“There’s a mighty canyon that runs down the middle of the world of the word, carving through bookshops, libraries and literary prizes, splitting them into fiction and nonfiction.”
I recently got the house painted and after weeks of procrastinating and tiptoeing around teetering stacks on the floor got around to the tedious but ultimately satisfying task of arranging my books. At some point, it felt like they were multiplying; I’d be so pleased after five or six shelves and look back and it was as if nothing had moved. Did I consider arranging them by color? No, I’m not an animal! Alphabetically? That feels too impractical and pedantic. Even though it took a while, I resorted to my own method, which is a mix of genres (biography/memoir, poetry, anthologies, nonfiction), publishers (Penguin’s six-pence paperbacks lined up are v easy on the eye) and authors (should to shoulder all ye Muriel Sparks).
The exercise reminded me of the great fiction versus nonfiction divide. It’s something I’ve come up against as a commissioning editor, of course, and in conversations with reader friends over the years. This 2016 Guardian article is a very interesting take on the divide. It says something when we repeatedly praise brilliant narrative nonfiction as reading “just like fiction!”
Anyway, I found three of my absolute favorite books of all time while rearranging, they all just happen to be nonfiction. I guarantee you’ll like them too.
- The Suspicions of Mr Whicher or The Murder at Road Hill House by Kate Summerscale
- Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt
- The Secret History of the Mongol Queens: How the Daughters of Genghis Khan Rescued His Empire by Jack Weatherford
The Dregs by Harry Willson Watrous (1857–1940). The year before this work, Watrous painted The Drop Sinister, which is thought to be the first known portrait of an American interracial family, and caused quite a stir when it was exhibited.
The second I heard the theme for next year’s Met Gala (“Superfine: Tailoring Black Style”) the first thing I thought of was Solange’s music video for ‘Losing You’, shot in South Africa in 2012, featuring and inspired by the subculture of La Sape (an abbreviation of Société des Ambianceurs et des Personnes Élégantes; French for the ‘Society of Ambiance-Makers and Elegant People’, that’s centred on the cities of Kinshasa and Brazzaville). Further inspo: Daniele Tamagni’s book (below) documents the street style of immaculately dressed dandies from the heart of the Congo.
The Heart by Annie Dillard
Against by Rashid Hussein
I would love to hear from you—bouquets, barbs, brickbats—write to me at simar@theboxwalla.in should you wish to tell me what you love/loathe, want to read more/less of. I’d be glad to have your opinion of this newsletter, its design, and any suggestions you may have.
