🦋 Non-fiction
I've never been much of a reader of non-fiction. Maybe part of the reason is I fear writing style like that found in Unequal Childhoods, which I finished the other day -- full of potentially useful information but written in such a way as to stymie concentration in even the most willing reader. But today I started Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel; if the first chapter is any basis for expectation, reading it will be a different story. His voice is clear, engaging, direct. I've encountered Diamond's name a number of times over the years, mainly referred to by Crooked Timber posters, and always thought his stuff sounded interesting. I'm looking forward to this book. (And I realize on reflection that Crooked Timber has been responsible for encouraging a good deal of my non-fiction reading over the past couple of years.) Note: Here is a Crooked Timber post with pointers to a wide-ranging controversy about GGS.
posted morning of Thursday, March 30th, 2006 ➳ More posts about Unequal Childhoods ➳ More posts about Readings
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