Hi everyone! I hope you’re all well. Today is Wednesday, so it’s time for the next post in the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge hosted by Long and Short Reviews. If you want to join in the challenge, you can find the list of topics for 2023 here, and if you’d like to read other people’s responses to this week’s topic, you can find them here.

Best Nonfiction Book I’ve Read

Although I love to read, I don’t love to read nonfiction books, even though I’ve read many of them over the years for research. I prefer to read fiction because it helps me to escape from the world and, occasionally, from myself.

In any case, the best nonfiction book I’ve read is A Night to Remember, and I was drawn to it after watching the movie based on it.

I was about ten when I first saw the 1958 movie A Night to Remember. It was the first black-and-white movie I had ever watched all the way through, and I remember being captivated. I can still remember where I watched it; I was home sick from school one morning, and my mum was busy in the kitchen, which meant I had control of the TV. I picked up a VHS cassette with a teal-coloured cover and a black-and-white image on the front. Something intrigued me about its design, so I popped it into the video recorder.

This was the first time I’d ever heard of the Titanic and its disastrous and tragic maiden voyage. That one movie started a lifelong obsession (OBSESSION!) for all things Titanic. It wasn’t until many years later that I learned the movie was an adaptation of a book by Walter Lord, written in 1955.

In the book, Lord tells us about life aboard the Titanic and gives details of the ship’s technical and design specifications. He talks about the people and their struggle for survival as the ship sank and about how some people, mostly men, many of whom were forced to remain aboard the foundering ship, made sure that their families and charges were helped to safety and looked after. He talks about the difficulties with launching the lifeboats, getting people into them, what those people thought and felt as the ship disappeared and then their weary joy at finally being rescued.

Like the movie, the book captivated me. It is about a real-life, frightening human struggle, and whenever I skim through it, it forces me to remember that everything in life can change with the weather.

Well, that’s post thirteen done! I’m looking forward to reading about all your favourite nonfiction books. Perhaps I’ll be inspired to read nonfiction more often.

As always, thanks for reading my post! It means a lot.

Until next time,

George

© 2023 GLT

Categories: life, Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge

Tags: A Night to Remember, blog, blogging, book, nonfiction, Titanic, Wednesday, Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge