nonfiction november 2018

Week 2: (Nov. 5 to 9) – Fiction / Nonfiction Book Pairing (Sarah’s Book Shelves): This week, pair up a nonfiction book with a fiction title. 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.

Pairing Number 1

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My first pairing is the classic novel Around The World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne paired with Michael Palin’s travelogue Around The World in 80 Days.  Palin circumnavigated the globe following in Phileas Fogg’s footsteps for a TV series back in the 80s and wrote a diary as he was travelling. I’ve read both and watched the TV series several times, buying the audiobook just last week to enjoy it all again read by Michael Palin himself.

Pairing Number 2

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My next pairing is Star of The North by D.B. John a thriller set in North Korea that I finished reading at the weekend with Eyes of The Tailless Animals: Prison Memoirs of a North Korean Woman by Soon OK Lee. I read this a number of years ago and still remember how harrowing an account it was.

Pairing Number 3

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My final choice is Stasi Child by David Young the first of a crime series set in East Berlin in the 70s and Stasiland Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall by Anna Funder. I bought a copy of Stasi Child years ago but still haven’t read it even though I see lots of great reviews for this series. I read Stasiland back in 2014 and consider it one of my favourite nonfiction books, probably because I visited East Berlin very briefly the summer before the Wall came down.