Steel Drivin’ Man: John Henry, The Untold Story of an American Legend by Scott Reynolds Nelson

Reading now. I remember being originally drawn to the cover design about 5 years ago when I saw it at Schwartz. also, it reminded me of the book John Henry Days, which was a Justin rec. (this very well may also have been a Justin rec.) and something I still haven’t read.

Also, this is my only purchase from After Words Books, which is a great New/Used place on the Near North side of Chicago. after living in Chicago for a while I began to realize that there were a plethora of bookshops I hadn’t been to, because I already worked and bought my books at Myopic. So one day Joshua and I went to After Words and then to an amazing Thai place that’s right next door.

Note to anyone in Chicago: you should frequent both the bookstore and the Thai place.

Anywho, I’m really liking the book, not entirely sure how I feel about the writing style though. I had a discussion with Dan the other day about distinguishing Good Non-Fiction. we’re both primarily fiction readers, but are always drawn to non-fic that sounds awesome. our primary concern is differentiating between Popular Non-Fiction, which has a horrible style and tends to treat the reader like an imbecile, and well written, thought provoking Non-Fiction. Maybe I’m not looking hard enough, but it seems that the prevalence of Popular Non-Fiction is increasing, as Good Non-Fiction is becoming rarer.

I’ve written the last paragraph with the spectre over my shoulder of the overuse of the term Non-Fiction, which is a point of contention to booksellers. But it is the easiest accurate way to describe the range of books I’m speaking of (everything from books on Cooking Theory to Urban Studies).

I need to read more non-fiction, lucky for me that’s all I’ve wanted to read in the last few days.

Here’s hoping my reading year is filled with Good Non-Fiction and many works in translation.