i recently began reading a nonfiction book by Diane Ackerman called The Zookeeper's Wife, which is about Polish zookeepers Jan and Antonina who ended up saving "over three hundred people from the Nazis by hiding refugees in the empty animal cages." it's an interesting writing style, kind of a mix between storytelling and an academic paper; i'm about one third through it.
speaking of interesting writing styles, in august i indulged in seven books, all fiction, so pretty easy to read quickly, and many of them varied in their story-telling presentation.
*Celestial Navigation by Anne Tyler,
*Silk by Alessandro Baricco,
*The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows,
*The Ruby in the Smoke by Phillip Pullman,
*The Fall of Atlantis by Marion Zimmer Bradley,
*Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, and
*Beneath a Marble Sky by John Shors
The most inspiring of writing styles, for me, was The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, which was written through letter correspondence. a historical fiction, this book was set during WWII in Guernsey while it was occupied for five years by the germans. reading it made me a) remember how lovely it is to write letters to friends and family and b) encouraged me to learn more about the occupation of the Channel Islands.
also worth mentioning, Wide Sargasso Sea takes Charlotte Bronte's novel Jane Eyre and details the early life of Antoinette, Mr. Rochester's first wife, who is portrayed in Bronte's book as the mad woman locked in the attic. Rhys creates the story of Antoinette's youth, background, unhappy marriage, which posits an explanation--an other side or alternative voice--for what is cast as Antoinette's madness in Jane Eyre.
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