What I like about non-fiction is that it covers such a huge territory. The best non-fiction is also creative.
Before Truman Capote, journalism and non-fiction weren't taken very seriously.
I have two pairs of reading glasses. One pair is for reading fiction, the other for non-fiction. I've read the Bible twice wearing each pair, and it's the same.
The idea of copyright did not exist in ancient times, when authors frequently copied other authors at length in works of non-fiction. This practice was useful, and is the only way many authors' works have survived even in part.
The idea of a flip book still really appeals to me. That idea of fiction and non-fiction.
A non-fiction writer pretty much has the shape of the figure in front of him or her and goes about refining it. A work of non-fiction is not as difficult to write as a work of fiction, but it's not as satisfying in the end.
See, I have no journalism in my background, so I wasn't practised at research or writing non-fiction, nor at handling the truth in a journalistic way. Journalists know when to call a halt and write something, but I kept on looking for answers.
His theory was that non-fiction could be as artful as fiction.
Non-fiction or documentaries can tell any kind of a story because they don't have to adhere to the rules of what's possible. When you're making something up, you have to say, 'Well, this is what would happen here,' but in reality, stuff happens that seems impossible.
I'm a huge historical fiction and non-fiction fan.
When you write non-fiction, you sit down at your desk with a pile of notebooks, newspaper clippings, and books and you research and put a book together the way you would a jigsaw puzzle.
I like to read really good books - anything that's really great, whether it's fiction, non-fiction, how-to, or whatever.
I will literally read anything, regardless of genre, fiction or non-fiction, as long as it's well written.
The challenge in fiction is to write a terrific story. The challenge in journalism is to communicate solid, objective information. The challenge in creative non-fiction is to do it both and to do it well.
I had been working on this series called 'Everything Dies,' and it was basically me doing non-fiction essays, responding to religion and stuff like that, and I really got into this ideas of telling factual stories via comics.
Basically, I think of fiction and non-fiction as different ways of engaging with the world. You reach a point where you feel you have said all you possibly can, in reportage or a review essay or a reflection on history, which 'From the Ruins of Empire' was.
I tend to read non-fiction.
I'm a compulsive reader of fiction. I fell in love with novels when I was a teenager. My wife Marilyn and I... our initial friendship began because we are both readers. I've gone to sleep almost every night of my life after having read in a novel for 30 or 40 minutes. I'm a great reader of fiction and much less so of non-fiction.
I thought I would write non-fiction. I thought I would enter the New York literary scene as copy editor, work my way up, and then write my own books.
By embracing a label such as 'non-fiction,' the creative writing community has signaled to the world that what goes on in this genre is at best utilitarian and at worst an utter mystery. We have segregated the genre from art.
We like non-fiction because we live in fictitious times.
I like reading a lot. Jeffrey Archer and Robert Ludlum are my favourite authors. I love making realistic cinema, so I read non-fiction more.
Anything by D. H. Lawrence or Jean Genet - 'Zen Mind,' 'Beginner's Mind' is my daily go to for non-fiction.
I was that weird kid that checked out all of the non-fiction paranormal studies books from the library. I've always been fascinated by the supernatural, particularly movies and TV shows that manage to blend humor with the horror - 'Supernatural', 'Buffy', 'Angel.'
The best way to tell people about climate change is through non-fiction. There's a vast literature of outstanding writing on the subject.
'Ghost City' was actually one of the few instances of non-fiction that I had written, and I felt that I probably said what I wanted. I think it must be different for every author; I haven't done very much of it, and perhaps, in a way, I found it rather painful, which is why I don't really do it very often.
I do read a lot, and I think in recent years the ratio between the amount of non-fiction and fiction has tipped quite considerably. I did read fiction as a teenager as well, mostly because I was forced to read fiction, of course, to go through high school.
Peter Fleming was a famous English traveler, explorer and adventurer, whose non-fiction books were hugely successful. My father owned signed copies of all of them - he and Peter Fleming had become acquainted over some detail of set design at the Korda film studio in Shepperton - and I had read each of them with breathless adolescent excitement.
Writing fiction is very different to writing non-fiction. I love writing novels, but on history books, like my biographies of Stalin or Catherine the Great or Jerusalem, I spend endless hours doing vast amounts of research. But it ends up being based on the same principle as all writing about people: and that is curiosity!
