7 Books That Blur the Boundary Between Fact and Fiction

Once, very stoned around a campfire, I asked my friends what fire was. One scientifically minded member of the group offered a dutiful-if-also-stoned explanation about chemical bonds and oxidation; it left me totally unsatisfied. “No,” I said. “But what is it?”

Everyone laughed. The whole thing became a long-running joke, and rightly so....