Non Fiction (Mostly)

Non fiction usually means to the best of our knowledge, that these are the facts, that we have, to the best of our ability, investigated all aspects of the situation, and unless new uncontroversial data is discovered, and put before us, without delay, we accept the authors premise that he has produced an expert and authoritative work in his particular field,

The fiction writer, because it is his main, or only source of income, will try to write new books at regular intervals and will use, within reason, whatever publicity is available to bring his name, and the name of his latest work of art, to the attention of the book buying public. The non fiction writer may produce one book, a summary of a lifetimes endeavour, the results of thousands of hours of research, experiments and tests. Finally he has  achived his objective and his success, may, in some way, alter the world we live in. So how does the non fiction writer bring this significant contribution to the attention of an audience?

The publishers of books are businessmen not philanthropists, they are aware of the positive requirements needed to sell the work of an unknown author. The size of the book, the quality of the paper, the colour of the cover and even the typeface is important.

If the publishers, or a  Learned Society of which the author is a member, believe the publication is significant they may organize an International Conference on the subject and launch the book on the opening day of the Conference. If the publishers believe that profits from the venture may be small in view of production expenditure against the potential sales, they may decide to have a 'Forward' or 'Introduction'  by a famous person i
n the said field, printed in the book, The 'Famous Person' will introduce the writer to the reader, will give a brief summary of the book, and give a number of quotes that the critics and the publisher can use in future publicity,

Care should be taken with both the  'Forward' and 'Introduction' otherwise the contributor may be accused of being so overcome by the exuberance of his own verbosity that some of the quotes are close to being terminological inexactitudes.

This blog is concerned with reading books, not writing them. I think you need to start with a subject that interests you, some subject you have read before, but would like to know more about. Whatever subject you choose, Building to Brain Surgery, Sun Flowers to Sailing Ships, someone out there has written a book about it, you need to find the book.

Lets take one subject as a starter, History; If it happened before midnight last night its history. That however is not quite what we want, what about History of the World, at this stage too big a subject, or the histories of the Romans, Greeks, Aztec's or Egyptians, there are many books about them

Moving a little nearer to home, how about English History? The one subject that used to drive me up the wall when I was at school was the names of English Monarchs, when they reigned and their successors, but if thats your interest their is a shelf  of books for everyone of them.

How about reading up on the British Empire. The largest empire the world has ever known, this is not just history but geography too. You will need to consider explorers to set out to map new countries as they were discovered. People like David Livingstone, the first white man to cross Africa, coast to coast, East to West.You will need to consider the sailors and the ships they sailed to reach these new shores. You will need to be aware of the merchants and traders who followed up these discoveries and established a British foothold.

The usual procedure when having found a new country or landfall was to claim it on behalf of the reigning British Monarch and Great Britain. In the event of a dispute the army would be sent in to settle the dispute and establish British law and order.

It is hoped that this short article will spur you on to more intersting reading.