Nonfiction That Reads Like Fiction
What's a microhistory? Basically, it's a study of the
past on a very small scale. Looking at the book titles will give you a sense of how small the scale can be! Microhistories
have also been described as focusing "on small incidents, insignificant in themselves, which
reveal larger structures."
- Shards of History - Small Pieces, Big Impact (St. Paul Public Library, MN)
- Title, author, and webcat link for about 40 microhistories, organised by title, from Aspirin: The Remarkable Story of a Wonder Drug by Diarmuid Jeffreys
to Wedding of the Waters: The Erie Canal and the Making of a Great Nation by Philip Steadman.
- The Unique, the Unusual, the Bizarre (Lake County Public Library, Merrillville, IN)
- Non-fiction, most of which is micro-history. Categories are Americana, Discoveries and Discoverers, Flowers,
Food and Drink, the Mundane, People, Science, Travel, and Miscellanea. Author and title only
for a total of about 70 books.
- MICROHISTORIES: In-Depth Explanations of the Mundane (Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library, KS)
- Title only for about 35 microhistories, including ones on buttons, the pencil, the mullet, the zipper,
salt, cod, and dust.
- Zeroing In (St. Charles Public Library, IL)
- Author and title only for about 15 "'micro-histories' and other stories of trivia that change the
course of human events, shape the universe and lift our spirits." From
E=MC2 by David Bodanis to Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee
and How It Transformed Our World by Mark Pendergrast. Compiled Nov. 2004.
- Non-Fiction Reading - Micro Histories (Palm Beach County Library System, FL)
- Title, author, and webcat link for 20 micro-histories, about crying, cats, zippers, coal, rats,
dust, oranges mosquitoes, the genome, hoboes, etc. May 2006.
- Library Thing Books Tagged 'Microhistory' (Library Thing)
- List of books tagged as microhistories, from people's private collections, with links to more information on each book.
- Business Week: The Pages of History Writ Small (Business Week magazine)
- Article by publisher George Gibson about "his string of short, quirky, page-turners, and why
readers can't get enough of them." More than 20 microhistories are listed following the interview. Nov. 2002.
- Micro-histories (Clifton Park-Halfmoon Public Library, NY)
- "Books that explore a specific subject in depth providing a different way of looking at familiar things."
Author and title for 16 micro-histories, in no particular order, on topics
such as cod, vanilla, the number zero, spice, the Cosmopolitan (drink), cadavers,
salt, the screwdriver and screw, tears, tea, aspirin, and airports.
- Non-Fiction That Reads Like Fiction (Boone County Public Library, Kentucky)
- Author, title, and webcat link for about 60 books of non-fiction that read like fiction, from
Abraham: a Journey to the Heart of Three Faiths by Bruce S. Feil to Word Freak: Heartbreak,
Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble by Stefan Fatsis.
- Nonfiction That Reads Like Fiction (Mid-Illinois Talking Book Center)
- Author, title, and summary of about 50 books, from All Over But the Shoutin' by Rick Bragg
to Who Killed My Daughter? by Lois Duncan.
- Non-Fiction That Reads Like Fiction (Wilmette Public Library, IL)
- Author, title, publication year, page count, summary for about 45 books,
from Tami Oldham Ashcroft's Red Sky in Mourning to
Simon Worrell's The Poet and the Murderer. Compiled Feb. 2004.
Followed by Part II of the same list, compiled Sept. 2004.
- Bruce Dobler's Creative Nonfiction Compendium: Top 40
- Author, title, and generous summary of 40 book-length works of creative non-fiction, from
James Agee's Let Us Now Praise Famous Men to Tobias Wolff's This Boy's Life. Updated May 2006.
- Non-Fiction that Reads Like Fiction (Wake County Public Libraries, NC)
- Author, title, webcat link, and summary for about 20 books, including Expecting Adam by Martha N. Beck,
Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith by Jon Krakauer,
and Truth & Beauty: A Friendship by Ann Patchett. Updated Dec. 2005.
- Nonfiction That Reads Like Fiction (Santa Monica Public Library, CA)
- Author, title, webcat link, summary for 12 books, plus author, title, webcat link (no summaries) for 10 others. Updated June 2005.
- Non-Fiction that Reads Like Fiction (Fort Vancouver Regional Library District, WA)
- Author, title, and summary for more than 20 books, such as All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot,
Somerset Homecoming: Recovering a Lost Heritage by Dorothy Spruill Redford,
and Ex libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman.
- Great Non-Fiction for Fiction Lovers (Weber County Library, Utah)
- Author, title, and brief summary for more than 20 books, from Mitch Albom's Tuesdays with Morrie
to Yoshiko Uchida's Desert Exile.
- Non-Fiction Reads About the Immigrant Experience (University of Illinois, Graduate School of Library and Information Science)
- Author and title (summaries for a few) for about 80 books about immigrants' experience, listed by country of emigration. Most are
memoirs.
- Nonfiction books that read like fiction (Westmount Public Library, Quebec)
- 2-page PDF file. Author, title, publication year, and summary for about 20 books (categorised as history, biography, literary,
or social commentary). All books published 1997-2003. Compiled April 2005.
- Get Real 2: Nonfiction for Fiction Lovers (Lori Sennebogen, Downers Grove Public Library, IL)
- Author, title, summary, page count, publication date, and webcat link for more than 15 works of non-fiction that
read like fiction, from Close to Shore: A True Story of Terror in an
Age of Innocence by Mike Capuzzo to Baby Catcher: Chronicles of a Modern
Midwife by Peggy Vincent. Compiled Sept. 2004. Previously: Get Real: Nonfiction
for Fiction Lovers, listing 15 books from Jo Ann Beard's The Boys of My Youth
to Annie Spiegelman's Annie’s Garden Journal: Reflections on Roses, Weeds,
Men, and Life, compiled 1999.
- Nonfiction that Reads Like Fiction (Salina Public Library, KS)
- Author and title only for about 100 books, from Abraham by Bruce Feiler to Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competetive Scrabble Players
by Stephen Fatsis.
- Non-fiction That Reads Like Fiction (Hershey Public Library, PA)
- Author, title, summary for about a dozen "non-fiction works [that] are written so well
they appeal even to dedicated readers of fiction." Compiled Sept-Oct. 2005.
- Nonfiction That Reads Like Fiction (Overbooked, Chesterfield County (VA) Public Library)
- Page-turning non-fiction. Author, title, publication info, summary/reviews for 10 starred books,
from Oath: The Remarkable Story of a Surgeon's Life Under Fire in Chechnya by Khassan Baiev to
Blood Done Sign My Name: A Memoir by Timothy B. Tyson.
- Non-Fiction That Reads Like Fiction (San Mateo County Library, CA)
- Author, title, summary and webcat link for 8 books, including The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman
and Moneyball: The Art of Winning An Unfair Game by Michael Lewis. Compiled Dec. 2003.
- Nonfiction That Reads Like Fiction (Logan Library, UT)
- Author, title, one-word description (e.g., Extreme, Religion, Gambling, Animals, Humor) for books in these categories: Adventure, True Crime, Disaster,
Favorites, Food Writing, History, Medical Reporting, Memoirs, Microhistories, Miscellaneous, and
Travel Writing.
- Nonfiction That Reads Like Fiction Pt.1 (Vicki Novak, Fiction-L)
- Compiled in 1998. Author and title (and a few annotations) for "nonfiction in which the pacing, character
development, writing style, etc. will please even someone who normally
reads just fiction." About 75 titles, from 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
to Young Men And Fire by Norman Maclean.
- Nonfiction That Reads Like Fiction Pt.2 (Ann C Jarvis, Fiction-L)
- Compiled in 2003, an update to the previous entry. Author and title (and a few annotations) for "nonfiction in which the pacing, character
development, writing style, etc. will please even someone who normally
reads just fiction." About 115 titles, such as Wide As the Waters:
The Story of the English Bible and the Revolution It Inspired by Benson Bobrick,
Once Upon a Town: The Miracle of the North Platte Canteen by Bob Greene,
and In the Kingdom of the Fairies: A memoir of a Magical Summer and a Remarkable Friendship
by Susan Coyne.
- NonFiction That Reads Like Fiction (Madison Public Library, WI)
- Author and title only for over 100 books, from Caroline Alexander's The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty to
The Poet and the Murderer: A True Story of Literary Crime and the Art of Forgery
by Simon Worrall.
- Truth is Stranger Than Fiction (Monroe County Public Library, IN)
- Author, title, webcat link for about 40 nonfiction books whose titles sound like fiction, from
Geoffrey Abbott's The Executioner Always Chops Twice to Bob Tarte's Enslaved
by Ducks. (The books don't necessarily read like fiction.) Compiled Sept. 2004.
- Non-fiction for Fiction Lovers (Clifton Park-Halfmoon Public Library, NY)
- Author and title for 17 non-fiction books, in no particular order. The list seems to be well-selected,
including books by Jeanette Walls, Anne Fadiman, Adam Gopnik, Ruth Reichl, Asne Seierstad,
Erik Larson, Jennifer Finney Boylan, Caroline Alexander, Augusten Burroughs, and others.
- Nonfiction Narratives (Lake County Public Library, Merrillville, IN)
- 'Compelling true stories selected from reportage, essays and memoirs.' Author and titles for
about 40 books. Updated Nov. 2005.
- Fiction Based on Real People and Events (Kitchener Public Library, Ontario, Canada)
- Fiction rooted in real life. Author, title, webcat link for about 65 novels,
from Karl Alexander's Time after Time to Janice Woods Windle's True Women. Updated June 2006.
- 'Readable' Science & Techology (Johnson County Library, KS)
- 'Written In a language for the general reader.' Author, title, and webcat link for about 25 books,
from Philip Ball's Critical Mass: How One Thing Leads to Another to
Simon Winchester's Krakatoa:The Day the World Exploded.
- Freakonomics Readalikes (Candice Michalik, Fiction-L)
- Compiled Dec. 2006. Author, title, and often a description for about a dozen titles,
including Tim Harford's Undercover Economist: Exposing Why the Rich Are Rich, the
Poor Are Poor -- and Why You Can Never Buy a Decent Used Car!, Chris Anderson's The Long Tail: Why the Future
of Business Is Selling Less of More, and John Allen Paulos's A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper.
