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August 28, 2003

Fiction is less interesting than real life

I've been an avid reader since before I started kindergarten (only a few years ago). During summers as a kid, I'd usually finish the local library summer reading program the first week or two of summer. I finished the Hardy Boys' series one summer, Three Investigators the next, and the whole collection of Louis L'Amour books the next year.

Until just the last few years, I read almost exclusively fiction books (I include many of the technical books I read in that category, too). But a few years ago, I started reading Michener books, and have found myself more and more interested in (near) non-fiction books, and less and less interested in fiction.

Some of the books I have recently read: The Civil War Trilogy, The Dancing Wu Li Masters, The Source, Guns, Germs and Steel, and Trust. Next up, I plan to read A New Kind of Science and The End of History. (Plus, I'm usually reading one or two business books and a couple of technical books at any time, but I don't usually consider those recreational reading)

I think one of the reasons why I have become so interested in non-fiction books is that I'm finding that the world and the people who live in it are so interesting, I really don't need to escape to the fiction world for entertainment. Or maybe I just read too much fiction as a kid and now I'm balancing it out with non-fiction.

Posted by pete at August 28, 2003 11:36 PM

Comments

Me too. I started wondering about that. Maybe it's like food: when you're younger you have more of a sweet tooth, then as you age it's balanced by a taste for bitters and salts.

Posted by: Will Cox at August 29, 2003 9:58 AM

I agree. I find that documentaries or non-fiction about crime (in particular) are usually more enjoyable than the made-up. It can be far less spectacular but because it's real it comes to life in a better way. A few I've recently read are the Kevin Mitnick books (if you're behind like me and haven't read them) and Black Mass (about FBI corruption in Boston). The movie "Catch Me if You Can" or "Fargo" were ok, but much better knowing that they are following some real story.

Posted by: Michael Kruckenberg at August 29, 2003 1:12 PM