What are your favorite nonfiction books that read like fiction? I have really enjoyed nonfiction by Patrick Radden Keefe, Tracy Kidder, Eliza Griswold, and John Carreyrou. What books or authors do you recommend who fascinating real life stories like these authors?
by Mother_Ease_3397
15 Comments
Erik Larson, Daniel James Brown
Inside Delta Force: The Story of America’s Elite Counterterrorist Unit by Eric Haney
Monster: The Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member by Sanyika Shakur
Anything by Jon Krakauer. Into thin air and under the banner of heaven are two excellent ones.
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by Berendt
Walking the Bowl by Lockhart
Solito by Zamora
Into Thin Air by Krakauer
The Glass Castle by Walls
Boys in the Boat, about the 1936 Olympic rowing team
Educated
David Grann. I find (extremely unsurprisingly, I suppose) New Yorker writers tend to excel in this genre.
Agent ZigZag by Ben macintyre is a great book about a world war 2 double agent.
Amazing read
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote.
Endurance by Alfred Lansing. A page turner that I couldn’t put down (even though I knew the general outlines of the story before reading it).
Try John Jeremiah Sullivan’s *Pulphead*, especially the essay “Mister Lytle.”
In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick
For things a little darker, highly recommend Devil in the White City by Erik Larson. Or The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston.
The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Story of a Donner Party Bride.
“Beings” by Ilana Masad is a blending of non-fiction, fictionalization, and fiction.
One of the stories is of the real-life Betty and Barney Hill, who believe they were abducted by aliens. Then the other fictional stories are used as framing devices.Â
One Summer: America, 1927 by Bill Bryson