I had nearly finished reading Jon Krakauer’s INTO THIN AIR on the way to work this morning and I had to resist walking down the street with my nose in the book. This proved to be a wise choice when I was nearly plowed over in a crosswalk by an SUV inattentively making a right hand turn, and was saved by a quick leap backwards and a loud shout. Drivers of San Francisco — please be careful when there are literary agents in the crosswalk! California’s car cell phone ban cannot come soon enough.
But in any event, INTO THIN AIR is an amazing book!! I’m sure many of you have read it, but Krakauer’s step by step chronicle of his team’s ill-fated 1996 Everest expedition is one of the most perfect combinations of subject matter and incredible writing I have ever come across. Not only that, I have it on good authority that Krakauer is an extremely nice person and a pleasure to work with.
Krakauer really proves that it is not enough to have witnessed incredible events, you have to be a tremendous writer. Check and check.
So now I’m wondering: what is your favorite work of nonfiction based on actual events? This rules out general nonfiction, so I guess we’re looking at history, memoir, biography, journalism…. you get the idea.
Elissa M says
Anne Frank’s “The Diary of a Young Girl”
sex scenes at starbucks says
THE TENDER BAR by JR Moehringer. This Pulitzer winner is a very nice person and by all accounts a joy to work with.
Other Lisa says
California’s car cell phone ban cannot come soon enough.
YES!!!!
I can never remember my favorite anythings, so I don’t have a book to suggest, but I had to second that cell phone sentiment.
Kiersten says
It’s not necessarily my favorite, but I wonder if Capote’s “In Cold Blood” would fall into this category? I suppose that is the debate about the book: is it fiction or nonfiction?
Another book that doesn’t quite fit the category but is amazing is “All Quiet On the Western Front.” Although it’s clearly not a memoir (or Remarque wouldn’t have been alive to write it), I don’t think there is a better (meaning heartbreaking and poignant) war book out there.
freddie says
Joseph Mitchell’s Up in the Old Hotel. It’s a collection of the profiles he wrote when he worked for The New Yorker and a few of his short stories. (The profiles are stronger than the short stories.) I’ve probably read it twenty times.
Gail O'Connor says
“Surgeon on Iwo” by James Vedder. A first-hand account of Iwo Jima from a doctor with the 27th Marines. Grisly, but fascinating.
freddie says
. . . your favorite work of nonfiction based on actual events?
Wait a minute. Isn’t all nonfiction based on actual events? Do you mean harrowing events? I think I see what you mean, and if I do, my book doesn’t fit.
I shall switch my vote to Angela’s Ashes. But I’m leaving the Joseph Mitchell one up ’cause it’s a book worth reading!
Adaora A. says
YOU MUST SET FORTH AT DAWN and AKE by Wole Soyinka. I love him, and I love both stories. AKE is a childhood memoir and DAWN is regarding the whirlwind life he led writing and being in activist while studying in London, his being imprisoned, exile, Nigerian government (which…ahem has had its moments). Can’t help but grin to know that he won the Nobel Prize for Literature the same year I was born (’86). He’s a professor in Las Vegas and Los Angeles at the minute. OK, enough gushing.
You were walking? I thought people never walked in California Nathan. Just like how people in Toronto or Manhattan barely drive unless they must (too packed in).
Stephanie Zvan says
The Last Duel: A True Story of Crime, Scandal, and Trial by Combat in Medieval France by Eric Jager
It reads well and provides lots of tangential history without slowing down the plot. More history should be written like this–stories of small events that capture the mundane details and larger political landscapes of their times.
Christy Raedeke says
“The Siege of Shangri-La: The Quest for Tibet’s Sacred Hidden Paradise” by Maichael McRae (an early writer for Outside magazine, as Krakauer was) is excellent and there’s a snarky cameo from David Breashears in it. For travel memoir, “Bones of the Master: A Journey to Secret Mongolia” was also very good. And, for anyone mildly obsessed with hermits as I am, “Cave in the Snow” is spectacular.
Kirsten says
WILL THERE REALLY BE A MORNING by Frances Farmer
nancorbett says
I love memoirs. There’s a lot of press right now about memoirs and where the line should be between fiction and non-fiction. I hated James Frey’s “memoir”, mainly because his writing sucked and he was so obviously full of himself. Augusten Burroughs also brought me to a state of boredom and disbelief. But I just started Pentimento, by Lillian Hellman, and, although I’d venture to say that this memoir is about as true as Frey’s, I have already forgiven her because of the great writing.
Some of the ones I liked were: Color of Water,
Ice Castles,
Out of Africa,
The Woman Warrior,
Lucky,
The Unreliable Truth,
Jill Ker Conway’s memoirs
My favorites, though, are:
Autobiography of a Face and Truth and Beauty, which must be read together in that order.
Out of Africa, because I adore Isak Dinesen.
Living to Tell the Tale by Garcia Marquez. Either his memoir is a total fabrication or all of his fantastic fiction is based on his real life. I can read any paragraph in that book and see a wholly developed story within it. He’s the man!
Reading Lolita in Tehran is a memoir for people who love books. I read it and Lolita and The Ambassador and The Great Gatsby as part of the journey, and it was a wonderful experience.
These memoirists are all people to whom I feel gratitude for the way they’ve shared themselves with me, whether the events of the story are fact or not.
Tanja says
Corrie Ten Boom, The Hiding Place.
Truley amazing and inspiring!
Michelle Moran says
Ship of Gold In the Deep Blue Sea by Gary Kinder.
I don’t think I slept for three days.
A Paperback Writer says
Steven Johnson’s The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic and How It Changed Science, Cities, And the Modern World.
Yeah, I know; it’s a mighty long title.
But Johnson makes the dry facts of stopping an epidemic read like a mystery novel. It was fascinating.
kimmiepoppins says
I love “Colors of the Mountain” by Da Chen. This is from his web page…
“Colors of the Mountain is a classic story of triumph over adversity, a memoir of a boyhood full of spunk, mischief, and love, and a welcome introduction to an amazing young writer.
Da Chen was born in 1962, in the Year of Great Starvation. Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution engulfed millions of Chinese citizens, and the Red Guard enforced Mao’s brutal communist regime. Chen’s family belonged to the despised landlord class, and his father and grandfather were routinely beaten and sent to labor camps, the family of eight left without a breadwinner. Despite this background of poverty and danger, and Da Chen grows up to be resilient, tough, and funny, learning how to defend himself and how to work toward his future. By the final pages, when his says his last goodbyes to his father and boards the bus to Beijing to attend college, Da Chen has become a hopeful man astonishing in his resilience and cheerful strength.”
Mr. Chen is a local author located in NY’s Hudson Valley. This has given me more than one opportunity to hear him speak. Like his book he is intelligent, humorous and very moving.
leesmiley says
My favorite is probably Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert K. Massie. I’m a Russian history buff and Massie’s blend of fact and narrative are outstanding.
Also, everything I’ve ever read by David McCullough is excellent. I’m not a big American history guy, but McCullough is amazing, particularly in audiobook format. When you hear that voice from Ken Burn’s Civil War series, you feel compelled to listen.
Lisa says
RUNNING WITH SCISSORS and DRY both really got to me. I don’t write memoir or non-fiction, but reading these two back to back made me commit to writing.
Jen Seegmiller says
Three Cups of Tea by David Oliver Renin and Greg Mortensen
Michael says
The Cheese and the Worms by Carlo Ginzburg.
Cam says
THE GLASS CASTLE by Jeannette Walls
and
THE TENDER BAR by JR Moehringer
Couldn’t put either down.
Good one, Nathan. I’m getting all kinds of reading ideas.
Cam
Janet says
I second The Hiding Place. It has been an inspiration to me through tough times.
John says
Six Frigates, Ian Toll. Imagine if Patrick O’Brian had taught your U.S. history class in high school.
Ulysses says
I’m not one much for history or memoir. This may be a failing.
However, I recently read Pierre Burton’s excellent “The Arctic Grail,” a history of the search for the North-West Passage and the North Pole.
He has a way of making characters come to as much life as the best fiction author.
Shelley says
Erik Larson’s, “The Devil in the White City,” a hybrid of the actual and the actual imagined. A story about when the World’s Fair shared a city with a serial killer. For those, like me, who thought the serial killer part would be the most interesting, be prepared to be surprised. The architecture of great minds behind this World’s Fair is fascinating, the birth of the ferris wheel and the zipper more awesome in the end than any force of evil.
La Gringa says
I really enjoyed THE RAPE OF NANKING by the late Iris Chang. I met her after she’d written the book, when she came to the bookstore I’d worked at in San Francisco. She was this tiny but terrifically strong woman who broke the silence about one of the ugliest chapters of WWII, and the book itself is incredibly powerful. I highly recommend it.
(The typo in the previous post was unintentionally hilarious: The Rap of Nanking. Once I finished laughing, I corrected it.)
Nikki Riles says
Cherry by Mary Karr – freaking amazing.
Gabrielle says
I had to think about this one! I read more fiction than not, but there’s so many good books… MOVING THE MOUNTAIN about the Chinese students was great. IT’S A JUNGLE OUT THERE by Ron Snell is a hilarious book about his childhood in South America.
Ultimately, I’d go with the classic Betty Friedman THE FEMININE MYSTIQUE. I guess it’s based more on composite stories than one true story; it’s still incredible.
Lauren says
No one’s mentioned Joan Didion yet! Well, I will, because I love her. While I’ve had no personal experience analogous to what she wrote about in THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING, I stayed up until 2 in the morning reading that book… and then, uh, I woke up 2 hours later and read until I finished it. SLOUCHING TOWARDS BETHLEHEM is a gorgeous essay collection. The first page of “Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream” is basically perfect, and I like “Goodbye To All That” so much I’ve retyped it for myself. On several occasions.
Right now I’m reading WHERE I WAS FROM, which is darn good so far.
putzjab says
I read The Diary of Anne Frank when I was in eighth grade. I read a book on The Beatles by Hunter Davies the summer of that year. Both had a profound impact on my younger days.
I found out that I wasn’t the only one in the world with a very pretty sister and a crush on a boy that was a little too old for me. I also found out that four talented men that I admired were children once, too.
However insignificant this all may seem, it helped me to see two very important things: I was really quite normal for a teenager, relatively speaking, and I was not alone with my feelings about not fitting in.
I’m now reading John Steinbeck’s The Travels with Charley. I don’t know if you could call it a memoir. It’s more or less a diary of Mr. Steinbeck’s trip across the US. I must say, though, Mr. Steinbeck’s Bob-Newhart-dry-wit is holding my attention.
Josephine Damian says
IN COLD BLOOD, for sure. Yes, it’s non-fiction. Or at least supposed to be.
DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY was excellent, but it’s a non-fiction book written by Agent Jonathan’s client that’s about to get a rave review from me.
Linda says
INTO THIN AIR is amazing, just amazing. If you haven’t read INTO THE WILD by Krakauer, you must. IIt stayed with me for days (and no, I haven’t seen the flick).
I blogged about the book late last year:
https://leftbrainwrite.blogspot.com/2007/12/into-our-wilds.html
I read a lot in this venue, but don’t write memoir or memfic. Some of my other recent favorites include GIRL, INTERRUPTED, A MILLION LITTLE PIECES (whatever you say about the ethics, the writing is phenomenal; I inhaled this book), THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING, and AN UNQUIET MIND (yeah, I like crazy books about crazy people – it’s what I write about, too).
I just picked up a hardcover of INTO THIN AIR at a yard sale – my paperback was falling apart… peace, Linda
Linda says
Yes, I have to agree DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY also is a great read. haven’t read his latest yet, though. Peace, Linda
Anonymous says
Long time blog reader – first time poster. Just wanted to say if you enjoyed Into Thin Air you should check out High Crimes: The Fate of Everest in an Age of Greed by Michael Kodas – it as equally engrossing as Krakauer’s Everest account.
Also, I must sadly report that New York state years ago passed a cell phone while in cars ban (unless using a hands free device) and it seems to only make the idiots talking on the phone while driving problem even worse because now those same idiots are doubly distracted because while they are illegally chatting they must also scan for potential ticket-writing cops cruising by.
dramabird says
“The Circus Fire: A True Story of an American Tragedy” by Stewart O’Nan. I couldn’t stop talking about it afterward.
Betty Atkins Dominguez says
Predator by Jack Olsen, couldn’t put it down
mlh says
“Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors” by Piers Paul Read.
Betty Atkins Dominguez says
I love Capote, but he should have stuck to his autobiographical fiction. In Cold Blood has too much play with the truth. He is NOT a True Crime writer, just a great novelist.
Erika Robuck says
PADRE PIO by Bernard Ruffin.
Spiritually earthshaking.
ANGELA’S ASHES. (Of Course)
SLAVES IN THE FAMILY by Edward Ball. I don’t know if this is the kind of book you’re talking about, but it’s a fabulous and thought-provoking look at the legacy of slave ownership through the eyes of a slave owner’s descendant.
Furious D says
I read tons of non-fiction a year. (My habit is to have two books going at the same time, one fiction, one non-fiction) so here are the ones I can re-read and learn more every time.
In no particular order:
King Leopold’s Ghost by Adam Hoschild
A harrowing true story of one incredibly greedy man and how he scarred the Congo till this day.
How the Scots Invented the Modern World
&
To Rule the Waves both by Arthur Herman
Great, well written histories that should be read by anyone.
Sailors, Slackers, & Blind Pigs: Halifax At War by Stephen Kimber
The true story of the mostly forgotten but probably most important city in World War 2.
A Brief History of the Boxer Rebellion by Diana Preston.
The story of a real war of religious fanaticism at the dawn of the 20th century.
As you can see, I’m a bit of a history buff. And I could probably dig up some more.
Southern Writer says
WILL THERE REALLY BE A MORNING by Frances Farmer
I had no idea this book existed. It’s going on my list, pronto.
At the moment, I’m loving Clapton, Eric Clapton’s autobiography.
I’ve always liked Watch for Me on the Mountain by Forrest Carter, but every time I’ve said that on the web, I’ve been inundated by angry letters from Native Americans.
ver: mzust. So I guess I must.
Jan says
I think I’ll have to agree with Elissa M. and say
The Diary of Anne Frank!
And I’m feeling my age today … so I was saddened to see that Adora shared that the pulitzer prize was won the same year she was born … YIKES I have a daughter almost your age 🙂
So I’m just a little slower at beginning my writing career :o)
I’ll have to check out IN THIN AIR Nathan, I love watching the shows on television when they go up Everest.
Me, I’ll just stick to hot air balloons for reaching heights … if I could only convince my hubby that he can do it one more time.
susandc says
Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson. The writing is amazing, the dives he describes are mostly terrifying, sometimes deadly and the discoveries made – exhilarating… This is on my all time favorite book list.
Kirsten says
Southern Writer,
Re. WILL THERE REALLY BE A MORNING. I didn’t know it existed either, until I found it in a used bookstore. I hope it’s not too hard to track down. I’ve read and reread it. Needless to say, she’s a contentious figure, and it’s refreshing to read her story, in her words. It’s a really harrowing read, but told in a frank, ‘don’t pity me’ manner. It’s darkly hilarious in parts. She was just a brash dame ahead of her time. I love this book. 🙂
Katie says
I love Ekaterina Gordeeva’s My Sergei.
Robin Mizell says
West with the Night by Beryl Markham and Night by Elie Wiesel are two of my favorites. One must have suggested the other subliminally when I answered your question.
Susan says
I also love BEYOND THE SKY AND EARTH by Jamie Zeppa. You will feel as if you really are visiting Bhutan with her.
violet says
I’m not very widely read in nonfiction, but my favorite memoir is definitely Borstal Boy by Brendan Behan.
d obrien says
The ones I liked more than “Devil in White City” and “Into Thin Air”:
“Babylon by Bus” by Ray LeMoine … two regular slackers in the green zone during the early part of the war in Iraq.
“Ghost Soldiers” by Hampton Sides … WWII prisoners in The Philippines.
Then there’s Tom Wolfe’s classic: “The Right Stuff.” Required reading for this category, yes?
Favorite memoir is “Goat Brothers” by Larry Colton (early ’60s at Cal). And just a few months ago, I really liked the Sheffs’ “Beautiful Boy” and “Tweak” (duo memoirs) …
Heidi the Hick says
SHE GOT UP OFF THE COUCH by Haven Kimmel