Letter from Iceland

I've always liked that Mark Kurlansky like to frequenty quote the fine language of those great writers that preceeded him.

"The towns peter out into flat rusty-brown lava fields, scattered shacks surrounded by wire fencing, stockfish drying on washing-lines and a few white hens."

From Letters from Iceland by W.H. Auden & Louis MacNeice, 1967
more recently quoted by Kurlansy in the book "Cod."

Mark Kurlansky

In writing non-fiction the writer is limited. If you are too vivid and lively you risk the presentation of fiction. A good non-fiction writer skirts it and engages in artful language only sparingly and perferably late in the book after trust is earned.

This is part of his description of the former Fulton Street market in Manhattan circa 1860 or so.

"The gas lighting was dim and the air often misty from the river and this gave an eerie smudgy haziness to the busy market where deer and squirrels and opossums and wild turkeys were hanging from beams."

-From The Big Oyster