This week we’re focusing on all the great nonfiction books that *almost* don’t seem real. A sports biography involving overcoming massive obstacles, a profile on a bizarre scam, a look into the natural wonders in our world—basically, if it makes your jaw drop, you can highlight it for this week’s topic and link up at Plucked from the Stacks.
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Larrimah by Caroline Graham & Kylie Stevenson
True crime is often stranger than fiction, and the circumstances surrounding the 2017 disappearance of seventy year old Paddy Moriarty from Larrimah, a tiny Northern Territory outback town, is decidedly odd. In a community barely 1kmsq in size, whose main attractions are a no-eyed crocodile and a Pink Panther in a gyrocopter whose head falls off intermittently, with a population of just 12 people where, at any one time, half of the residents are at war with the other, whether it’s over the provision of pies to the passing trade, the leadership of local ‘progress’ committees, the revenge-driven massacre of a buffalo, or the theft of Mars Bars, how could Paddy and his dog have vanished unseen, without a trace?
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One Last Dance by Emma Jane Holmes
A character in fiction employed as both an exotic dancer and a funeral director would likely be dismissed as unrealistic, but for a time that’s just what Emma Jane Holmes did. Her memoir One Last Dance explains how she came to be a stripper under the the alias Madison, working nights at a Sydney club, while collecting the deceased and directing funerals during the day.
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Lost at Sea by Jon Ronson
Journalist Jon Ronson intentionally seeks out people who have stories that are stranger than fiction. In Lost At Sea, a collection of his newspaper and magazine columns, Ronson investigates a man preparing to welcome the aliens to earth, a woman trying to build a fully-conscious robotic replica of the love of her life, and a group of teenagers planning a school massacre in a town where it is Christmas every day of the year, among others.
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Nov 24, 2021 @ 04:33:09
I recently read a book that was a series of newspaper articles and I really enjoyed it so I am adding Lost at Sea to my TBR list.
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Nov 24, 2021 @ 05:48:22
I’ve read a few of Jon Ronson’s books, and they’re always weird and highly entertaining. I should probably find more of them. 🙂
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Nov 24, 2021 @ 23:16:42
These are good ones, well found!
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Nov 25, 2021 @ 02:47:41
I have to read these. What an interesting theme to link these non-fiction books.
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Nov 26, 2021 @ 02:27:13
Wow! Lost at Sea sounds really interesting.
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Nov 26, 2021 @ 08:45:52
You take the prize for the strangest books I’ve seen mentioned in this week’s topic 🙂
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Nov 28, 2021 @ 00:53:04
I loved Lost at Sea, and it’s a great choice for this topic! Actually reading your notes about it I realize I don’t even remember some of those bits, so I think it’s time for a reread 🙂 Thanks for the inspiration! His others are all equally as entertaining and unusual too, in case you haven’t tried them yet!
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Nov 28, 2021 @ 06:34:15
I like the sound of Larrimah 🙂
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Nov 28, 2021 @ 06:55:19
These all look so good! Larrimah by Caroline Graham & Kylie Stevenson sounds very interesting.
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Dec 01, 2021 @ 01:02:45
Lost at Sea sounds insanely good!
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Dec 01, 2021 @ 04:05:55
I absolutely must check out Lost at Sea. One Last Dance looks amazing as well. I love stories about people living interesting lives!
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Dec 01, 2021 @ 05:46:01
So glad to see a Jon Ronson book featured this week! He’s one of my favorite writers. I haven’t heard of the other two books, but they sound fascinating.
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