I read a lot of nonfiction and I watch a lot of its cinematic equivalent, documentaries.
Even mediocre documentaries are good, I think because the people making them are drawn to the story for some reason (which usually means it's an interesting one) and they're not doing it
primarily for the money. The proliferation of content-starved cable channels has created demand, but even the most successful docs make a fraction of what a hit movie would bring in.
I've seen plenty of documentaries that are flawed in various ways that I'd still recommend to my friends.
Books don't work that way.
I've been reading poker books lately. Not that I have an overriding interest in the 'poker boom', but working in a used book store demands a certain flexibility of taste. You never know what exactly will show up, but there's always something interesting that catches your eye. This month it was a small group of poker books.
So I read a couple of likely suspects with can't miss summaries (the
biggest poker game of all time & a
girlhood among gamblers).
The experience was underwhelming.
The stories were indeed fascinating, but the prose was workmanlike & overblown, by turns. If they'd been documentaries, they'd be fine. As books, they kinda sucked.
I think because books require you to expend attention and energy.
A documentary you can experience, a book demands interaction.
That old Harlan Ellison quote from one of his
Glass Teat books unfavorably comparing the brain waves of a person watching television with those of a patient in a coma seems relevant.
I have the same reaction to most boxing books.
The stories of fights, fighters and associated personages can't help but be wildly interesting. But the kind of person who winds up neck deep in the sideshow of the sport rarely possess the qualities of introspection & observation that make good writers.
The best boxing books come from outsiders & journalists, very rarely from inside the bubble of the sport.
