Why am I passionate about this?
As a book lover and as a nonfiction writer and researcher, I’ve always been fascinated by the idea that a book is truly a portal that can connect people across time and space. I’m a Catholic (stray) by education and tradition, and for me this interconnectivity resonates with the familiar theology of the communion of saints. Whether you are religious or not, if you love words, there is something rather miraculous about how language, past and present, from authors living and dead, can connect and surprise us and spark new conversations even with those yet to be born. You never know who may need to hear what you are putting on the page.
Jo's book list on nonfiction that reclaim lost history or silenced voices
Why did Jo love this book?
OK, so Marcel Marceau was totally famous as a French mime artist, and his history has not been exactly “lost.” But I was intrigued by the idea of a biography that focuses on someone who was known for performing through silence, mastering silence itself as an art of communication.
Every page in Wen’s book is a surprise! First, she creates an impressionistic rather than traditional biography. There are source notes at the end, like a usual work of nonfiction, but her book fits easily in the palm of your hand and resembles a collection of poems more than the usual biographical tome.
Each segment invites a re-reading, a back and forth, that evokes the ever-kinetic and elusive interplay of Marceau’s living art. “Videos and photographs remind you how transient the stage is,” Wen writes, taking on Marceau’s persona at one point. “So you replay the dancing ghost in your head…
1 author picked A Twenty Minute Silence Followed by Applause as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
- Coming soon!