{"id":2120,"date":"2013-06-09T18:31:20","date_gmt":"2013-06-09T22:31:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/?p=2120"},"modified":"2013-06-09T21:53:39","modified_gmt":"2013-06-10T01:53:39","slug":"great-beginnings-nonfiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/en\/great-beginnings-nonfiction\/","title":{"rendered":"Great Beginnings in Non-fiction"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here are three of my favourite first paragraphs from various non-fiction books. Each of these summarizes the author’s theme, personality and style in very few words. Which are your favourites?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A dancer who describes himself as a singer will do neither well.<\/p>\n

To insist on describing ourselves as something we are not is to embrace existential illiteracy. We are not a civilization of British or French or European inspiration. We never have been. Our society is not an expression of peace, order and good government. It never was.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

from A Fair Country by John Ralston Saul, 2008<\/p>\n

Canadian nature writer Ernest Thompson Seton had an odd bill presented to him on his twenty-first birthday. It was a record kept by his father of all the expenses connected with young Ernest\u2019s childhood and youth, including the fee charged by the doctor for delivering him. Even more oddly, Ernest is said to have paid it. I used to think that Mr. Seton Senior was a jerk, but now I\u2019m wondering, What if he was\u2014in principle\u2014right? Are we in debt to anyone or anything for the bare fact of our existence? If so, what do we owe, and to whom or to what? And how should we pay?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

from Payback by Margaret Atwood, 2008<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Home was a yellow bungalow with chokecherry trees and rhubarb bushes, and a round hole in the fence where a pair of wrens, every year, would try and fail to raise a brood under the interested gaze of our cats. Home was a hundred yards from the South Saskatchewan River: late at night I would turn and listen to the drifting gulls or the wail of an ambulance as it hurtled victims down the riverside road to the hospital nearby.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

from Beyond Forget by Mark Abley, 1986<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here are three of my favourite first paragraphs from various non-fiction books. Each of these summarizes the author’s theme, personality and style in very few words. Which are your favourites? A dancer who describes himself as a singer will do neither well. To insist on describing ourselves as something we are not is to embrace […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_wp_convertkit_post_meta":{"form":"-1","landing_page":"0","tag":"0","restrict_content":"0"},"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journalism","post-wrapper","thrv_wrapper"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2buQs-yc","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":17197,"url":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/en\/business-profile-tips\/","url_meta":{"origin":2120,"position":0},"title":"Business Profile Tips","author":"Tracey Arial","date":"January 12, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"What do the former Canadian Wheat Board, twist ties and the International Monetary Fund have in common? They're all topics in three of my favourite classic business stories by excellent writers. Jake MacDonald's \"Why so many farmers miss the Wheat Board,\" Ambrose Evans-Pritchard\u2019s \"International Monetary Fund Overview,\" and Paul Lukas\u2019\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Creative Entrepreneur Adventures"","block_context":{"text":"Creative Entrepreneur Adventures","link":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/en\/category\/creative-entrepreneur-adventures\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"golden wheat plantation in countryside","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/pexels-photo-6052983.jpeg?fit=1200%2C760&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/pexels-photo-6052983.jpeg?fit=1200%2C760&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/pexels-photo-6052983.jpeg?fit=1200%2C760&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/pexels-photo-6052983.jpeg?fit=1200%2C760&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/pexels-photo-6052983.jpeg?fit=1200%2C760&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":16999,"url":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/en\/favourite-tim-ferriss-podcasts\/","url_meta":{"origin":2120,"position":1},"title":"Favourite Tim Ferriss Podcasts","author":"Tracey Arial","date":"March 6, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Spent part of my vacation last week catching up on podcasts. 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She describes what it's like to discover family secrets as she researches and writes stories about her ancestors. If you want to join Marian in indexing records from around the world, you can do\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Genealogy Ensemble"","block_context":{"text":"Genealogy Ensemble","link":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/en\/category\/history-worth-remembering\/genealogy-ensemble-history-worth-remembering\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photograph.jpg?fit=933%2C700&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photograph.jpg?fit=933%2C700&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photograph.jpg?fit=933%2C700&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photograph.jpg?fit=933%2C700&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":17731,"url":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/en\/beads-necklace-book\/","url_meta":{"origin":2120,"position":3},"title":"Our book “Beads in a Necklace” launches today!","author":"Tracey Arial","date":"November 15, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm so excited. 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