Fiction Fast

I love to read. I go through phases where I will read everything this particular author has written, until I get to the point where I am thinking in that author’s syntax! Then I’ll find another author. I’ve followed this line with Jeffrey Deaver, Nevada Barr, Patricia Cornwell, Ellis Peters, Peter Tremayne, Victoria Thompson, and others.

Do you notice a pattern? They are all authors of murder mysteries! The first three write mystery/thrillers, while the last three write historical murder mysteries, but murder mysteries all.

That is my overall tendency, but a continual word diet of murder and mayhem is akin to a food diet of marshmallows and coffee. Enjoyable, but not necessarily good for you, although who can live without coffee? So every year, in the month of August, I take a Fiction Fast.

This began many years ago when I was a middle school humanities teacher. Every year, I would use August to prepare for the year ahead. If I was teaching early American history that year, I might read a biography of William Bradford or a history of the Salem witch trials. If I was teaching modern American history, I’d find biographies on Andrew Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant, and Theodore Roosevelt. The year I taught Medieval and Renaissance history, I read extensively about the Roman Catholic Church. As I prepared for the coming year, between reading these books and preparing lessons, I didn’t have time to read anything else.

The habit has continued. Every August, I purposely put aside the fiction – of every stripe and genre – and read only non-fiction. I try to tell myself this includes essays and poetry, but alas! I don’t particularly like poetry, so it remains a collection of history, biography, and science books. Either way, I find it is a good palate cleanser, and I highly recommend the practice if you find you only read one or two genres. Branch out a little!

The practice continues on a smaller scale throughout the year. Right now I am reading The Saltwater Frontier by Andrew Lipman, an interesting look at First Contact in New England, and City on a Grid: How New York Became New York by Gerard Koeppel, documenting the purposed and inadvertent city planning that made Manhattan what it is today.

What works of non-fiction can you recommend?