I recently read of a woman's aha moment when she discovered, as a girl, that the pictures she saw in her head while asleep are called "dreams." That made her want to learn more and more words for the things she experienced in life.
Today I stumbled on a phrase that describes many of the books I've been reading lately. I've tried describing the genre to people but only now do I have an "official" phrase for it: popular narrative non-fiction or just narrative non-fiction.
It describes books that are true but the term non-fiction is too general and does not convey what these books are. The word "narrative" lets you know that the book reads like a story. There are characters and dialogue. Sometimes, the topics are not what you would expect to be interesting, but in the hands of a master of this genre, these books are page-turners, books like The Boys in the Boat, The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Unbroken, In the Garden of Beasts.
No comments:
Post a Comment