• The Best Narrative Nonfiction Books - Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall by Anna Funder
  • The Best Narrative Nonfiction Books - Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick
  • The Best Narrative Nonfiction Books - Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo
  • The Best Narrative Nonfiction Books - Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe
  • The Best Narrative Nonfiction Books - City of Thorns: Nine Lives in the World's Largest Refugee Camp by Ben Rawlence

The Best Narrative Nonfiction Books, recommended by Samira Shackle

Narrative nonfiction is a style of writing that takes the facts and dramatises them to create novelistic retellings of real life events. Samira Shackle, author of Karachi Vice, a book that offers vivid insight into the lives of five of the city’s residents, recommends five books that have inspired her—and explains how a writer might begin to carve ‘plot’ and ‘characters’ from reams of research material.