Cover of The Art of Fact: A Historical Anthology of Literary Journalism

The Art of Fact: A Historical Anthology of Literary Journalism

This fascinating compilation of the journalist's art unites the reporter's magnificent eye for detail with the novelist's gift for storytelling. Featuring eyewitness accounts of war and social revolution, profiles of sports heroes and politicians, and eye-opening investigations into both the mundane and the eccentric details of life, it includes:

Read more

Includes:

Preface by Ben Yagoda

Making Facts Dance by Kevin Kerrane

from The True and Genuine Account of the Life and Actions of the Late Jonathan Wild by Daniel Defoe

from The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell

Watercress Girl by Henry Mayhew

The Great Tasmania's Cargo by Charles Dickens

from Specimen Days by Walt Whitman

from If Christ Came to Chicago by W. T. Stead

When Man Falls, a Crown Gathers by Stephen Crane

An Experiment in Misery by Stephen Crane

The Death of Rodriguez by Richard Harding Davis

Can't Get Their Minds Ashore by Abraham Cahan

Pillelu, Pillelu! by Abraham Cahan

from The People of the Abyss by Jack London

Drift by Morris Markey

from Ninety Times Guilty by Hickman Powell

Juke Joint by Walter Bernstein

from Hiroshima by John Hersey

The Day of the Fight by W. C. Heinz

from "Portrait of Hemingway" by Lillian Ross

Two Generals by Norman Lewis

The Silent Season of a Hero by Gay Talese

from In Cold Blood by Truman Capole

from The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe

from Alive by Piers Paul Read

from House by Tracy Kidder

from Brothers by Sylvester Monroe and Peter Goldman

So ... We Meet at Last, Mr. Bond by Bob Greene

Shadow of a Nation by Gary Smith

from What It Takes by Richard Ben Cramer

The Spike by George Orwell

from "The Bronx Slave Market" by Marvel Cooke

from The Earl of Louisiana by A. J. Liebling

The Fight to Live by Al Stump

from The Armies of the Night by Norman Mailer

from "The Scum Also Rises" by Hunter S. Thompson

The Last Secrets of Skull and Bones by Ron Rosenbaum

from Coyotes by Ted Conover

from "The Snap Revolution" by James Fenton

Tiananmen Square by John Simpson

from Among the Thugs by Bill Buford

from Whoredom in Kimmage by Rosemary Mahoney

from "Harlem on My Mind" by Lawrence Otis Graham

from "Snake Handling and Redemption" by Dennis Covington

The Pig by Ben Hecht

Japanese Earthquake by Ernest Hemingway

from Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by James Agee

The Third Winter by Martha Gellhorn

Marrakech by George Orwell

Lady Olga by Joseph Mitchell

from Black Lamb and Grey Falcon by Rebecca West

from Once There Was a War by John Steinbeck

Lethal Lightning by Jimmy Cannon

It's an Honor by Jimmy Breslin

The Girl of the Year by Tom Wolfe

Los Angeles Notebook by Joan Didion

from The Pine Barrens by John Mcphee

from Dispatches by Michael Herr

from Another Day of Life by Ryszard Kapuscinski

from Homicide by David Simon

from Boys in Zinc by Svetlana Alexiyevich

Holiday Pageant: The Importance of Being Bluebell by Michael Winerip

Audience
adult
Length
long · 560 pages

Click a tag to see books like this one that share it. Point at it (on a phone, tap it) for less of it instead.

Read it? Sign in to help tag it.

Liked The Art of Fact: A Historical Anthology of Literary Journalism? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked The Art of Fact: A Historical Anthology of Literary Journalism. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. The New New Journalism: Conversations with America's Best Nonfiction Writers on Their Craft Shares journalism, writing, nonfiction
  2. The Art of Column Writing: Insider Secrets from Art Buchwald, Dave Barry, Arianna Huffington, Pete Hamill and Other Great Columnists Shares writing, journalism, nonfiction
  3. Essential English for Journalists, Editors and Writers Shares journalism, nonfiction, writing
  4. Shamans Through Time Shares nonfiction

“People who read The Art of Fact: A Historical Anthology of Literary Journalism tend to reach for these next.”

  1. The World of the Short Story: A Twentieth Century Collection
  2. Daring Spectacle: Adventures in Deviant Journalism
  3. Great Detectives: A Century of the Best Mysteries from England and America
  4. The End of the European Era: 1890 to the Present (The Norton History of Modern Europe)

“If you want more of the same, start with these.”

  1. The Associated Press Guide To Punctuation
  2. The Art of the Interview: Lessons from a Master of the Craft
  3. Associated Press Guide to News Writing: The Resource for Professional Journalists
  4. Inside Reporting: A Practical Guide to the Craft of Journalism

“If it was the journalism that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. The Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and The Public Should Expect
  2. Letters to a Young Journalist
  3. The New Journalism
  4. A Writer's Life

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. The 40s: The Story of a Decade
  2. The Professional
  3. Sports Illustrated: Fifty Years of Great Writing: 50th Anniversary 1954-2004
  4. Gellhorn: A Twentieth Century Life