Book 2 Project: Book Trailer

Book Talk Presentation

Post 5: Truth in Memoir

In my opinion a book that would be considered non-fiction should be mostly true. I wouldn't mind if it was embellished to demonstrate a point as long as it is based off of the truth. All authors try to entertain their readers by making their stories more dramatic and interesting. Adding events and details to non-fiction writer’s memoirs is just their way of making their books more interesting for the readers.

I personally believe that half-truths are okay to put in a memoir as long as the idea behind it is the same as what really happened. You know when you pick up a memoir that it will not be a hundred percent accurate. I am completely okay with Frey and Mortenson bending the truth to make their stories better.  If an author wants to call his or her book a memoir because the majority of it is the truth and other parts were embellished why shouldn’t we let them?  It is their book so they should be able to call it whatever they want if the genres are similar. For example if Nicholas Sparks prefers for his books to be called love stories instead of romance novels where is the harm? It is the same basic idea of love and relationships in both genres, the only the people that the book will most likely appeal to.

I think that Sheilds is right that it really doesn’t matter what genre a book is classified in, however I believe that genres can help the reader find similar books that they enjoy and find authors that they like. Genres should be used to help the reader and not hurt the author by being labeled a certain way. In my opinion genres aren't really necessary and shouldn't be taken as seriously as they are.