I’ve been running low on things to read lately. Most of the science fiction and especially the fantasy stuff looks like completely shallow and unoriginal tripe. And while there are plenty of other things to read besides science fiction and fantasy, I don’t really know where to start.
Coetzee has been recommended to me, but for some reason I’m loathe to try him out. I don’t really know what I am looking for. I just got back from the library where I wandered aimlessly staring at things until I ended up grabbing a couple of books. I’m not really interested in anything that tells a story of the modern world. It needs some sort of secondary creation evident to it, some sort of twist, or at least something foreign enough to seem so. I’ve been reading a book of literary criticism on Tolkien lately and often I find it pointing out strengths in his works that I find missing in most other fantasy. Which is why I’m looking for other stuff.
I enjoyed Louis Aragon’s The Adventures of Telemachus a few months ago, so I grabbed another book of his; called Paris Peasant. I also checked out a book by the Chinese author Yu Hua titled Chronicle of a Blood Merchant, which apparently takes place under Chairman Mao. Hopefully one or the other will provide me with a good tale, which is all I ever really want from a book.
I don’t read much science fiction. Generally, I find it boring and too unrealistc for my taste.
Often, I read biographies, because it is comforting and fascinating to me to read about people from another time. I recommend the book by alison weird, about the six wives of henry viii. Or, if you want more fiction, Memoirs of a Geisha is really pretty darn awesome, if you ask me.
id reccomend anything that henry rollins ever wrote, if you can find it. if you cant, and you are interested ill let you borrow mine.
I’ve read some Coetzee and he’s definitely worth reading. I’m not quite sure WHAT you’re afraid of (maybe that Meljac was the one who recommended him–heh heh), but he’s harmless. ; ) Anyways, you want a relatively fast nice read from him, try DISGRACE.
Also, as I always recommend, the PUSHCART PRIZE ANTHOLOGIES are totally worth picking up. You can just trudge around in them randomly and read whatever appeals to you after the first page or two and quit on what doesn’t. And it has not only poetry and fiction but also essays which is a nice change to. This year’s was quite good. Read it. Whore.
You know me adam, a sucker for history books and what not. May I suggest The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara and Nothing Like It In The World by Stephen E. Ambrose. I should warn you a bit about the last, Ambrose has been accused of plagirism, and it sort of seems that way when you read the book, but it is still a great book.
howard zinn’s a people’s history of the united states is a fine read. i’m going to agree with phil that henry rollins truly does write some fantastic stuff, and if you haven’t already perused all of phillip k. dick’s books,(which i don’t consider science-fiction) do so.