Introducing Book Pairings: The Benefits of Reading Fiction and Nonfiction Together

Category: Book Look

Famously, wine and cheese can be paired so that each enhances the enjoyment of the other. The acidity in wine balances the fats in cheese, and the very different textures complement each other. The taster ends up appreciating the qualities of both all the more. 

So too can books be read in pairs to enhance the total experience. In fact, it’s a proven way to extend the depth to which readers grapple with ideas. Book pairings encourage inner conversations. 

That’s true whether two books take opposite viewpoints on a subject, or simply differ in nuance. Or they can be completely different genres, and that difference informs the way readers receive the content. 

Don’t get me wrong, one book can be earth-shaking on its own. Most of us can readily identify a single book that helped us look at a subject in a whole new way or changed our minds on an issue. Just like a transcendent experience with one particular wine might cause an oenophile to rethink their view on burgundies forever.

But the majority of books we read, as with wines we taste, are not like that. Not every novel or bottle will be transcendent or earth-shaking. But you can do something to induce a more memorable experience. 

Just add cheese.

Or in this case, a book from a different genre – especially a fiction title to go with a nonfiction book or vice versa.

Complementary Perspectives

Fiction-nonfiction pairings will help readers appreciate the human context of a subject. And they will add a real-world dimension anchored in fact to any fictional narrative. 

At Diverse STEM Books, we curate book lists in both genres simultaneously. We feel strongly that while nonfiction deepens knowledge, fiction inspires. Both draw the reader in and help develop a love for the subject, in our case at DSB, the sciences.

Science writing is often precise and can come off dry to some. But that very weakness is actually an opportunity for a gripping lab lit adventure or action-filled cli-fi plot to inspire readers to want to dig in to topic, to learn more about the realities off the page. 

That’s possible because no vehicle is as effective as a book for enabling people to try on ideas for size, then engage with the ramifications of those ideas, measure them against personal experience, and ultimately decide where they stand. Remember that impactful book from childhood or adolescence that challenged us to change our beliefs? Books like those help us individuate and develop a sense of self.

While a single book can have a powerful impact, reading two or more books in conjunction with each other multiplies the effect. It’s a way to develop nuanced and informed understandings of a topic because the reader is called upon to engage with multiple perspectives at the same time. The experience of entertaining multiple interpretations of the world invites the reader to participate in dialogue with the marketplace of ideas. It’s an inner dialogue, but also a dialogue with a social dimension.

Preserving & Extending Ideas Across Time

Reading by itself serves a vital purpose for human beings – inherently a social species. Books are a vehicle for preserving and sharing ideas across different places and times. As mathematician and philosopher Descartes noted, “The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries.” And voilà, just like that, Descartes lives on in conversation with us in the 21st century through his writing.

Writing something down is so simple. Even the printing press would hardly be considered “technology” by today’s standards of electronic and digital advances, but a system for preserving ideas in books is perhaps the most crucial technology for the advancement of our species. It enables conversation through time. It enables learning through time. It enables dialogue with oneself and others.

Classical philosophy relied on this conversational method. Socrates famously asked his students as many questions as he answered. The Greek concept of dialectical method described the concept of using dialogue and debate not to convince others but to arrive at truth. 

Philosophy has its own rigorous systems and structures for this kind of conversation, of course. But the basic idea has resonance in our everyday lives: inquiry-driven conversation helps us refine our ideas and get a little bit closer to truth. Books do that. That’s why teachers encourage readers to ask themselves questions and make predictions as they read.

Encourage Higher Order Thinking Through Inner Conversation

When I was a classroom teacher, I relied on the framework of Bloom’s taxonomy. The framework classifies types of mental tasks. At the bottom is basic recall, then comprehension, then more sophisticated cognitive skills like application and analysis. Finally, at the top are personal evaluation and creation of your own understandings. 

I used Bloom’s taxonomy to ensure that my students were engaging not just in simple and straightforward recall of information, but also in more involved and subtle comprehension processes – and hopefully even in levels beyond that. The highest levels of the framework call on learners to reflect on and evaluate new material for themselves and to apply what they have studied to new situations – basically, to integrate new concepts with familiar ones in a way that reflects their own independent outlook. The learner incorporates the new knowledge of a subject in with their previous understanding of how the world operates. 

If that sounds like a tall order, sometimes it is. Book pairings, however, are almost an automatic way to initiate this process: reading from two sources encourages those all-important inner conversations. 

It happens automatically. Almost everyone will simply like one source over the other. The particular reasons don’t matter so much, but that initial response gets the conversation going. 

Good Reading Habits Boost Your Brain

Reflecting on the contents of one book in the context of another employs the higher levels of engagement with a topic represented by those upper levels of Bloom’s taxonomy – which is one reason that the most important homework a teacher can assign and a student can carry out is simply to read every day. Not every student will love it, but it’s really the simplest and most foundational educational method ever devised. And that goes for adult readers as well. 

But I encourage inquiring minds to go one step further, to extend that learning by adding a related book in conversation with the first. After all, the dialectical method, i.e., conversation, was good enough for Socrates – so much so that we remember it as the Socratic method today.