Blog Post #7

                A book that is non-fiction in my mind needs to be about 98% true and let me explain that. A non-fiction book needs to be factual and truthful. An author in my mind can take the 2% and rearrange dialogue, small details, and the take out a bit of the unnecessary things to keep the story rolling. If this non-fiction book is for a doctor or other professional field I would highly recommend making that 100% and keeping all of the little tidbits in. I like half-truth stories but they should go under the section of realistic fiction because only half of it actually occurred. I think the reason Frey and Mortenson changed his fictional book in to a memoir was so that it would simply get published. I could understand bending the truth a bit in a memoir just because you need to keep the reader interested but you can’t change huge details that sticks out and makes you remember it the most. What Frey did wasn’t non-fiction and it wasn’t 95% truthful because running someone down with a train is 100% different than just being as he said “affected” by it or as I say he was just upset. Minute details can’t be changed from a couple of harmless hours in jail to month after month of agony. It’s changing small details in to something big that really irritates me.  David Shield had a great idea of taking other people’s writings and making a new story. He is trying to take out that line of fiction and non-fiction. This is not a plus for me considering I go to check out books in certain sections of the library and if they come out with a whatever section then I would have problems. I think there needs to be a separation like a pizza and peanut butter where it’s very strange together, correct?   Books should be evenly and happily divided.

Schools and Reading post6

I believe that Gallagher makes a lot of true points in his book, Readicide, that schools should start to consider when teaching literary fiction to their students. Schools do certainly kill the enjoyment of reading by looking far too deep in to phrases said and sending us off on own to fend for ourselves through the heavy layers of the Shakespearian language. A teacher shouldn’t have to stop after one line and say what it means and do that for five million more; students should learn at a younger age to learn and interpret the language of literary fiction. To me we should be taught to enjoy reading and want to continue on in our lives with that want and drive to read more material. I think that schools should continue to teach literary fiction but to an extent.

Literary fiction is a part of society that needs to stick around for a really long time. Some of these stories have been kept for hundreds of years, made in to millions of copies, and taught in many schools. These classic books are starting to put a bore to reading but are very important to read. Teaching these classics can take time with many stops and tests in between paragraphs. We shouldn’t break up the books in to chunks but figure out a way to understand the language and be able to read them more ‘fluently’ and faster without constantly breaking.

I also think that we need to learn these literary fiction classics because we’ve kept them and haven’t gotten rid of them. If we stopped teaching them to the younger generations then they won’t be able to understand references from them that we have used in movies and society. I believe it’s important to keep up reading literary fiction and not let in die.

Extremely Lound and Incredibly Close Trailer post5