Red Széll

Bad nonfiction is the pub bore who just leans across.

I'm going to tell you another thing.

And you just can't wait to escape.

Whereas good nonfiction actually just feels like going for a fantastic walk with a friend and coming back enlightened.

I want to be educated, informed, enlightened, and I am giving up my time.

I don't want a load of waffle.

I just want clarity about what he's set out to do.

If he's given me a roadmap at the beginning, I expect to be able to take the roadmap without hitting traffic jams of...

clever words beautiful adjectives make the words count make the paragraphs count and leave me feeling like i've spent time with an incisive mind the roadmap thing is pretty unique to non-fiction as well and that kind of goes into one of the do's i want to talk about and that's have a purpose no

Exactly.

That's right.

Just stick to that.

Tell me.

I read a fantastic biography of the African emperor, the only black African emperor that Rome had.

by a guy called Simon Elliott.

It was the first episode of this year, the first episode of My Life in Books.

And, you know, you'll hear from the interview, he sticks to the point.

Yeah, there's a load of information in there.

It's a 320-page book.

But at the end of the day, he's making the case that this man, Septimius Severus...