The Reader's Shelf: Learning for Pleasure: Narrative Nonfiction's Appeal, October 1, 2010

Learning for Pleasure: Narrative Nonfiction's Appeal

As fall settles in and the nights grow longer, books that teach us something about the history and wonders of the world make for good reading. Popular nonfiction such as social and cultural history, scientific explorations, and nature writing offer wonderful prose and deeply engaging stories. These six titles present a range of experiences and moods, but each provides that lovely mix of compelling reading and learning that makes narrative nonfiction so rewarding.

In the desolate Primorye province, a remote region of Russia framed by a convergence of unforgiving landscapes and bitter cold, live a handful of people and the famed Amur (Siberian) tiger. In 1997, as described in John Vaillant's The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival (Knopf. 2010. ISBN 9780307268938. $26.95), one of the tigers began hunting men, leaving a grisly trail that led nowhere. Facing the wily beast is Yuri Trush, the leader of a squad that is a cross between game wardens and animal SWAT team. Vaillant uses this story to frame his investigation into the history of the tiger and the province while taking fascinating and looping side routes to detail the impact of European explorers, the effects of poaching, and the hunting habits of these animals. The writing is exquisite, vividly creating place and tone.

Offering a new way to look at American history, Eric Jay Dolin explains how the fur trade helped to create the nation in Fur, Fortune, and Empire: The Epic History of the Fur Trade in America (Norton. 2010. ISBN 9780393067101. $29.95). It is a compelling story in which the quest for fur profits, not manifest destiny, pushed hunters, would-be moguls, and foreign governments westward. Beginning in the early 1600s with Henry Hudson's recording of abundant furs and native Indians ready to trade them, Dolin traces the history of the North American fur industry, its multiple players, and its effects on shaping America. His clean, crisp prose makes this often horrifying narrative utterly fascinating.

Beautifully and engagingly written, Sam Kean's The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements (Little, Brown. 2010. ISBN 9780316051644. $24.99) takes curious readers on a lively field trip through the periodic table. Blending hard science with quirky, scary, and laugh-out-loud stories about the elements, Kean introduces the scientists who discovered the elements, the historical figures who made use of them, and the social and political influences of elements in our lives. Included are stories of the near-conjuring tricks of Marie Curie (glow-in-the-dark radioactivity), the chemical elements of the Parker pen, and the effect of lithium on poet Robert Lowell's sensibility. -Kean's own witty insight is addictive, making his tour a true magical mystery ride.

Mary Roach, well known for her witty and wonderful prose, turns her investigative eye toward outer space, or at least what passes for it, in Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void (Norton. 2010. ISBN 9780393068474. $25.95). She explores space travel and zero-gravity from the decidedly heavy atmosphere of earthbound venues—mocked up to simulate space. The possibilities for weirdness and hilarity abound, and Roach jumps in eagerly to explain just how far NASA and other agencies will go to figure out what would happen to humans and equipment in an amazing array of situations. Roach's approach to the science is infectious, making readers eagerly turn pages, but her real skill is the sheer charm and joy with which she shares her adventures, making time in her company always well spent.

Coming as close to getting lost in the woods as print, ink, and a vibrant talent can conjure, Wildwood: A Journey Through Trees (Free Pr: S. & S. ISBN 9781416593621. $26.95) by Roger Deakin blends science, literature, myth, and memoir in explaining why trees matter. The author begins at home, detailing his own lovingly restored timber house (built long ago out of some 300 trees), the animals he shares it with (many spiders and bats), and his own woodbound lineage. Then he turns to foreign woods, walking readers through the loamy ground and soaring branches of Europe, Australia, and the East.

Rick Bass has written several books on the landscape of Montana's Yaak Valley, but in The Wild Marsh: Four Seasons at Home in Montana (Houghton Harcourt. 2009. ISBN 9780547055169. $26) he details its seasons, inhabitants, and habitats in fine detail and prose. Yaak is a marshy bit of land, resting in a unique crossroads of mountain range, forest, and wetland, and Bass writes in a hut, looking out over what must seem like the edge of the world. He begins his essays in the thick of a January winter, following the unfolding months to December. As much as Bass is a landscape writer, deeply connected to place, he is also engaged in autobiography, and he shares with readers his life as well as his ongoing search to find a way to capture his place and time in the valley.