It’s time for our second Nonfiction November discussion topic and it’s a good one! This week’s host is Leslie at Regular Ruminations and today we’re talking about book pairings.
Book Pairing: This week, pair up a nonfiction book with a fiction title. It can be a “If you loved this book, read this!” or just two titles that you think would go well together. Maybe it’s a historical novel and you’d like to get the real history by reading a nonfiction version of the story.
I’ve had a post like this in mind for a while, so I’ve got a lot of suggestions! All of these pairs are connected by topic and with two exceptions, they’re books I’ve read. The exceptions are The Crucible, paired with The Witches based on a recommendation from Jennine at My Life in Books, and The Voyage of the Narwhal, paired with In the Kingdom of the Ice based on a review from Naomi at Consumed by Ink.
What is your favorite nonfiction/fiction pairing?
Amanda
I will have the Witches on my list for this weeks topic as well – even though I’m only 20 pages or so into it. I have been wanting to read Ship of Brides forever! I’m going to have to add GI Brides to my list to go with it.
DoingDewey
It’s definitely a book that lends itself well to fiction pairings! Ship of Brides wasn’t my favorite book by Moyes, but I really enjoy everything she writes 🙂
Laura Roberts
Ooh, I like the perfume book pairing you’ve got there! I haven’t read either, but I’m super interested in people who have signature scents and/or work in the perfume industry. Have you ever read “Perfume: The Story of a Murderer” by Patrick Suskind? It’s a super interesting book that pays great attention to the often overlooked details surrounding the sense of smell, by focusing on a character who both has a heightened sense of smell and who is, himself, peculiarly odorless.
DoingDewey
I’d not heard of Perfume: The Story of a Murderer before, but I’ll have to look it up. I think the science/chemistry aspect of perfume is really fascinating 🙂
Jancee @ Jancee's Reading Journal
Nice pairings!!
DoingDewey
Thanks! 🙂
TJ @MyBookStrings
What great suggestions! I already have The Kingdom of Ice and The Voyage of the Narwhal on my list, and I’ve been eyeing both GI Brides and The Ship of Brides. Now I’ll add The Witches and The Crucible.
DoingDewey
The Kingdom of Ice is one of my favorite narrative nonfiction reads, so I’d especially recommend that one 🙂
Lory @ Emerald City Book Review
I love this topic — it’s so interesting to see how fiction can play with the same topics and themes as nonfiction. I paired Devil in the White City with Alias Grace, based on a real-life murder case. And I’ve been meaning to read The Voyage of the Narwhal, now I have yet another recommendation to notch up in its favor.
DoingDewey
I love that too! I think it’s fun to get the emotion of a situation from fiction and learn exactly what really happened from nonfiction on the same topic.
Andi
Wheee! You are a pro. These are amazing pairings!
DoingDewey
Thanks Andi! 🙂
Naomi
My tbr list is soaring from all these pairing posts! I just added a few more, including The Black Count and GI Brides, both of which I have eyed before but had forgotten about them. Great list! And, thanks for linking to my review! 🙂
DoingDewey
My tbr is growing out of control too! I love reading fiction and nonfiction on the same topics, so this week is particularly hard to resist 🙂
Sophie
I have both The Devil in the White City (I got it after you started book club… perpetually late, eep) and Darkly Dreaming Dexter, so I’m looking forward to reading those and seeing how related they are! I can’t think of any nonfic/fic pairings, so I’m excited to see what others have been able to pair together. 🙂
DoingDewey
No worries! Hopefully you’ll be able to join in sometime 🙂 Seeing everyone’s pairings is one of my favorite parts of Nonfiction November.
Shannon @ River City Reading
Oh, I love that you thought to put Devil and the White City together with Dexter – I never would have come up with it, but that’s a great pair!
DoingDewey
Thanks! I would guess there may be a more similar serial killer book out there, because I haven’t read very many, but what made me pair these is that they’re both about serial killers who are creepily likable.
Rachel
Wow. You’re good at that. I was proud to come up with the one pair I managed. I later thought of The Witches with Crucible, too. But decided not to change. 🙂
DoingDewey
Thanks! I ended up with so many this year because I’ve been keeping a list since last year and I’ll probably keep doing the same thing 🙂
JoAnn @ Lakeside Musing
I love all of these! The Kingdom of Ice is already on my wish list since I enjoyed Voyage of the Narwhal so much. I want to read The Witches and GI Brides, too.
DoingDewey
The fact that I enjoyed The Kingdom of Ice so much is a big part of why I’m so excited to get to Voyage of the Narwhal. I think it would be fun to learn more about arctic exploration 🙂
Sarah's Book Shelves
Wow – I’m so impressed with how many pairings you came up with! And – love The Devil in the White City pairing!
Heather @ Book Addiction
You are super good at this! I love that you included two Jojo Moyes books. 🙂
DoingDewey
Aw, thank you! I love everything Moyes writes 🙂
DoingDewey
Thanks! I’ve actually been working on a list since last year’s Nonfiction November 🙂
emma at Words And Peace
cool! The Black Count was so good!
My pairings are on France.
DoingDewey
That and The Kingdom of Ice are some of my favorite narrative nonfiction reads 🙂
Kim
Wow, this is great! I had to look a lot of these up as I had not heard of them…
DoingDewey
Great! I hope you found some to add to your to-read list 🙂
Tara @ Running 'N' Reading
OH, MY GOSH! The Monuments Men and The Girl You Left Behind?!! What a great combo! I would never have thought about that! Thanks so much for sharing these, Katie!
DoingDewey
Thanks Tara! I think I read The Monuments Men shortly after The Girl You Left Behind, so the connection of both to art looted during WWII really stood out to me.
Kim @Time2Read
Great pairings! I especially like how you paired The Crucible and The Witches!
DoingDewey
Thanks! Jennine’s suggestion of pairing the Crucible with The Witches reminded me that that’s a classic I’d still like to read 🙂
Sarah @ The Country Bookworm
I love this topic and could do this forever! The Witches has been on my “to buy” list. Maybe for christmas 🙂 I LOVE the Count of Monte Cristo. It’s one of my favorite classics. I haven’t read it in about 8 years, so maybe I’m due for a reread and then a read of The Black Count.
DoingDewey
Me too! I’ve actually been working on building a list since last year, because I think pairing books up is so much fun 🙂 I didn’t love the Count of Monte Cristo, but The Black Count is one of my favorite narrative nonfiction reads ever.
Guiltless Reading
Oooh, Katie, yet another amazing list of book recs! I love that you’ve read most of them so going through your reviews for each one will certainly be helpful. Count of Monte Cristo is one of my all time faves so I’ll definitely look up Black Count.
DoingDewey
Black Count is one of my favorite narrative nonfiction reads, so I’d definitely recommend it to anyone who loves the Count of Monte Cristo 🙂
iliana
Oh these are great pairings! I keep hearing about The Devil in White City lately. Will have to add a lot of these to my TBR radar.
DoingDewey
I’d been wanting to get to an Erik Larson book for a long time before picking up White City and it was just as entertaining as I had hoped! I would have liked slightly greater transparency about the bits the author was filling in without sources, but I’d still recommend it as a really fun read 🙂
Marisa @ The Daily Dosage
Impressive. I struggled with this one a bit and now I know where to go for book pairings! And to add more to my TBR pile.
DoingDewey
Thanks Marisa! I had a lot of fun with this one and I’ve been thinking about it since last year’s event 🙂