Fiction vs Nonfiction: Why Your Bookshelf Doesn’t Need Labels
I am about to finish “The Power of Habit” by Charles Duhigg and I must say it can change your life.
I have never been the one for self-help books, I have never been a fan. It used to feel almost weird when I was a kid to buy nonfiction books. Because as a child I always loved the stories.
Nonfiction was usually about boring people. Cut me some slack, I used to be a kid.
Our schools also had a hand to play in this false perception I made. Reading was always a drag in school, it felt more like a task than an activity. Kids don’t mind activities, it keeps them involved and focused. Tasks seem boring, tasks make you feel burdened with responsibility.
So reading per se is never a boring activity. But then writing a character sketch of all characters in the novel is boring. That’s the task I hated.
So very recently and for the first time in my life, voluntarily, I bought a nonfiction book by the title of, as you know it, The Power of Habit.
And I think I was just stupid all these years believing that nonfiction books cannot excite me.
And that’s what troubles me. This polarising effect opinions have on us.
Like, at the moment, 75 hard is the latest, most effective trend going on Reels. Although the whole act of eating right, working out twice a day, and reading nonfiction everyday for 75 days in a row is tough, but it makes the act of posting every day easier. You have content now for two and a half months now to dedicate to and see results.
Now because the challenge is trending on Instagram, more and more people are participating in it. To participate in it means to read a nonfiction book for every day for a couple of months.
This has resulted in this divide within the reading community. At least the reading community I am a part of or have observed. And the divide is between the wanna-be “entrepreneurs” and the wanna-be “artists”.
The people who think fiction readers are “not smart” and more “chic” versus the people who talk about resource and time preservation then go on spending their weekends at clubs. You know which is which.
I am just baffled when I see arguments based just on the type of reading lists people have. I have had those kinds of experiences.
I went on a date once and I think I had just ordered one of Naval Ravikanth’s book. It wasn’t the Almanack, it was a different one. Or maybe it was not a Naval Ravikanth book, it was someone else.
I don’t remember but it was a self-help book. To better your life.
This chick started judging me when I told her about that. “Eww, there is no essence in self-help books” were her exact words. I should have left right there and then, but we all know how that goes.
She was not the only one. People who identify as “artistic” do not like the idea of a capitalistic way to bring discipline into your life.
Similarly, these “focused” and “hardworking” kids assume whosoever reads fiction is stupid. Watch a movie instead.
Then comes me, who is just happy to be able to read. And of course many more like me. The people who have a habit of reading and enjoy reading do not have these reservations towards books. You have a book, you read it.
If you like it or don’t like it that’s the secondary thing. You don’t judge it beforehand.
Most of you think like that, I know.
This is for the younger people and for the ones who still hating on others.
Don’t be a snob. JUST READ.
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