life, we can realize problems and solutions, we struggle through to find love and happiness and beauty connected me to each unique character.

      Jean Perdu runs a book apothecary.  Books have a healing power, a motivational sway, and an outlet for emotions that people just need sometimes – and Perdu was able to deliver it. He was a soul reader. He would look into his customer’s inner beings, search them, and come up with a book that would heal their ailments.

      The language envelopes you; you can almost smell the sea as Nina George describes it, you can feel Perdu’s pain knot in your stomach as his grief encapsulates him, and you can feel the edge of desire ride through your skin as he discovers love again.

      Go with Perdu on his adventure down the river in his bookshop and through the veins of his heart as they begin to learn how to let the life blood through them again.

You can find The Little Paris Bookshop here.

Hannah