Nonfiction November 2017: Book Pairings

Welcome to the second week of Nonfiction November. This week we’re pairing nonfiction books with works of fiction. Our host this week is Sarah from Sarah’s Book Shelves. I don’t know about you, but this sounds like a lot of fun. It reminds a lot of the bookish conversations I used to have with a former a co-worker. He was a voracious reader who read almost exclusively fiction, while I on the other hand tend to gravitate towards nonfiction. But despite our differing tastes, on numerous occasions our reading choices ran parallel. Specifically, he might have been reading a novel that was set in some country, or during the same time period as whatever nonfiction book I was reading at the time. Whenever our selections mutually aligned it led to stimulating conversations.

After letting my imagination run wild for a few days here’s what I came up with for fiction and nonfiction pairings.

Conclave by Robert Harris and The Vatican Diaries: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Power, Personalities and Politics at the Heart of the Catholic Church by John Thavis 

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck and The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great America Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan.

Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann and 1973 Nervous Breakdown: Watergate, Warhol, and the Birth of Post-Sixties America by Andreas Killen. 

A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam and The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger and a Forgotten Genocide by Gary J. Bass

The Chosen by Chaim Potok and The Rabbi of 84th Street: The Extraordinary Life of Haskel Besser by Warren Kozak

Under the Frog by Tibor Fischer and The Bridge at Andau: The Compelling True Story of a Brave, Embattled People by James Michener

Expo 58 by Jonathan Coe and The Zhivago Affair: The Kremlin, the CIA, and the Battle Over a Forbidden Book by Peter Finn and Petra Couvée

Native Son by Richard Wright and The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson

Girl at War by Sara Nović and The Fall of Yugoslavia: The Third Balkan War by Misha Glenny

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini and The Great Gamble: The Soviet War in Afghanistan by Gregory Feifer

Ghost Fleet: A Novel of the Next World War by P.W. Singer and August Cole and  The Next Decade: Where We’ve Been….and Where We’re Going by George Friedman

Partitions by Amit Majmudar and Midnight’s Furies: The Deadly Legacy of India’s Partition by Nisid Hajari

The Wandering Falcon by Jamil Ahmad and I Am Malala: How One Girl Stood Up for Education and Changed the World by Malala Yousafzai

The Best Place on Earth by Ayelet Tsabari and We Look Like the Enemy: The Hidden Story of Israel’s Jews from Arab Lands

The Mission Song by John le Carre and Consuming the Congo:War and Conflict Minerals in the World’s Deadliest Place by Peter Eichstaedt