# What real life story is better than fiction? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 25, 2016, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-real-life-story-is-better-than-fiction/766784 "2016-09-25T00:06:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2016, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-real-life-story-is-better-than-fiction/766784/21 "2016-09-25T14:30:30Z")
> [@SpoilerVirgin](#): > > I read a lot of great adventure books - many of them are better than any work of fiction: > > [Shadow Divers](https://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Divers-Adventure-Americans-Everything/dp/0375760989/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1474777324&sr=8-1&keywords=Shadow+Divers) - All about a submarine. The less you know before you start reading, the more amazing the story will be. > > [Touching the Void](https://www.amazon.com/Touching-Void-Story-Miraculous-Survival/dp/0060730552/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1474777409&sr=8-1&keywords=Touching+the+Void) - One of the greatest survival stories ever. > > [Into the Wild](https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Into+the+Wild) - One of the greatest non-survival stories ever. > > [The Worst Journey in the World](https://www.amazon.com/Worst-Journey-World-Penguin-Classics/dp/0143039385/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1474779371&sr=8-1&keywords=THe+Worst+Journey+in+the+World) - A survival and non-survival story in Antartica. I had to keep reminding myself that a real person wrote this book. > > And of course the book that started it all for me, [Into Thin Air](https://www.amazon.com/Into-Thin-Air-Personal-Disaster/dp/0385494785/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1474779544&sr=8-1&keywords=Into+Thin+Air). There are other books about Everest in 1996, but none are written so beautifully that they read as well as the greatest works of fiction. > > OTOH, if you just want to read something that is so ridiculous that you can’t believe it actually happened, there’s [No One Would Listen](https://www.amazon.com/No-One-Would-Listen-Financial-ebook/dp/B0035IID08/ref=dp_kinw_strp_1), about the man who tried repeatedly and unsuccessfully to tell the SEC about Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. I’m a big fan of this genre, as well and have read most of those. Too many to list, really. Teddy Roosevelt lead quite an interesting life as a politician, big game hunter, etc. The most improbable thing he did was to attempt to explore an Amazonian river, the details of which are captured in the book [River of Doubt](https://www.amazon.com/River-Doubt-Theodore-Roosevelts-Darkest/dp/0767913736/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1474813856&sr=8-1&keywords=river+of+doubt). The trip nearly killed him, and he never really recovered after his return. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-real-life-story-is-better-than-fiction/766784/22 "2016-09-26T00:13:45Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **Trinopus** : > > He got good; he could tell which book in a bookshelf you’d handled. And who it was who handled it. I’d say that identifying an individual by the traces of their scent they leave on their environment qualifies as “bloodhound-like”. Maybe not as good as an actual bloodhound can do, but certainly similar. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-real-life-story-is-better-than-fiction/766784/23 "2016-09-26T00:41:06Z")
[Shackleton and _The Endurance._](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Endurance:_Shackleton%27s_Legendary_Antarctic_Expedition) ---
**Author:** ![DinoR](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dinor/32/2821_2.png) [@DinoR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DinoR)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-real-life-story-is-better-than-fiction/766784/24 "2016-09-26T01:14:17Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > Teddy Roosevelt lead quite an interesting life as a politician, big game hunter, etc. He as my first thought. A life that included a Nobel peace prize, battlefield actions that later got him awarded the Medal of Honor, and finishing his campaign speech after being shot in an assassination attempt. ---
**Author:** ![magnusblitz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@magnusblitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magnusblitz)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-real-life-story-is-better-than-fiction/766784/25 "2016-09-26T19:03:41Z")
[The Taping Rebellion.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiping_Rebellion) Chinese would-be civil servant has a nervous breakdown during studying and has visions that convince him he’s the younger brother of Jesus Christ and that he needs to lead a Christian revolt against the ruling dynasty. His movement grows into an army that eventually conquers Nanjing and results in a civil war that had more casualties than any conflict besides World War II. ---
**Author:** ![chacoguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@chacoguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chacoguy)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-real-life-story-is-better-than-fiction/766784/26 "2016-09-26T19:51:28Z")
Undaunted Courage and Band of Brothers by Sephen Ambrose ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-real-life-story-is-better-than-fiction/766784/27 "2016-09-26T20:05:30Z")
The details of how Archduke Ferdinand was shot, kicking off WWI, is so full of coincidences that it reads like a terrible crime story. ---
**Author:** ![Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a87d85/32.png) [@Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tired_and_Cranky)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-real-life-story-is-better-than-fiction/766784/28 "2016-09-26T20:08:38Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > And who it was who handled it. I’d say that identifying an individual by the traces of their scent they leave on their environment qualifies as “bloodhound-like”. Maybe not as good as an actual bloodhound can do, but certainly similar. It’s been years since I read that Feynman autobiography but I thought he was playing a game with his wife in her hospital room in New Mexico. He knew beforehand that his wife handled one of a number of old books on a bookshelf; he just didn’t know which book. Am I remembering it correctly? If so, he didn’t really identify her by scent; he just smelled something different about that book. ---
**Author:** ![installLSC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/54ee81/32.png) [@installLSC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/installLSC)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-real-life-story-is-better-than-fiction/766784/29 "2016-09-26T20:19:55Z")
[“Mad Jack” Churchill.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Churchill) ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-real-life-story-is-better-than-fiction/766784/30 "2016-09-26T20:24:41Z")
I stumbled across the Wikipedia page for 19th century San Fransico real estate/mining/whatever investor [Lucky Baldwin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_Baldwin) today. Holy cow! What an entrepreneur. And his love live was nothing to sneeze at either. He founded the Santa Anita Park racetrack, just for good measure. ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a8b319/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_wuzzy)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-real-life-story-is-better-than-fiction/766784/31 "2016-09-26T20:47:37Z")
The life of Thomas Cochrane. > **[Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Cochrane,_10th_Earl_of_Dundonald)** > > Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald GCB, OMCh, OSC (14 December 1775 – 31 October 1860), styled Lord Cochrane between 1778 and 1831, was a Scottish naval officer, peer, mercenary and politician. Serving during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars in the Royal Navy, his naval successes led Napoleon to nickname him le Loup des Mers (the Sea Wolf). He was successful in virtually all of his naval actions. > Cochrane was dismissed from the Royal Navy in 1814 after a controversial convict... A Napoleonic era commander in the Royal Navy, freedom fighter for various South American countries, political radical, money grubbing charlatan, and one of the most audacious seamen ever to go into battle. He was close to using chemical weapons(stink ships) against the Russians during the Crimean War at the advanced age of late 70’s. I don’t know how humane it would have been to use chemical weapons this way but what an adventure it would have been to see the old sea-dog attempt it. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-real-life-story-is-better-than-fiction/766784/32 "2016-09-26T20:54:21Z")
The River of Doubt Quote from Amazon -“At once an incredible adventure narrative and a penetrating biographical portrait, The River of Doubt is the true story of Theodore Roosevelt’s harrowing exploration of one of the most dangerous rivers on earth.” A great book. I turned my Wife onto it and she loves it (though not much for biographies and adventure novels" ---
**Author:** ![Cartoonacy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/848f3c/32.png) [@Cartoonacy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartoonacy)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-real-life-story-is-better-than-fiction/766784/33 "2016-09-26T21:09:53Z")
> [@Tired\_and\_Cranky](#): > > It’s been years since I read that Feynman autobiography but I thought he was playing a game with his wife in her hospital room in New Mexico. He knew beforehand that his wife handled one of a number of old books on a bookshelf; he just didn’t know which book. Am I remembering it correctly? If so, he didn’t really identify her by scent; he just smelled something different about that book. I remembered it the same as you, but I just checked the book: > [@](#): > > We carefully took eight or nine books off the shelf without touching them directly with our hands, and then I went out. Three different people touched three different books: they picked one up, opened it, closed it, and put it back. Then I came back, and smelled everybody’s hands, and smelled all the books–I don’t remember which I did first-- and found all three books correctly; I got one person wrong… All hands have a sort of moist smell, and a person who smokes has a very different smell on his hands from a person who doesn’t; ladies often have different kinds of perfumes, and so on. If somebody happened to have some coins in his pocket and happened to be handling them, you can smell that. ---
**Author:** ![Cartoonacy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/848f3c/32.png) [@Cartoonacy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartoonacy)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-real-life-story-is-better-than-fiction/766784/34 "2016-09-26T21:12:03Z")
_The Cuckoo’s Egg_ by Clifford Stoll was a fascinating real-life detective/espionage story from the early days of the internet. ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-real-life-story-is-better-than-fiction/766784/35 "2016-09-26T21:14:01Z")
[Christopher Lee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Lee) - reading that Wiki entry it’s almost inconceivable that was one person. ---
**Author:** ![Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a87d85/32.png) [@Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tired_and_Cranky)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-real-life-story-is-better-than-fiction/766784/36 "2016-09-26T21:38:44Z")
> [@Cartoonacy](#): > > I remembered it the same as you, but I just checked the book: Thanks Cartoonacy. So I remembered the book wrong but I think my point still stands. He did a good job identifying which books had been handled. Randomness would have him with a roughly 1% chance of finding all the books that had been handled and not misidentifying any books that hadn’t been handled. The rules of the game are unclear. If he knew three different people handled three different books, there is no good way to get two out of three correctly. He should either have gotten all three, swapped two with each other (getting one right), or gotten none of them. So I think there was an experimental design problem. Perhaps after each guess, he was told whether he had the right person. So, he identified the first person correctly (randomly - 1/3 chance, but easier if, let’s say, one person were a heavy smoker or perfume wearer who was easy to identify). Then, he could have guessed the second wrongly (1/2 chance) and then repeated his second guess on the third book (100% chance of getting it correct by process of elimination). This doesn’t seem like any particular talent for identifying which person handled the book. ---
**Author:** ![Cartoonacy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/848f3c/32.png) [@Cartoonacy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartoonacy)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-real-life-story-is-better-than-fiction/766784/37 "2016-09-26T22:42:01Z")
> [@Tired\_and\_Cranky](#): > > Thanks Cartoonacy. So I remembered the book wrong but I think my point still stands. He did a good job identifying which books had been handled. Randomness would have him with a roughly 1% chance of finding all the books that had been handled and not misidentifying any books that hadn’t been handled. > > The rules of the game are unclear. If he knew three different people handled three different books, there is no good way to get two out of three correctly. He should either have gotten all three, swapped two with each other (getting one right), or gotten none of them. So I think there was an experimental design problem. Perhaps after each guess, he was told whether he had the right person. So, he identified the first person correctly (randomly - 1/3 chance, but easier if, let’s say, one person were a heavy smoker or perfume wearer who was easy to identify). Then, he could have guessed the second wrongly (1/2 chance) and then repeated his second guess on the third book (100% chance of getting it correct by process of elimination). This doesn’t seem like any particular talent for identifying which person handled the book. If there were only three other people in the room, that’s true. I omitted the previous paragraph (italics mine): > [@](#): > > Many years later, when I was first at Caltech,\* there was a party at Professor Bacher’s house, and there were a lot of people\* from Caltech. I don’t know how it came up, but I was telling them this story about smelling the bottles and the books. They didn’t believe a word, naturally because they always thought I was a faker. I had to demonstrate it. ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_s\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19adc/32.png) [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-real-life-story-is-better-than-fiction/766784/38 "2016-09-27T00:25:35Z")
“The Last Battle” by Stephen Harding at the end of World war II American and German soldiers team up to save high-ranking French prisoners from being killed by the SS. > **[The Last Battle (Harding book)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Battle_(Harding))** > > The Last Battle: When U.S. and German Soldiers Joined Forces in the Waning Hours of World War II in Europe is a book by the historian Stephen Harding which tells the story of the World War II Battle for Castle Itter. > Published by Da Capo Press, on May 7, 2013, it describes a mixed force of United States Army, German Wehrmacht, and Austrian resistance fighters acting together to prevent the recapture of a number of French VIP prisoners being held at Itter Castle, Austria, by an SS assault party, ... ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-real-life-story-is-better-than-fiction/766784/39 "2016-09-27T00:28:33Z")
[Otto Skorzeny](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Skorzeny). Not that I think anyone will be willing to make a movie about a Nazi. Even a Nazi that later worked for the Mossad. ---
**Author:** ![gkster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gkster/32/14107_2.png) [@gkster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gkster)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-real-life-story-is-better-than-fiction/766784/40 "2016-09-27T01:28:34Z")
Frank Abagnale, whose story is told in the film and musical _Catch Me if You Can_. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-real-life-story-is-better-than-fiction/766784.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-real-life-story-is-better-than-fiction/766784.md?page=3)