The perfect non-fiction book

I’ve realised what the perfect non-fiction book is. You’d think that as someone who writes non-fiction books for a living I’d be excited by this discovery, and would even now be scribbling feverishly away so as to hit the top of the bestseller lists before anyone else has the same idea. Trouble is, the perfect non-fiction book has already been written. In 1955. And once a year ever since then, for that matter. And yes, every year it does hit the top of the bestseller lists. It’s the Guinness Book of Records.

When I wrote novels, publishers used to assuage my worries about a lack of reviews by pointing out that it was always harder to get fiction reviewed than non-fiction. Made sense – essentially the only question worth tackling in a novel review is ‘do I believe in these characters and this plot?’ Not only is that very subjective, it’s also hard to answer without ruining the book.