Let's Talk Non-Fiction

by Jamie Freveletti

I don't usually read fiction while I write, and definitely avoid thrillers and mysteries. I just don't think I'm free of influence enough yet, (though I'm told by other thriller writers that this will come with time). So, I end up reading a lot of non-fiction. Some relates to crime non-fiction and the rest to subject areas that I find interesting. Here's the latest batch:

1. Magnificent Mind: Natural Ways to Unleash Your Brain's Maximum Potential. Daniel G. Amen, M.D.

This book I picked up because I'm pretty much in for anything that will unleash my mind's "maximum" potential. The author, a clinical neuroscientist, runs the Amen Clinics, where he scans brains and helps ADD kids, anxiety patients, and treats depression and memory problems. A quick search on google revealed many critics of the brain scan aspect of his methods, but I like his "let's try a natural product before we bring out the big guns" approach. He has chapters such as: Ignite Your Passion, Light Up the Brain Circuits that Drive Success. You've just got to love that title!

He suggests things we've all heard: fish oil, gingko biloba, but also suggests other natural remedies like Phosphatidylserine, Vinpocetine and Huperzine A. Heard of them? Me neither, but that's what I liked about this book.


2. Life, Keith Richards

This book captured my interest, and while one critic complained that it was a MEmoir, I must say that I really enjoyed Mr. Richards' memories about how the blues influenced him. Especially his memories about the iconic Checkerboard Lounge here in Chicago and the blues musicians that cycled through that bar during the '60's and '70's. (As I mentioned in an earlier post, my mother was a jazz singer in Chicago during that time and knew many of the musicians mentioned).

While Mr. Richards keeps his drug fueled exploits to a minimum, and I'm sure there are many that never made it into this book, his description of America and England during the rise of rock and roll in the 60's is of interest to anyone who wants to learn about that era.

3. Tapping the Source: Using the Master Key System for Abundance and Happiness. By Gladstone, Greninger, and Selby.

I picked this book up on a whim. It's what I'd call the typical New Age book, but this one had an interesting twist. The authors are expounding on an older method recommended by a man named Charles Haanel. Mr. Haanel lived from 1866 to 1949, and in 1912 wrote a book that attempted to explain and teach a method to explain the Law Of Attraction.

I'm a non believer in certain new age claims, but I am seeing the sense in some of what this book is saying. For example, try not to think negative thoughts, because while you may be right and all is lost, it doesn't really add to your life to think in such a way. (I couldn't agree more).

I'm only a third of the way through, but I'm enjoying it. I think it's worth a read, and apparently the author of The Secret referred to this man and his master key system and we all know how many books that author sold!

I'm headed out tomorrow to get some more non-fiction, because between writing my own number four (number three is written, called The Ninth Day and launches in late October) and working on the Ludlum Covert One series, I'm pretty much writing all the time. I see no fiction in my immediate future.

If you have any suggestions for me do tell!

Why fiction?

On January 18th, I had occasion to chair a meeting of Mystery Writers of America’s Midwest chapter while chapter Prez Julie Hyzy met with MWA bigwigs in New York. Our guest speaker, Daniel P. Smith, is a freelance journalist and author. Smith said he got the idea for his book from a ride-along he’d done with his police officer brother. One of the first calls of the tour was a homicide, a man shot by his 17 year old stepson. The scene had a transforming effect on Dan. He and his brother spent the rest of the shift searching for the shooter, leaving to Dan wonder how officers deal with their feelings when they have almost no downtime between calls. The result of that wondering was On The Job: Behind the Stars of the Chicago Police Department.

After the meeting, Dan stayed for an impromptu discussion with—among others—authors Sam Reaves, Tom Keavers and Centuries and Sleuths owners Augie and Tracy Aleksy. One of the subjects that arose was why we write fiction when real stories are so compelling and exciting.

A consensus seemed to be that we write fiction because we love justice and closure—things life rarely gives us between the parentheses of birth and death. In fiction we can explain the inexplicable, weave in all the stray threads, punish the guilty, and reward virtue and bravery and cleverness in ways that rarely occur in life. Fiction has a beginning, a middle and an end. Usually. Fiction enables us to know our heroes and our lovers far more intimately than in real life—don’t writers usually provide us with their thoughts and feelings, uncensored in moments of peril and loss?

Our discussion left me thinking about the subject the next day, and I recalled a philosophy course I took in college. The instructor told us that no one—this was forty years ago, mind you—writes philosophy any more, at least not the way Plato and Hegel and Marx did. Today’s philosophers are writing novels, plays and movies. (And, yeah, essays on in the commentary pages of news papers and publications like the New Yorker. But who reads those?) Modern mainstream philosophers are telling it like it is in fiction, unhampered by the need to be fair or to get the facts right. My instructor assigned J.B. by Archibald McLeish, Catch 22 by Joseph Heller, and Nikos Kazantzakis’ Last Temptation of Christ. I hadn’t thought about that class in many years, but the instructor was right, I think. He may not have anticipated blogs, and perhaps bloggers are today’s philosophers, but blogs are so ubiquitous and diverse that most serve specialized and largely convinced audiences. The big time philosophies are still being advanced by art.

That’s my take. What’s yours? Whose ideas are you listening to? Any straight philosophers we should know about? Where do we find them?