Oberon
New Member
Another "type" of nonfiction category for gathering recommended books. As I mentioned on the "Do You Read ..." thread, I seem to have this curiousity about tragic events. Mentioned Sebastion Junger's The Perfect Storm as an example. Another book that I found haunting was To Sleep with the Angels a small press book written by two Chicago reporters about the horrific 1958 fire that swept through a Catholic elementary school killing 92 children and three nuns, and leaving many more children disfigured or psychologically scarred. The reporters interviewed anyone who was involved and are able to place the reader in the classrooms as the fire occurred. It's aftermath brought about a nationwide movement to ensure the safety of all public and private schools.
I found it profoundly moving, thinking that those who were affected by the event couldn't help but be healed to some extent by the detailed, almost novelistic depiction of what happened and the analysis of how and why. It seems to me that the writers took on the task that Orson Scott Card's "Speaker for the Dead" represented in the book of the same name.
I found it profoundly moving, thinking that those who were affected by the event couldn't help but be healed to some extent by the detailed, almost novelistic depiction of what happened and the analysis of how and why. It seems to me that the writers took on the task that Orson Scott Card's "Speaker for the Dead" represented in the book of the same name.