{"id":2005,"date":"2013-06-10T12:28:00","date_gmt":"2013-06-10T12:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rf.podcastfixit.com\/index.php\/2013\/06\/10\/great-beginnings-in-non-fiction\/"},"modified":"2015-06-01T19:41:49","modified_gmt":"2015-06-01T19:41:49","slug":"great-beginnings-in-non-fiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newscoverage.org\/index.php\/2013\/06\/10\/great-beginnings-in-non-fiction\/","title":{"rendered":"Great beginnings in non-fiction"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Tracey Arial<\/b><\/p>\n

\nwww.traceyarial.com<\/a><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nHere are three of my favourite first paragraphs from various non-fiction books. Each of these summarizes the author\u2019s theme, personality and style in very few words. Which are your favourites?<\/p>\n

\nA dancer who describes himself as a singer will do neither well. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\nTo insist on describing ourselves as something we are not is to embrace existential illiteracy. We are not a civilization of British or French or European inspiration. We never have been. Our society is not an expression of peace, order and good government. It never was.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

from A Fair Country<\/i> by John Ralston Saul, 2008<\/p>\n

\nCanadian nature writer Ernest Thompson Seton had an odd bill presented to him on his twenty-first birthday. It was a record kept by his father of all the expenses connected with young Ernest\u2019s childhood and youth, including the fee charged by the doctor for delivering him. Even more oddly, Ernest is said to have paid it. I used to think that Mr. Seton Senior was a jerk, but now I\u2019m wondering, What if he was\u2014in principle\u2014right? Are we in debt to anyone or anything for the bare fact of our existence? If so, what do we owe, and to whom or to what? And how should we pay?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

from Payback<\/i> by Margaret Atwood, 2008<\/p>\n

\nHome was a yellow bungalow with chokecherry trees and rhubarb bushes, and a round hole in the fence where a pair of wrens, every year, would try and fail to raise a brood under the interested gaze of our cats. Home was a hundred yards from the South Saskatchewan River: late at night I would turn and listen to the drifting gulls or the wail of an ambulance as it hurtled victims down the riverside road to the hospital nearby.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

from Beyond Forget<\/i> by Mark Abley, 1986<\/div>\n

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By Tracey Arial www.traceyarial.com Here are three of my favourite first paragraphs from various non-fiction books. Each of these summarizes the author\u2019s theme, personality and style in very few words. Which are your favourites? A dancer who describes himself as a singer will do neither well.  To insist on describing ourselves as something we are<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nGreat beginnings in non-fiction - Newscoverage<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/newscoverage.org\/index.php\/2013\/06\/10\/great-beginnings-in-non-fiction\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Great beginnings in non-fiction - Newscoverage\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Tracey Arial www.traceyarial.com Here are three of my favourite first paragraphs from various non-fiction books. 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