Biography as a Genre
From Plutarch's Parallel Lives to the source-based life writing of today.
Read the articleNonfiction and Biography
Nonfiction and Biography: A Guide
This guide explains how nonfiction and biography work and how you can tell whether a book rests on solid sources. Five articles cover five topics. We are an independent information resource with no ties to any publisher, so we recommend no individual titles or authors. Instead, we show how these genres go about their work.
Five Articles at a Glance
Nonfiction leans on sources that can be checked rather than on invention. That sets it apart from the novel, even when a novel tells of real events. Whoever writes a nonfiction book stands behind every statement, and whoever reads one may ask where it came from. That question runs through every article here.
Each article takes up one topic. The first looks at biography as a genre: what sets it apart from a mere life story, and what does it demand of the writer? The second turns to literary reportage, which pairs an on-the-spot account with careful style and composition.
The third article walks through an archive search and shows why archival work so often underpins a good biography. The fourth treats emigration as material for books, and the fifth deals with checking sources. You can read the pieces in any order. Together they make a solid introduction.
Literary Reportage
How observation, conversation and cross-checking turn into a story.
Read the articleArchive Research
Preparation, holdings and call numbers: how to get started with source work.
Read the articleEmigration as Subject
Why stories of departure carry weight and how to keep motives apart.
Read the articleChecking Sources
Four questions for every document, and the difference between finding and interpretation.
Read the articleWhat the Articles Aim to Do
We care about tools, not opinions. The articles give you pointers for reading and judging biographies and reportage. That way you can test for yourself whether an author credits statements to the right people, separates fact from conjecture and discloses what the conclusions rest on.
We write in a plain, calm voice, with no thirst for sensation and no verdicts on individual books. You will find no ranking and no shopping list here, only a way of thinking that helps with every further biography and piece of reportage you pick up. That includes books we have never written about.
How to Use This Guide
If the subject is new to you, start with the article on biography as a genre and then read the piece on checking sources. If reportage is what draws you, begin with the text on literary reportage and follow it with the one on emigration, which shows how a single subject can be told in different ways. The article on archive research is for anyone who wants to learn more about the craft of research.
Pick one article as your way in, and find out how to read biographies and reportage more attentively from now on.
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