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Forum favoritism towards fiction

SFG75

SFG75

Well-Known Member
I can't help but notice the rather paltry interesti n non-fiction in our forum. The general fiction section has 594 threads, while non-fiction weighs in at a light 236. The discrepancy widens when it comes to post count, with fiction leading with by a healthy 6,238 posts. So what is the reason for this? Do you read non-fiction?; and if not, why not? What is non-fiction's biggest drawback? :confused: :confused: :confused: What would it take to reverse this trend?


The tale of the tape:


Non-fiction; 236 2,097

Fiction: 594 8,335

*A note is needed as 8,334 of the posts were due to the Lolita thread.;)
 
Now to be perfectly accurate and fair, the Nabokov threads only contain 4,588 posts as of right now. And there are 196,049 posts in all. :cool:

As to the question....I do read non-fiction more than ever before. But even I can only read so many books at the time. :eek:
As to drawbacks, lots of non-fiction is too dry, but I do notice that in the last 10 years or so it seems to be more interesting. Why? Darned if I know, what do you think?
 
Just as a reminder, the July Book of the Month is In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. So, be sure to read it!

Personally, I do read non-fiction. I just don't read it with the same urgency as I read fiction. Half the time I already know how the story ends so I don't feel the rush to get to the end. I'm in the middle of a book of letters right now that I've been reading on and off for a month or two. Confederates in the Attic took me years to finish, and I loved that book. I just found it so easy to take a break from when something more exciting came up.

Perhaps the problem isn't that readers here aren't reading non-fiction, but rather that they aren't posting about it. There was a lot of interest in the July Book of the Month to the point that a few people were interested in doing non-fiction more often (an idea I wholeheartedly support). We all know that although most of our members are readers, only a small percentage post reviews and start threads about specific books. Non-fiction presents different challenges to the review writer, so maybe our frequent reviewers just don't bother with their non-fiction reads. Or, maybe our frequent reviewers aren't reading non-fiction. Either way, I don't know that post count necessarily reflects on genre proclivity.
 
My main reason for reading is to hear a story. My secondary reason for reading is to learn something. So my reading patterns reflect the disparity noted in your post, SFG. I think that's why biography is such a popular form of non-fiction; it's more storylike.

When I'm learning crochet stitches and fiddle tunes, there's not much to post about here. On the other hand, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man may make an interesting thread.
 
I mainly read fiction. My main pleasure from reading comes from the style of writing, the sound of the right word in the right place etc. I may be wrong in this assumption but my gut feeling is that fiction is more likely to provide this than non-fiction, simply because the main job of non-fiction is to provide information. For me the information is secondary, so unless it's well-written I'm not really interested. Of course there are plenty of stylish non-fiction books, but they're judged on different criteria - subject matter - and it's harder to identify them.
 
What do you expect? Fiction far outsells non-fiction. It should follow then that more people read fiction than non-fiction, which, in turn, should explain why more people discuss fiction than non-fiction. Plus, non-fiction is typically all about the facts so it's not like there's much open for discussion, unless we want to discuss whether Anne Coulter is mad. With fiction there's much more to discuss. Intentions and interpretations (which, I suppose, can also apply to non-fiction) but there's so much more to prose.
 
I read both, whichever suits my interest of the moment, entertainment or information. Half a dozen books on the rise of Hitler were a pretty good chunk of non-fiction a while back. Before that another half dozen on the the recent Balkan Wars. Islamic terrorism is my current non-fiction interest, with about another half dozen. Plus a rather deliberate interest in trying to read one non-fiction religious book a year.
I try to hold up my end, :)
Peder
 
I've been reading a lot of non-fiction lately, but I don't really know what to talk about with it. Fiction is more open to discussion than non-fiction because the author's main aim is to present the facts in non-fiction, but in fiction the author is more free to manipulate the story to make it more interesting.

I'm not very good at starting off discussions either. If I think about starting one up about non-fiction I can never find much to say. :p
 
mehastings said:
There was a lot of interest in the July Book of the Month to the point that a few people were interested in doing non-fiction more often (an idea I wholeheartedly support).
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Thats true, and I have several of the nominees that I look forward to reading, but I have to say In Cold Blood is not one of them.
I suppose I like my history a bit more removed.
And I still would support a non-fiction BOTM if it was a book to my liking or interest.

Probably part of the reason non-fiction is not as "popular" is that a large percentage would dissolve into some sort of political or religious debate.
 
And I still would support a non-fiction BOTM if it was a book to my liking or interest.
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This is straying off-topic, but isn't one of the aims of a book group to get people reading stuff they might not try otherwise, or that they think might not be to their taste?
 
Shade said:
This is straying off-topic, but isn't one of the aims of a book group to get people reading stuff they might not try otherwise, or that they think might not be to their taste?
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Yes, thats very true, but book forums have already done that for me to a great extent, and yes furthered my exploration into non-fiction. But otoh, there are some things that I simply am not interested in exploring the subject, such as the July pick. I don't like "true crime" stories, there are some pictures I just don't want in my mind. Same reason I don't watch gory movies.

:D *****WE RETURN YOU TO YOUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED THREAD*****;)​
 
It just depends on my mood what I prefer to read. I have a large collection of non-fiction books on my shelves, but they're mostly true crime and history books so I'm sure that gives you an idea about where my tastes lie. ;)
 
pontalba said:
As to drawbacks, lots of non-fiction is too dry, but I do notice that in the last 10 years or so it seems to be more interesting. Why? Darned if I know, what do you think?
Click to expand...

I agree with you on the dry part, at least when it comes to history. A lot of historians go by a "just the facts ma'am" academic approach and unless the specialized topic is of great interest to you, it's boring to tears. As of late, there has been the incorporation of storytelling into the facts. Before he was nailed for plagiarism, Joseph J. Ellis did this wonderfully in his book Founding Brothers. It's hard to explain, but *storytelling* and creative use of it, has led for many people like David McCullough and others to sell a lot of books.
 
It has been said that we organize our lives around story lines. First I'll have breakfast, Then I'll get the mail. Then I'll go shopping. etc. Next month, I'll..... Next winter I'll... next year, I'll..... It all makes one continuous story we tell ouselves, and revise as we go along, so our plans and our lives can make sense to us as we live them.
Just something I heard once,
Peder
 
StillILearn said:
I just bought Alan Alda's Never Stuff Your Dog.
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That book is roughly a year old-I read it last year during this time and loved it. Alda had a ton of positive reviews about his story and I still remember most of it to this day. The part about growing up amidst the showgirls and then seeing the dressed-up nuns was quite amusing. Definitely an interesting story of an actor if there ever was one.
 
mehastings said:
Non-fiction presents different challenges to the review writer, so maybe our frequent reviewers just don't bother with their non-fiction reads. Or, maybe our frequent reviewers aren't reading non-fiction. Either way, I don't know that post count necessarily reflects on genre proclivity.
Click to expand...

Very true. The beauty of the Nabokov books is that you can take one sentence and it could have multiple meanings, and that was just at the most basic level!. There's only so long that you can talk about the facts. You just about have to let the thread go off onto different tangents that seemingly appear unrelated in order for it to succeed.
 
The soon-to-be mature threads might do quite a bit to redress the balance, based on what I see elsewhere. Politics and international affairs are capable of generating quite a bit of vigorous non-fiction discussion, even in the presence of the same facts -- if you call them facts, that is, and if you call the discussion non-fiction.:rolleyes:
Peder
 
I dabble in the journalism trade, so I am always surrounded by non-fiction. To get away from it all, I read fiction. Now as for biographies, I don't care much for people I don't know. Why would I want to read a book about them? I know that is very narrow-minded but I would rather spend my time reading something that interests me.

Now, its different for everybody. My journalism professor reads pretty much only non-fiction books or books that make big news (The Da Vinci Code, A Million Little Pieces). Go figure.

...In a nutshell...Its pretty much FICTION for me.;)
 
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