kad barma

my first love affair with historical non-fiction grew from my enjoyment of shelby foote's commentary within ken burns' seminal civil war documentary. so impressed with the man, (a southerner nonetheless!) i went out and bought and then devoured each delicious page of his weighty civil war trilogy. an epiphany. READ THESE BOOKS!!!

never expecting to see that experience duplicated, let alone surpassed, i've more recently been blown away by allen french's "the day of concord and lexington". written in 1925, almost 150 years after its subject, and more than 80 before today, it carries an impact that can't be measured in style or authorship.

in both these cases, the meticulous research and the detail of the account is astounding. but even more than that, is the way that each auther seems to be able to step behind his subject, push it alone forward, and then leave the reader feeling RIGHT THERE in the middle of everything, and in awe.

does anyone else have a passion for historical non-fiction? do you have any favorites you might wish to share? i would love to find more--to both enjoy and to be inspired.

please share!!!

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Turn The Page

Here's an interesting book by Thomas Pynchon. It's actually a fiction that was written with facts. And Pynchon even went through the effort of writing it in the Old English style.

http://www.hyperarts.com/pynchon/mason-dixon/


This second book is non-fiction through and through. Lots of things they don't tell us about in school.

http://www.leftbooks.com/cgi-local/S...html?E+scstore

And this next book about a man who contributed 10,000 words to the Oxford English Dictionary from an insane asylum (no one knew where he was living at the time) involves the civil war too...and is also non-fiction.

http://www.salon.com/books/sneaks/1998/09/03sneaks.html