Today’s Nonfiction November (hosted by Katie at Doing Dewey, Rennie at What’s Nonfiction?, Julie at Julz Reads, Kim at Sophisticated Dorkiness, and me) topic is fiction/nonfiction book pairings:
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.
Fiction / Nonfiction Book Pairings is my favorite topic of Nonfiction November and I keep a running list throughout the year of all my ideas for pairings. I hope y’all have just as much fun with it!
Link up your posts below and check out the plans for the rest of the month at here!
Campus Stories Involving Basketball
My Losing Season is Pat Conroy’s (my all-time favorite author) memoir about his time playing basketball at The Citadel, the military college in Charleston, South Carolina. It’s a team of underdogs and Conroy is its “mediocre point guard”…but they play with incredible heart as they wrestle with a difficult coach.
In All the Castles Burned (my review), Owen Webb, a scholarship student at the prestigious Rockcastle School (a private day school for boys) embarks on an obsessive, dangerous friendship with Carson Bly, the son of a wealthy and absent father…all against the backdrop of the Rockcastle basketball team.
What it’s Like to Go to Space
Endurance is the true story of astronaut Scott Kelly’s year he spent on the International Space Station and his bumpy journey to becoming an astronaut.
In The Wanderers (my review), Helen, Sergei, and Yoshi (the meticulously selected crew for Prime Space’s – a private space exploration company – first manned mission to Mars) go through an incredibly life-like, seventeen months-long simulation (called Eidolon) of the mission.
The Rwandan Genocide
The Girl Who Smiled Beads
Small Country (which I haven’t read yet) is an “evocative coming-of-age tale, set against the backdrop of the Rwandan genocide and the civil war in Burundi, of a young boy’s childhood innocence shattered by the brutal tides of history.” (Goodreads)
Behind-the-Scenes of Reality TV
Bachelor Nation
The Book of Essie
Sociopathic Husbands / Boyfriends
A Beautiful, Terrible Thing (my review) is Jen Waite’s memoir about her marriage to a psychopath / sociopath (Marco).
In Tell Me Lies, Lucy Albright arrives for her freshman year at Baird College in California and falls into a toxic love affair with Junior Stephen DeMarco (who made my list of Memorable Villains of Fiction).
Books Set in DC Politics That Read Like Brain Candy
From the Corner of the Oval is a quarter life crisis memoir (by Beck Dorey-Stein, one of Obama’s stenographers) set in the world of politics and is my favorite audiobook of the year so far!
In The Hopefuls (my review), young couple Matt and Beth Kelly move from New York City to Washington, D.C. for Matt’s job and must navigate marriage and friendship in the political world.
Incidentally, Tell Me Lies could also pair well with From the Corner of the Oval in a totally different way…yes, From the Corner of the Oval features another possibly sociopathic boyfriend.
What are some of your favorite Nonfiction / Fiction pairings?
I don’t know why I didn’t realize The Book of Essie was about a reality TV show….a new fiction title for my to-read (yay!).
Great pairings – interested in the reality TV ones. Thanks for sharing!
I haven’t heard of any of those that you mentioned. I must be behind the times. However, the Rwandan genocide ones sound interesting. Tough topic, but an important one.
The Rwandan books caught my eye too Rachel.
I read a YA book about this a few years ago which reminded of a journalists account that I read not long after the actual events – http://bronasbooks.blogspot.com/2016/04/one-thousand-hills-by-james-roy-and.html
We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families.
One Thousand Hills by Noel Zihabamwe and James Roy.
One of my commenters also mentioned – Shake Hands with the Devil by Roméo Dallaire or Left to Tell by Immaculée Ilibagiza
Ha! You’ll see tomorrow that we have an identical pair, but I bet you could already guess which it is. I always love this Nonfiction November topic. It’s so fun to see the books people match up.
Your pairings have me considering Endurance and also All the Castles Burned.
I love non-fiction pairings and will be checking some of these out.
I’ve heard so much about The Girl Who Smiled Beads, it sounds like a tough but interesting and important read. You covered such eclectic topics with this one!
I feel so bad but I couldn’t do fiction/nonfiction pairings because I really haven’t read fiction in so long. I did a writeup of some podcast/nonfiction pairings instead, mostly true crime-related. I hope it’s ok, was the best I could do this time, but so impressed with your pairings!!
After reading “The Losing Season”, did you get the sense that “The Lords of Discipline” was semi-autobiographical?…Does Conroy seem similar to Will?
I love this prompt. So enjoying seeing all the pairings!
Sarah!! We picked the EXACT SAME reality TV pairings! I should have known you’d totally be on the same page there.
From the Corner of the Oval Office has been on my rader for a few weeks now – my interest has ratcheted up because of your pairing. I really liked The Hopefuls – it didn’t get enough love in my opinion.
Interesting pairings! Books analyzing reality TV are always fun: I’ll have to check out Bachelor Nation sometime.
The only one of these I’ve read is The Book of Essie, which I had pretty mixed feelings about (I wish so much it had just been told from Essie’s point of view and no one else’s! I feel like the author tried to take on way too much). I do think it would make a fabulous book club discussion book though, and it would be especially fascinating to pair it with that Bachelor one you’ve recommended!
I really liked The Hopefuls, so I’m super excited to add From the Corner of the Oval to my TBR…
I’m going to work on my post today, this is a fun challenge for me. I’ve only read Bachelor Nation on your list but I really want to listen to From the Corner of the Oval
I really want to read The Girl Who Smiled Beadsand now Small Country. Thanks for pointing it out.
Hmm I didn’t know what Essie was about. This was a fun and challenging prompt!
The link up isn’t showing all the links ,,,
Here’s mine https://orangecountyreaders.com/2018/11/06/nonfiction-november-week-2/
Oh, I’m glad you mentioned Small Country. I was actually looking for a Rwanda pairing after the Humans of New York series on Rwanda, but I hadn’t found a fiction book. I definitely want to check out both of these.
Great pairings! I like the outer space one, I had a similar one. And Bachelor Nation is a perfect one for pairing with any number of fiction stories that deal with reality tv! The Book of Essie is on my TBR.
You found some nicely unusual topics to focus on. I love seeing what everybody comes up with.
wow ice variety! and I haven’t read any. I have 3 pairings: https://wordsandpeace.com/2018/11/07/nonfiction-november-2018-book-pairings/
These are such good pairings! I love the last one — The Hopefuls and From the Corner… are a great match. Endurance and The Wanderers are both on my list too!
Of course, the reality TV section is my favorite! 🙂 These are such great pairings, Sarah! Way to go and thank you for hosting this week!
The hopefuls is on my list. I didn’t get my post done in time, but it will be up next week!
I think fiction/non-fiction book pairings is just the smartest idea ever! Non-fiction books need all the love they can get 🙂 I really want to participate but I am just SO SLOW when it comes to reading … I think I will try to get something ready for next September … Will you be hosting again?
Great pairings Sarah! Now I have to go back and look at the Hopefuls to see why I gave up on that one. Book of Essie is going on my list to pick up since Bachelor Nation is waiting for me at the library!
Fantastic pairings! I really want to read The Girl Who Smiled Beads, must remember to put it on my Amazon wishlist to buy really soon. I haven’t been able to add my link, maybe I’m too late? Here it is anyway 😀
https://wp.me/p32hC2-2HW
I need to read BOTH books in your “What it’s Like to Go to Space” category!
I love your last category!
Very late, but here is my post: https://books-n-music.blogspot.com/2018/11/nonfiction-november-2018-week-2.html
Great list! So many nonfiction books – that’s truly impressive. I lised by 15 here!
http://feellearnwonder.com/2018/11/14/a-look-back-on-12-months-of-nonfiction/
Ooh, great topics! I particularly loved The Wanderers and I’m particularly interested in The Book of Essie 🙂
Adding The Girl who Smiled Beads to my TBR- for next year’s NonFicNov. Because I WILL get it together by then!