I wish a lot of nonfiction books would start with a glossary. Like some pulp fiction (eg Perry Mason novels) begins with dramatis personae like in plays. Dramatis Ideatae? Dramatis Memetae? Someone latinize these.
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Also is there a general audience nonfiction example of beginning with a narrative bibliography? Not an introduction or lit survey. Straight-up, “here’s how I got to my starting point”?
Nonfiction conventions could use some shaking up
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A glossary of what? That depends on the writers having a meta-view of their own work, and a pre-determined shared point of view between audience and author
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Not necessarily. You could just define your big loose terms in a fun way to throw people off the deep end Inyo your thinking. No prior knowledge needed
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It would be a sobering critique of a lot of writing about post-post-mo to structure a book that was 95% definitions at the front, and then just 5% of dense exposition at the end. Like the Heart Sutra written in Tolkien High Elvish or something.
Math proofs are like this.
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A good table of contents with informative chapter titles is such a joy to read - serves a vaguely similar purpose (though not quite so comprehensively.)



