It’s the fourth (and extra!) week of of Nonfiction November and it’s time for a new challenge to me: Stranger than Fiction.
Week 4: (November 22-26) – Stranger Than Fiction with Christopher at Plucked from the Stacks: This week we’re focusing on all the great nonfiction books that *almost* don’t seem real. A sports biography involving overcoming massive obstacles, a profile on a bizarre scam, a look into the natural wonders in our world—basically, if it makes your jaw drop, you can highlight it for this week’s topic.
I’m selecting two books I’ve read very recently (in fact the last two books I’ve reviewed) for this weekly prompt, and in fact I read one of them to the exclusion of all else (sorry, Novellas in November) to make sure I could fit it in! I hope that’s not cheating, but maybe I read very believeable books usually …
“The Hidden Case of Ewan Forbes” by Zoe Playdon discusses something that should and could never have happened in English and Scottish law: the absolute silencing, super-injunction before there were super-injunctions created suppression of a court case which still managed to act as a precedent in law to protect inheritance laws and keep the hegemony of the Establishment intact, and destroyed the ability of trans people to have any kind of equal opportunity or fair treatment in law or employment. Absolutely shocking, and very well drawn in this book that deserves a wide audience.
On a lighter but still not quite believable note, what Nimsdai Purja describes in “Beyond Possible” just shouldn’t have been possible – scaling the world’s fourteen highest mountains in a matter of months rather than years, but also ending up directing traffic on Everest, dangling off a rope tied to a helicopter to rescue a fellow climber in trouble and saving lives while breaking records.
This has been a fun one to do, and I’m looking forward to reading other people’s entries for this prompt!
Nov 23, 2021 @ 09:54:02
My most “jaw dropping” NF would be Dig by Frank Clune – the story of Burke & Wills’ expedition to cross Australia from South to North. They made it ok and got back to their camp in central Australia to find their support party had left the day before. They then proceeded to starve to death, next to a waterhole where the local Indigenous people were willing to help them get food and while leaning against a tree which had the word ‘DIG’ carved in to it, indicating that there was a cache of food buried there.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Nov 23, 2021 @ 09:57:56
Goodness me, that is rather extreme, thank you for sharing!
LikeLike
Nov 24, 2021 @ 21:51:09
That’s a great example Bill!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nov 23, 2021 @ 13:23:59
Great choices. The Ewan Forbes one sounds worrying if unsurprising. I wasn’t sure I wanted to do this one when I first saw the prompt. But once I started to think about it I realised lots of books qualify.
LikeLike
Nov 23, 2021 @ 14:37:58
Thank you for your comment, and for visiting my blog (I’ve added yours to my Feedly reader so look forward to looking through your recent posts). This one seemed so weird to me, to have legal precedent that’s hidden, whereas usually my books don’t seem that surprising somehow! I’m glad you found some good ones – off to look now!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nov 23, 2021 @ 15:12:00
Excellent. Thank you. Nice to ‘meet’ you. What is feedly by the way? I need to go and look that up.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nov 23, 2021 @ 16:19:48
It’s a blog aggregator – you enter the URLs of blogs you’re interested in and it brings in all their new posts for you to see without looking at a million emails or bookmarks. http://www.feedly.com – you can split it into categories as well.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nov 23, 2021 @ 16:27:02
Thank you. I’ll take a look.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nov 24, 2021 @ 21:55:30
I much prefer emails as I go to emails every day. I tried readers but I just hated having somewhere else to go to. My blog email notifications are automtically filtered into an email folder. The first thing I do when I go to my email system is to check my InBox and then my Blog Posts and Comments folder. I can’t categorise but I can sort on blod (sender), subject (so if people are “sensible” all the nonfiction novembers, for example will sort together), date. I know though that some people hate emails!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nov 25, 2021 @ 08:47:34
That’s a good and of course very valid way to do it. I get so many emails I prefer to be able to pop and browse my blogs in one separate place, and I find it easier to pop through, read and comment on each one. I’m glad there are different approaches for different people!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nov 25, 2021 @ 10:41:35
Haha Liz, I do get a large number of emails too but this filtering enables me to manage them. I will admit though that some filters I rarely visit. By the time I’ve done my InBox and Blog folder I’m usually done! In fact, I struggle to keep up with these two and regularly get behind.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nov 23, 2021 @ 16:49:53
Shocking and awe-inspiring were the words that came to mind when I read your reviews of the two books. But in the first case, as one of the other commenters has said, perhaps not so surprising when one rethinks it for after all, state/politics wherever it comes in does take on ugly and shocking forms.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nov 23, 2021 @ 16:51:22
Yes, I can see what you mean. And there may well be other suppressed cases, of course. The Establishment certainly uses superinjunctions now, but it’s shocking this goes back decades.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nov 24, 2021 @ 06:23:08
I couldn’t think of anything for the topic this week, although I guess all the detail that Richard Flanagan went into about the state of salmon industry in Tasmania was jaw dropping & shocking (Toxic).
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nov 24, 2021 @ 11:14:04
It is quite a hard one, isn’t it! But that would have done for it for sure.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nov 24, 2021 @ 08:31:45
These are both such great choices! The first one sounds really interesting if upsetting, but something I’d like to better understand. And I’m so glad this challenge could lead to you knocking something off your reading list!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nov 24, 2021 @ 11:14:53
Ha, yes, it was near the beginning of the TBR so coming up anyway but it was good to make a space (especially as something terrible happened at the charity shop yesterday when I was buying books to give someone else …!!).
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nov 25, 2021 @ 08:27:09
Oh no!! I know that specific type of disaster all too well…
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nov 24, 2021 @ 21:50:25
I thought this was fun too, and I love your two choices, one serious, that makes you so angry, and one inspiring.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nov 25, 2021 @ 08:48:05
Thank you! It is odd they were my last two, but they were the most surprising when I went through!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nov 25, 2021 @ 01:17:21
Funny you’ve picked a mountaineering book because that’s exactly the genre I just picked in my comment on What’s Nonfiction’s blog: Touching the Void by Joe Simpson, Annapurna by Maurice Herzog and Wild by Cheryl Strayed. It did occur to me that books about political scandals would fit the bill, but I’m not sure I’ve ever read one.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nov 25, 2021 @ 08:48:41
A good selection there, too. I think most mountaineering or polar books would fit the bill!
LikeLike
Nov 25, 2021 @ 08:18:53
Both sound very interesting. You might be interested in Fake Law by the Secret Barrister which reveals some secrets of modern UK law.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nov 25, 2021 @ 08:49:07
Ah yes, I keep seeing that around and should pick it up. Good reminder, thank you!
LikeLike
Nov 30, 2021 @ 13:57:47
This theme is such an interesting one! I love seeing what everyone has found. Beyond Possible sounds amazing!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nov 30, 2021 @ 17:41:24
It’s a great week, isn’t it! And yes, and there’s a Netflix documentary out now called 14 Peaks all about it, too!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nov 30, 2021 @ 16:56:39
The Hidden Case of Ewan Forbes sounds absolutely fascinating. Frustrating and awful. But I think I’ll track down a copy. It seems like too important of a story for me not to have heard of it before now.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nov 30, 2021 @ 17:42:08
Don’t worry about not having heard of it – I have only encountered it on NetGalley, the book is only just out and the case was suppressed for 60 years! Let me know if you get hold of a copy, though.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nov 30, 2021 @ 17:34:56
Nov 30, 2021 @ 21:22:16