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The Art of the Start
Every writer understands the importance of drawing readers in from the very first sentence—but how do you do that? As this sampling of first lines of first nonfiction books shows, there are as many possible approaches as there are stories to be told. Some of these sentences have become classics, while others have been eclipsed by their authors’ later successes or simply by the passage of time.Issue 38
Required Reading
CNF asked David Shields, author of REALITY HUNGER: A MANIFESTO (Knopf), for his top ten, must-read-if-you-want-to-write, can't-live-without, desert-island books.Issue 38
Stunt Writing
In 1887, a young reporter and her editor hatched a plot: The reporter should feign insanity to write an expose about conditions in a New York City asylum. It was investigative journalism, but of a sort that demanded an unusual degree of, well, commitment from the reporter, Nellie Bly; she endured rotten food, cold baths in filthy water, sleepless nights and abuse from nurses for 10 days before letting her editor spring her.Issue 38
Flawless Memory
I arrived at the intensive care unit in the early afternoon. I was shocked to find my mother rising and falling atop a motorized bed with no nurse in sight.Issue 38
Study in Perfect
I remember only one such sleep following my firstborn’s delivery by C-section. I was under the influence of morphine and a pure, thorough body-exhaustion.Issue 38
Imagination in nonfiction
In these innovative if confusing times, when talk of hybrid forms and genre blending abounds, the temptation for nonfiction writers to make their works as novelistic as possible is huge. Since fiction still enjoys greater literary cachet and status than nonfiction, the temptation is understandable. I would caution, however, against borrowing one particular technique from our fiction-writing brethren: to imagine on the page a scene unfolding, moment by moment, that one did not witness firsthand.Issue 38
Teaching Death
About a decade ago, I decided it was time to confront what seemed to me to be the most important issue a human being can face: death. I decided to do so in the way you might expect an academic philosopher to confront a difficult issue.Issue 38 / True Stories, Well Told
The World Without Us: A Meditation
Yesterday, everything changed, lightheartedly—unthinkingly—I went to the clinic to have “additional films taken,” and after three hours, walked into the sunlight with the image of two black marbles floating in the snow and fog of what had been an ultrasound image of my right breast.Issue 38
The Death and Life of Cell Culture
In 1951, at the age of 30, Henrietta Lacks, the descendant of freed slaves, was diagnosed with a strangely aggressive case of cervical cancer. It was unlike anything her doctor had seen.Issue 38
The Immortal Ones: Plants and Animals That Live Forever
Why them? What twist of fate conferred immortality on a jellyfish—and not us?Issue 38