Pairing Nonfiction and Fiction
Welcome to Nonfiction November! Our hosts–Rennie at What’s Nonfiction?, Katie at Doing Dewey, Veronica at The Thousand Book Project, Christopher at Plucked from the Stacks, and Jaymi at The OC Book Girl–have five weeks of fun topics for us to explore. This week, we're pairing nonfiction and fiction books. "This week, pair up a nonfiction book with a fiction title. It can be a 'If you loved this book, read this!' or just two titles that you think would go well together. Maybe it’s a historical novel and you’d like to get the real history by reading a nonfiction version of the story." Hawaii's Story by Hawaii's Queen and Hawaii I love Hawaii so books about the state catch my eye. Hawaii's Story by Hawaii's Queen was written by Liliuokalani. She wrote in defense of maintaining her kingdom's sovereignty in 1898. Because she was writing for her contemporaries, she doesn't necessarily fully explain incidents. Why would she? They were aware of current events. I would have been a bit lost if I hadn't read James Michener's Hawaii several years ago. I felt that this chunkster of a novel read like nonfiction but I don't know how accurate it actually is. Still, it did serve to fill gaps in my knowledge as I read Liliuokalani's plea. Last Witnesses and City of Thieves I haven't reviewed Last Witnesses by Svetlana Alexievich yet but it's a powerful book detailing the memories of Soviet people who were children during World War II. Most of the interviewees were living in the Soviet cities the Germans initially invaded but several survived the siege of Leningrad, which is the background for City of Thieves by David Benioff. Lev, the main character, is only seventeen himself so these two complement each other well. Code Girls and Gone to Soldiers The women in Code…
