Let's play a game this morning
Jan. 10th, 2013 10:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
decemberthirtyA book recommending game!
I spent most of 2012 in a reading rut. You know the sort of thing I mean--reading all sorts of books, always hoping that I would fall in love with the next one, but never quite getting there. This year, I'd like to feel passionate about my reading again. And I'd like it if you, dear LJ-friends, would help me break out of my rut.
Here's how it'll work: I'll give a general description of my taste and the sort of things I like (longtime readers probably already know more than enough about my taste in books!), and you tell me about an author you think I might like or describe the last book that knocked you head over heels. BUT! This is not a one-way street! If you'd like to receive recommendations too, post a comment that tells us about you as a reader, and if I've got any good recommendations for you I'll share them. Others can chime in too, and soon (I hope!) we'll all be sharing our favorites with each other and adding lots of titles to our to-read lists. If this sounds like fun to you, feel free to pass it around--the more the merrier!
Favorite authors: E.M. Forster, Marilynne Robinson, Virginia Woolf, Colm Tóibín, Pat Barker, Ursula K. Le Guin, Flannery O'Connor, Alice Munro, Michael Chabon, Sherwood Anderson, etc...
Preferred genres: Fiction. Fiction of all sorts: short stories, novels, novellas. I mostly read fiction of the 'literary' variety, but I am happy break out of those bounds for well-written sci-fi, mysteries, or thrillers. Very occasionally I read memoir and essay collections.
Things I like: historical settings, queer characters, queer characters in historical settings, beautiful prose, believable love stories even (especially?) when the endings aren't happy ones, dark elements, real human emotion, coming-of-age stories, tight plots but also sometimes introspective plotless rambles, books that make me work, stories about families, characters I can love.
Last book that really blew me away: To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf. You can read my post about here, if that would be useful.
Okay, go!
I spent most of 2012 in a reading rut. You know the sort of thing I mean--reading all sorts of books, always hoping that I would fall in love with the next one, but never quite getting there. This year, I'd like to feel passionate about my reading again. And I'd like it if you, dear LJ-friends, would help me break out of my rut.
Here's how it'll work: I'll give a general description of my taste and the sort of things I like (longtime readers probably already know more than enough about my taste in books!), and you tell me about an author you think I might like or describe the last book that knocked you head over heels. BUT! This is not a one-way street! If you'd like to receive recommendations too, post a comment that tells us about you as a reader, and if I've got any good recommendations for you I'll share them. Others can chime in too, and soon (I hope!) we'll all be sharing our favorites with each other and adding lots of titles to our to-read lists. If this sounds like fun to you, feel free to pass it around--the more the merrier!
Favorite authors: E.M. Forster, Marilynne Robinson, Virginia Woolf, Colm Tóibín, Pat Barker, Ursula K. Le Guin, Flannery O'Connor, Alice Munro, Michael Chabon, Sherwood Anderson, etc...
Preferred genres: Fiction. Fiction of all sorts: short stories, novels, novellas. I mostly read fiction of the 'literary' variety, but I am happy break out of those bounds for well-written sci-fi, mysteries, or thrillers. Very occasionally I read memoir and essay collections.
Things I like: historical settings, queer characters, queer characters in historical settings, beautiful prose, believable love stories even (especially?) when the endings aren't happy ones, dark elements, real human emotion, coming-of-age stories, tight plots but also sometimes introspective plotless rambles, books that make me work, stories about families, characters I can love.
Last book that really blew me away: To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf. You can read my post about here, if that would be useful.
Okay, go!
no subject
Date: 2013-01-10 05:41 pm (UTC)Palace Walk - Naguib Mahfouz
The Good Earth - Pearl S. Buck
The Cry of the Go-Away Bird - Andrea Eames
North and South - Elizabeth Gaskell (similar to Jane Austen, but while I just can't get into Austen I adore Gaskell, who's also much funnier though this isn't one of her humorous ones.)
Antigonick - Anne Carson
Black Swan Green – David Mitchell (definitely my favorite recent coming of age story)
The Secret River - Kate Grenville
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - Mary Ann Schaffer
Her Fearful Symmetry - Audrey Niffenegger (maybe. It's quite dark and rather odd, sort of coming of age plus a bit of supernatural business, but in a not-too-annoying way.)
My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece - Annabel Pitcher (this had some issues, but all in all was an excellent book, I think it's technically aimed at young adults but could easily go in the adult section, I feel.)
These are mostly sort of random, but I think all fit at least one of the likes you mentioned. I also just have a great love for both Naguib Mahfouz and Pearl S. Buck. Sometimes I see The Good Earth being assigned as summer reading to high schoolers and then they hate it because they're teenagers with little world knowledge or experience and or patience with history. So I try to get people who read it too young to read it again.
no subject
Date: 2013-01-10 06:28 pm (UTC)I have to confess, though, that I read Palace Walk a couple years ago, and I kind of hated it. I know so many people who love it, and I really thought I would love it too, so I suspect the problem may have been with me rather than the book... I tell people that I didn't find myself caring about any of the characters and they look at me like I'm crazy. Maybe I am!
no subject
Date: 2013-01-10 08:05 pm (UTC)Honestly I think it takes a lot for me to really care about a fictional character. I care deeply about the real people I read about in non-fiction and can get quite fannish, but with fiction it's not really a strong point for me. Now, fiction with no even remotely likeable main characters (grumble grumble Blithedale Romance grumble grumble) is something I hate reading, but I really don't need to care about the characters to enjoy a book.