Fiction or Nonfiction? That is the Question.

During a discussion of reading tastes the other week, I made the statement that until recently, though a voracious reader, I only read fiction. When I was asked why that was, I was hard pressed to come up with a reason. However for the last 8 years, I have read non-fiction equally voraciously.

As I have been thinking about this and what made the difference, something became apparent to me. I read and still read fiction because it lets my mind explore many different avenues, all avenues with no definitive answer (unless it is ’who dun it’ in a mystery). I have become ‘friends’ with the characters entering into their lives. Nonfiction on the other hand, was about facts and discoveries, interesting in themselves as things to know but not leaving anything for my mind to discover.

Perhaps I was reading the wrong nonfiction books, I don’t know. I do know however that the nonfiction I have been reading for the last 9 years positively begs for my mind to engage with it.

One of the phrases that I have become familiar with over the last decade is the admonition to live the questions … and that the answers when they do come, will bring with them only more questions.

Reading fiction reminds me of this. As does reading nonfiction that stays away from definitive answers. This type of nonfiction offers only ideas and suggestions that encourage the reader to ponder, Not all ideas will resonate with the reader, and that is OK as well.

Diane Nash speaks to this when she says “There is a source of power in each of us that we don't realize until we take responsibility.” One of those sources that we don’t take seriously enough is the power to ask questions, to let our minds go to new places, explore new concepts, not just to accept what is presented to us.

Do you read fiction or nonfiction, or a mix of both? Take responsibility for whatever you read, making sure it speaks to you, raising questions in your mind. After all that is the magic of what reading can do!

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