OPINION: Climbing mountains

As a reader, I try to keep my genres at least semi-varied. While fantasy and romance are my favorites, I enjoy others as well. Much to some of my book friends’ chagrin, I even will read a nonfiction book now and again.

When it comes to reading, I have a bit of an obsessive behavior. If I start reading a book, I usually have to finish it in one go simply because I want to know what happens next. This can become irritating when I put an audiobook on while working out and suddenly have to spend the rest of the day finishing the book.

A lot of people talk about the joys of reading before bed. This is something I have never really been able to enjoy, as I know my brain will grab hold of the story and I won’t be able to fall asleep until I know the ending. That is where, in my recent years, the nonfiction book has come into play.

While I like books on history, biographies or even self-help, these novels don’t grab and steal my attention and thoughts like fiction books usually do. This has helped me experience the joy of reading before bed that everyone else has spoken of.

The most recent nonfiction novel that I finished is a memoir by Bear Grylls about climbing Mount Everest at 23 titled “The Kid Who Climbed Everest.” I found it interesting, despite the many spelling and grammatical errors, but it wasn’t the sort of introspection I would have expected from Grylls.

When I think of the great Bear Grylls, his show “Man vs. Wild” comes to mind. I picture a survivalist who gets himself into dumb situations to prove that he can get himself out. I never knew what got him to this point or the person he was outside of that persona. While I certainly won’t ever know the real Bear Grylls, reading about his experiences as a young man helped remind me that people have many facets and all have their own mountains to climb. (Ha, get it?)

When it comes to Grylls, he’s able to survive in tough circumstances now because of his early years. When he was 22, he was serving in Britain’s Special Air Service Regiment. During a regular parachuting exercise in Kenya, the parachute failed to work. Grylls ended up falling 16,000 feet and breaking three vertebrae but survived. He went on to summit Mount Everest only 18 months later.

However, most people don’t have such dramatic and complicated backstories. Another nonfiction book I read recently was “The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris” by David McCullough.

The book follows a handful of young Americans who made their way to Paris in order to further their studies, whether it be in art, writing, medicine or even politics. The different travelers span a series of decades, showing Paris in its various stages of history, from 1830 with the reign under the last French king through the 1848 French Revolution and into the 1890s with the ever popular world fairs and the construction of the Eiffel Tower.

One such traveler was Elizabeth Blackwell, who studied medicine at La Maternite in Paris and eventually became the first woman to earn a medical degree in the United States. Apparently, she was let into medical school originally as a joke, but she went on to prove her worth and further women’s equality in the workplace.

Another was Samuel Morse, the son of a Boston preacher who went on to contribute to the invention of the telegraph and Morse code. He started life as a painter, unfortunately living in virtual poverty due to this and the beginning dismissal of the telegraph. However, his success eventually gained renown and is now recognized as one of the leaders in early communication.

Many of the eventual greats went through hard times before making their way to greatness. Climbing a mountain is difficult, but reaching the top is worth it. No matter what the nonfiction book is, I feel like this theme is found somewhere in it.

The next nonfiction book I have on my list to read is “And if I Perish” by Evelyn M. Monahan and Rosemary Neidel-Greenlee, a novel about the frontline nurses in World War II. I have no doubts this will follow this theme, even more so than any other person I’ve mentioned thus far.

I’m not climbing any major mountains of my own at the moment, literally or figuratively, but depending on the day, sometimes the small things can be tall enough mountains. Gaining insight and motivation from the perspectives of people who have gone on to do great things is, in my mind, an important reason for reading nonfiction.