I recently came across an interesting tweet. Here is the link.

The content goes: “I find it frustrating that almost every nonfiction book is basically just a history lesson, even if it’s nominally about some science/tech/policy topic.

Nobody will just explain how something works.

Books about the semiconductor industry will never actually explain the basic process flow inside a fab, but you can bet that there will be a minute-by-minute recounting of a dramatic 1980s Intel boardroom battle.”

This resonated with me in more ways that one. So let’s talk about it.

One thing that comes to mind right off the bat is the point of reading non-fiction. Is the point of non-fiction really to gain a very in-depth understanding about the topic? The example that’s listed here about the process in creating fab seemed a little puzzling to me. If you wanted to learn how that process worked, you are likely better off reading a textbook. The author of the book would be doing a deep disservice to the reader if they were to spend just a few paragraphs trying to explain this concept. It’s far too complicated for a non-fiction book. Any more than this, and it would be a textbook anyway.

But the larger thing that line misses is that the history is a crucial part of the invention. Dramatization aside, it would be inaccurate to talk about semiconductors without mentioning intel. If you were reading a book about the development of computers, it would a blunder to not mention IBM. Now of course, this doesn’t mean that you should spend the whole book on it - and I find that this is rarely the case with books, but it does mean that you should dedicate some amount of time to explaining how something came about in history.

The frustration in this tweet seems to come mostly from a misunderstanding of what non-fiction is supposed to be. Non-fiction is supposed to inform the reader on a real world subject. Notice that I didn’t say teach there. If you want to read something where you get taught how to do something, then textbooks are a far better resource. Here’s another example from the tweet. If the author of this semi-conductor book spent a couple pages talking about how to make a fab, and then went back to narrating the tension in an Intel boardroom - they are two problems. The first is that this would just be a terrible book to read. It would be incohesive, no author is going to be able to carry their tone across those two situations. It’s not about skills, the content is just so incompatible. The second problem is that you would likely want more than just a couple pages if you wanted to actually learn how to do something. This is why textbooks have problems, cover multiple examples, etc. Even if you just wanted to describe the basic process flow of a fab, the reader stands to gain very little if you just stop there.

So is non-fiction just history then? In my opinion non-fiction books fall into categories. narrative non-fiction and non-narrative non fiction. They both use history but in different ways. Narrative non-fiction uses history to prove a larger point. These are books like Outliers, Freakanomics, that type of deal. These are pleasant books to read because you don’t really get bored of the because you know they’ll get tied into some larger idea. On the other hand, non-narrative non fiction is more of a history endeavor for the sake of it being a history endeavor. Things like All The President’s Men, The Double Helix. These books are also interesting, but really depend on you liking the history that is being talked about. Incidentally, there are more non-narrative ones out there than their counterparts. The reason is simple: a lot of events haven’t been talked about. New books come out all the time on new events that you likely haven’t heard about. I think this is a great thing but of course, it’s not for everyone.

All this aside, I generally still go with the take that most people stand to gain more from fiction. You gain much more when you are the one interpreting the events in a book. Non-fiction takes this from you because they have to interpret it for you otherwise you’d be lost. I used to struggle with fiction because I often-times got the “wrong” interpretation from the book. I’ve recently realized two things. The first is that although there is a ballpark of a correct meaning to extract from a book, what I thought was wrong was rarely outside this ballpark - so I don’t fuss too much about it now. The second is that even if you misinterpret the meaning of a book, in the long run it really doesn’t matter too much. Whatever interpretation you come up with - it’s mostly about the value that it presents to you. I only start to care more when I come away from a book thinking it was bad or not the best use of time, then I check back to see if I totally missed the point.