Our Favorite Genre Doesn’t Really Have a Name

It does now!

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A lot of people, including probably many of you, get turned off by nonfiction. For a long time, I thought of nonfiction as boring, one-subject books cited in research papers or for other academic gain. It was certainly not a genre I turned to for pleasure.

Before we knew what The Book Bitches was going to be and we just had our little spreadsheet categorizing and documenting all of our conquered pages, I realized both my mom and I had an affinity for a certain type of book that didn’t quite fit into a well-known genre. It was nonfiction but read like a novel.

Sometimes true crime, but not always. The subject matter was always fascinating: an ode to books woven in with the tale of the arson burning of the L.A. Public Library, the story of the sinking of the RMS Lusitania in 1915, or a hard-to-read but important examination about rape and injustice in college towns.

So, what do you call a book that is nonfiction but reads like a novel? Think of a true crime story—In Cold Blood for instance, that has the excitement and thrill of a regular crime novel, plus the added bonus at the end that is actually happened. But what about books that aren’t about crime?

What about Hidden Valley Road by Robert Kolker? The story of a family of twelve children born from 1945 to 1965, including ten boys, six of whom were diagnosed with schizophrenia over the course of their lifetimes. Kolker doesn’t treat the family as subjects, but rather characters, and while parts of the book discuss the tremendous scientific contributions the research from this family made in the name of schizophrenia as we know it today, it was also an examination of the baby boomer generation and an American family trying to live the American dream—all told with the mastery of literary devices and storytelling you get from fiction writers.

Narrative, creative, or literary nonfiction—for the purposes of The Book Bitches we will be referring to it as narrative nonfiction—is a genre that uses techniques and style of fiction like characters, plot, conflict, descriptions, scenes, sometimes even dialogue, to tell a true story.

Authors like Erik Larson, Jon Krakauer, and Susan Orlean are particular masters of this genre. It can include true crime—many of them do include crime, but the documentary-style aspects of the subject are just one facet of why we love this genre so much—it’s the narrative part that makes it so unique.

You’ve probably read narrative nonfiction and didn’t even know it. Devil in the White City is a perfect example. Furious Hours? One of our favorites. These are books that though they are of the nonfiction category, the author’s mastery in storytelling makes you completely forget you weren’t reading a novel. It’s what separates it from both a crime novel and a nonfiction text cited in that research paper.

There’s a reason these authors have so few books to their names—the years and years of research that goes into these often obscure and otherwise unknown subjects are countless, and then they don’t just put the words to paper, they craft it into a story worth telling. It’s no wonder most of them were journalists in their former lives...

Now that I’ve written a narrative nonfiction account of narrative nonfiction, here’s a list of our favorite narrative nonfiction books:

Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo

Life in a Mumbai slum.

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand

Centers around Louis Zamperini, an Olympic runner and USAF pilot captured during WW2.

The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown

Nine working-class Americans who stunned the rowing world-and embarrassed Hitler—at the 1936 Olympics.

Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann

The shocking series of crimes against the Osage Indians that led to the birth of the modern-day FBI.

Friday Night Lights by Buzz Bissinger

Follows a high school football-obsessed town on their road to the Texas State championship in 1988.

The Man Who Loved Books Too Much Allison Hoover Bartlett

The account of a con artist who steals rare and antique books because of his love for them—and the armchair detective trying to catch him.

Moby Duck by Donovan Hohn

‘The True Story of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost at Sea and of the Beachcombers, Oceanographers, Environmentalists, and Fools, Including the Author, Who Went in Search of Them.’

Columbine by Dave Cullen

Examines the 1999 Columbine massacre.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

The story of Henrietta Lacks, a poor, Southern, black woman whose cervical cells were taken without her knowledge and became one of modern medicine’s greatest contributions. Neither she nor her family knew—Skloot’s near decade-long research to tell this story of medicine, ethics, race, is the definition of narrative nonfiction.

I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara

Released posthumously, McNamara’s research led to the capture of the Golden State Killer just two months before her untimely death. Now a docu-series on HBO!

Say Nothing by Patrick Keefe

A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland

American Sherlock by Kate Winkler Dawson

Murder, Forensics, and the Birth of American CSI

Yellow Bird by Sierra Crane Murdoch

Oil, murder, and a woman’s search for justice in Indian country.

The Only Plane in the Sky by Garrett M. Graff

A twist on the typical narrative style, Graff listened to thousands of hours of oral accounts of 9/11, then seamlessly streamed together the dialogues and stories. It’s powerful, hard to describe, unique, and unlike any other 9/11 book you’ll ever read.

Furious Hours by Casey Cep

Murder, fraud, and the last trial of Harper Lee.

The Day the World Came to Town by Jim DeFede

The true story of when 38 planes pound for the United States were forced to land at Gander International Airport in Newfoundland on 9/11. Gander’s population at the time was roughly 10,000, and the tiny town welcomed devastated travelers, most of them Americans, into their homes.

The Last Stone by Mark Bowden

The story of the reopening of the case of Katherine and Sheila Lyon, sisters who disappeared from a mall in 1975.

Run the Storm by George Foy

A Savage Hurricane, a Brave Crew, and the Wreck of the SS El Faro.

Rin Tin Tin by Susan Orlean

More than just a story of the legendary animal actor, Orlean tells the tale of the idea of the dog, the man behind his stardom, and how he changed Hollywood.

The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean

Orlean's investigation of the 1994 arrest of John Laroche and a group of Seminoles in south Florida for poaching rare orchids in the Fakahatchee Strand State Preserve.

The Library Book by Susan Orlean

The unsolved case of the 1986 burning of the Los Angeles Public Library meets an ode to libraries.

Dead Wake by Erik Larson

The last crossing of the RMS Lusitania during WW1. Or, as I like to refer to it, “How Winston Churchill Allowed the Lusitania to Sink So Wilson Would Enter WW1 and Save the Brits.”

In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson

About William Dodd, U.S. ambassador to Hitler’s Germany in 1933, and his daughter, during Hitler’s rise to power.

Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America

Hidden Valley Road by Robert Kolker

An intimate look at a true “midcentury American family” with twelve children born between 1945 and 1965—six of whom were diagnosed with schizophrenia.

Lost Girls by Robert Kolker

Humanizes the victims of the Long Island Serial Killer, one of the most prolific in the U.S. still at large.

Missoula by Jon Krakauer

Rape and injustice in a college town.

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

The original! Capote’s masterpiece details the 1959 quadruple homicide of the Clutter family and subsequent investigation and trial.

The Innocent Man by John Grisham

John Grisham’s takes a foray into nonfiction but holds tight to the twists and turns of his narratives, telling the story of injustice in small towns—specifically of two men presumed guilty of murder and put on death row.

See also: Reviews for The Innocent Man, In Cold Blood, Missoula, Lost Girls, Hidden Valley Road, Devil in the White City, In the Garden of Beasts, Dead Wake, The Library Book, The Orchid Thief, Rin Tin Tin, Run the Storm, The Last Stone, The Day the World Came to Town, Furious Hours, The Only Plane in the Sky, Yellow Bird, The Only Plane in the Sky, Say Nothing, American Sherlock, The Man Who Loved Books Too Much, Unbroken