Jacob Shymanski

Thanks for having me back on the show.

Of course, man.

Always.

Red comes on the show roughly every two weeks and we do these more topical conversations.

And last time around, we talked about...

Defining quality prose.

And following along those lines, we're doing defining quality nonfiction.

And Red, I think we're kind of unique in that we are men who openly prefer fiction, which is not the norm.

There's a pretty strong preference among men for nonfiction over fiction.

But we want to define what makes quality nonfiction, because I don't know if you agree with me, because I'm not an overly opinionated person, but I feel so strongly when I read bad nonfiction, it drives me nuts.

Bad nonfiction is like the worst sort of art.

It's lazy.

Let's continue along these lines.

These good nonfiction is good nonfiction or bad nonfiction is.

I see this as sort of a

therapeutic exercise because of how much i hate bad non-fiction so let's let's compile a list together of a do's and don'ts for non-fiction and in the process we're going to give you recommendations for books that we um we think are totally worth a read do you want to go first a do or a don't for non-fiction clarity over cleverness i have chosen to be in that author's book in his world

why you're writing this.

Be that to convince, to explain another perspective, to put down to memory, to even expose.

But whatever it is, know why you're writing the book.

I have read many memoirs where I'm halfway through and I'm asking myself...