When I was young, I was fascinated by what I could learn from books about animals, geology, or space. I read nonfiction in order to learn something new. I didn't want to learn something that wasn't true, and I still don't today. How would it feel to read an entire chemistry textbook only to learn that everything inside was just made up?
In order for a book to be considered nonfiction, it has to be 100% true. Nonfiction is as the name states, not fiction. Fiction is an invention or fabrication, writing that describes imaginary things. That makes nonfiction not an invention, not a fabrication. It is writing that does not describe imaginary things. The only thing left is unaltered facts. Seth Greenland said he thinks it is a sign of the apocalypse that we think truth is malleable. Altering a fact turns it into a lie; that's a fact! If anything in a nonfiction book is not a fact, it can not be called nonfiction.
Half truths are perfectly fine, as long as they don't appear in a nonfiction work. The truth is not malleable, bend it just a little and it will break. A broken truth has no place in nonfiction.
This is why David Shields is wrong. The truth matters. Not all writing is just for a good story. Some writing is meant to teach, and you don't teach lies.
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