Week 2: Book Pairing: This week, pair up a nonfiction book with a fiction title (or another nonfiction!). It can be a “If you loved this book, read this!” or just two titles that you think would go well together. Maybe it’s a historical novel and you’d like to get the real history by reading a nonfiction version of the story. Or pair a book with a podcast, film or documentary, TV show, etc. on the same topic or stories that pair together. Our Nonficton November host this week is What's Nonfiction?
In If Then Jill Lepore takes us through the history of the Simulmatics Corporation which was a social science technology firm active in politics (and other things) in the 1960s. She pulls in all kinds of interesting history about presidential election campaigns, Vietnam, and the culture of the period.
Gate City by Michael Davidow is a work of historical fiction centering on the victory of John F. Kennedy over Richard Nixon in 1960. This novel is the first volume of the Henry Bell trilogy (Split Thirty and The Rocketdyne Commission are the other titles). All 3 novels would make a wonderful companion read to Lepore's history book as they are set in the same social milieu and considering very similar issues.
I've never heard of the Simulmatics Corporation - sounds like an itnriguing historical read.
ReplyDeleteOh, this is a fun pairing! I'd really like to get to If Then and I'll keep in mind that this trilogy would make a good companion read.
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