Dear Readers,

I think I learn more from fiction than from non-fiction. I’ve read a lot of nonfiction books about World War II, but I think I’ve learned more about the war from novels like Catch-22, Slaughterhouse Five, and From Here to Eternity.

Because fiction makes us feel like we’re there. It asks us to exercise our empathy muscles and pays us back with a riveting story. It is important to know when fiction authors take liberties or smudge some facts. And we should understand that fiction and nonfiction have different purposes.

But our goal as humans is to better understand the world around us. And our best way of doing that is not simply gathering facts about it, but imagining ourselves moving about it.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt