Fiction or Nonfiction

[Jimbo]

I heard recently that women read more fiction than men. Since I prefer fiction does that make me a silly girl?

[Velvis]

Fiction for me, although I read a fair amount of nonfiction.

I'm more interested in the interior lives of people. Psychology. People's reactions to events rather than the events themselves. Nonfiction can and does deal with these things, but fiction does so more predominantly. I find in fiction frameworks and contexts in which to place the real happenings of life.

And when it comes to nonfiction, I like memoirs, essays, travel books, etc., that don't just relate facts, but the author's relationship to those facts.

I like biographies and histories where the author gives as full as possible a picture of the psychological makeup of his subjects. That's why Robert Caro and David McCullough appeal to me. And Tom Wolfe, of course. And Joan Didion.

[Nikki Gradual]

Fiction.

[The Modernist]

I read more factual books, I guess the cliche truth is stranger than fiction rings true for me.

[Zong]

Non-fiction. Mainly to suit my slutty reading habits and tendency to leave things for ages or not finish everything. It seems a waste to not finish fiction properly but with non-fiction you still get something out of it if you just read the odd chapter. You've still learnt something factual, it's not so important to keep going to completion.

[Walk In My Shadow]

Fiction.


The author's mind at work. And the imagination of the reader running wild.

[Velvis]

One of the dissatisfactions of reading nonfiction, for me, is my lack of retention. The facts I learn are only visiting, like the lines from plays I memorize. After that, I'll remember the sense of a character, or my reaction to an event, rather than specific facts.

Pretty much the same type of memory I have for fiction. Yet with fiction I get aesthetic pleasure while I'm reading. I read mainly for art's sake. And if I read nonfiction, I like it to be artful.

[Corporate whore]

Where's the 'both' option?

I normally have a fiction and a no-fiction book on the go at the same time.

[straw mimsy]

Fiction.
I don't tend to like people claiming things are true, as much as I like people making me feel like they are.

[Penk!]

Where's the 'both' option?

I normally have a fiction and a no-fiction book on the go at the same time.

This applies to me too.

[KeithPratt]

I'm the same - I can't have too much of one thing, I need texture.

Having gorged myself on Borges in the year or so, I now tend to try and visualise my reading habits somewhat if that makes any sense.

I love the interconnection and synapse firing that reading any sort of History gives me. When you read about something and how it locks into place with something else that you've read about, the endorphins really start surging through the brain - I get a real rush out of it. But then, I can't really read too much of it and not be sucked into a world with great characters, plot and the like. The novel has become a really important part of my life, partly because I want to write one myself, but also because there's a tangible texture to fiction that you cannot get anywhere else. The fact that there are so many great stories out there is mind-boggling. The imagination that a novel sets off in your mind is extremely powerful - it only takes one page and almost instantly you have something implanted in your brain. When I read Borges, it was like someone had opened the top of my head and poured a galaxy into it.

[Moleskin]

Both for me, too.