Fiction + Nonfiction Book Pairings

This week’s prompt for Nonfiction November is Book Pairing (hosted by Sarah of Sarah’s Book Shelves)!

This week, I’m pairing up a nonfiction book with a fiction title. Sometimes it’s fun to read a book and then dive a little bit deeper into the reality that inspired that content!

This may be one of my favorite kinds of posts, so if you have more fiction/nonfiction pairing, please let me know!!

Evvie Drake Starts Over + The Phenomenon: Pressure, the Yips, and the Pitch that Changed My Life 

I heard about The Phenomenon a couple years ago, and as a former college athlete, I’m immediately drawn to books and memoirs about sports. I purchased the book, but I still have yet to actually read. However, the entire time I was reading Evvie Drake Starts Over, it reminded me of Rick Ankiel’s story. In fact, Linda Holmes mentions in the Acknowledgements this very book…so it’s an obvious pairing!

The Body: A Guide for Occupants + The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

I’m cheating with this one because they’re both nonfiction books, but they really do go hand in hand. I finished The Body yesterday and it’s a fascinating look at our bodies and all of the incredible things it does. For a topic that can be extremely dry, Bryson does an incredible job of making this a book I couldn’t put down! As I was reading, I was reminded of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. It’s been awhile since I read this one, but it remains one of my favorite books of all-time. Henrietta Lacks developed cervical cancer in the 1950s and after many horrific treatments, she passed away. But unbeknownst (and without permission or financial compensation) to her or her family, the doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital kept some of her cells. Those cells are still alive today! Known as the HeLa cells, they helped develop the polio vaccine; advanced research on cancer, and led the way to in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping. We owe so much of our medical knowledge and advancements to Henrietta Lacks.

Before We Were Yours + Before and After: The Incredible Real-Life Stories of Orphans Who Survived the Tennessee Children’s Home Society

Confession time: I haven’t actually read either one of these, but their pairing seems obvious to me. Before We Were Yours has been raved about by many of my trusted sources. Based on the real-life Tennessee Children’s Home Society, director Georgia Tann kidnapped and sold more than 5,000 poor children to wealthy families between the late 1930s and 1950s. After this book brought Tann’s atrocities to attention, many adoptees began researching their pasts and set out to find their birth families. Before and After documents some of these journeys as they are reunited with lost brothers, sisters, and cousins.

This post is part of my participation in Nonfiction November fun set up by: Katie of Doing Dewey, Julz of Julz Reads, Rennie of What’s Nonfiction?, Sarah of Sarah’s Book Shelves, and Leann of Shelf Aware.

Every week throughout November, the hosts posts prompts and invite bloggers to participate! I hope to see you again for next week’s prompt: Be The Expert/Ask the Expert/Become the Expert.