Current books

[vilakins]

I finally got The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society from the library today. I was surprised it was that fast, since I started at the end of a queue of about 200 people; they must have bought a several more copies. It even has a built-in book mark, one of those old-fashioned woven ribbons. :-) I am really going to enjoy this, having seen the Enemy at the Door series about the Nazi occupation of Guernsey this year.

[checks other queues] I'm now 27 of 54 for Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and 13 of 18 for The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. They've obviously bought more of those too, seeing I started off at over 100 for each.

I'm in the middle of Maeve Binchy's Evening Class, one of two of hers picked up at that second-hand book fair a while back. I don't normally go for novels about everyday life and people, but I got them on the strength of the film Circle of Friends, and it's a delight, like that. I may have to read more of hers.

Comments

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, I think I heard that on the radio recently.

[astrogirl2.livejournal.com]

I was surprised it was that fast, since I started at the end of a queue of about 200 people; they must have bought a several more copies.

I wouldn't be surprised if they did, given how popular it is. Of course, it's also a very fast read.

and 13 of 18 for The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie.

I read that earlier this month and thought it was not bad, but not as good as I'd been given to expect. I'm kind of curious now to see if you'll end up liking it better than I did. You might.

I don't normally go for novels about everyday life and people,

You know, I find I'm reading a lot more mainstream-y kind of books now than I ever used to. I'm not entirely sure when that happened. :)

[zoefruitcake.livejournal.com]

I'm about a quarter through Pride and Prejudice and zombies ;0)

they are obviously swift readers down your way

[bigdamnxenafan.livejournal.com]

I quite enjoyed Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. So much so I bought a copy. I'm looking forward to getting your reaction to it.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

It would adapt well with the different voices of the letters.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

it's also a very fast read

I know! I'm going to try to pace myself or I'll gobble it up too quickly to enjoy the taste. And oh man, I can imagine it so well, having seen Enemy at the Door.

I'm looking forward to the other Pie book too; it sounds just the sort of thing I would have loved as a child who would have liked to have a chem lab in the basement and do things to her mean and bullying sister.

I've had a go at some popular "Aga saga" novels and not enjoyed them that much, but Evening Class makes me see the characters and want to know more about them. Even though they're all Dubliners and rather foreign in how religion permeates their lives regardless of their beliefs, I can relate to them and their disappointments and dreams. Other people in "slice of life" books sometimes just seem boring or irrelevant to me. These characters feel alive.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I heard it's very clever how they merge real P&P prose and dialogue in with the story. :-)

You only get a book for 3 weeks (it was 6 once) and you can't renew it if others have it ordered. I'll read this in less than a week, tough I'm trying not to eat it all at once. :-) It's not that long. I think you'd enjoy it with all the vivid character voices in the letters.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Everyone seems to have enjoyed it, so I'm looking forward to it. I only reread P&P last year so it's very clear in my mind, which will be a bonus. :-)

[astrogirl2.livejournal.com]

Other people in "slice of life" books sometimes just seem boring or irrelevant to me. These characters feel alive.

I think real-feeling characters are always very important. But I guess in genre fiction you can compensate for some degree of lack in the character department with nifty world-building or intriguing ideas or a well-constructed mystery or something. In "slice of life" books, the characters are pretty much everything, so the book completely stands or falls based on how well they work for you.

[crycraven.livejournal.com]

So your library has an online queue system you can check? Wow, that's great. I should use a library mroe. Have just spent loads of money I don't have on Lawrence, only to realise that I have to use the academic copies...WOE!

[crycraven.livejournal.com]

I have to say I'm the opposite to Vilakins - I can't read genre fiction anymore, because I find it infuriatingly limited and usually poorly written. I've read a lot of sci fi in my younger (less discerning) years, and now wouldn't touch it with a barge pole - unless I had been assured that it was literary fiction disguised as speculative. Everyone wave at Margaret Atwood! (If you call her books sci fi to her face she tends to get annoyed, I'm told.)

[astrogirl2.livejournal.com]

I have found that my own standards have gotten higher as I've gotten older, and a lot of SF and fantasy that I ate up as a youngster seems nearly unreadable to me now, because decent characters and decent prose certainly aren't always seen as requirement. But, of course, not all of it is poorly written, by any means, and at its best it can be wonderfully imaginative in ways that you don't really get anywhere else. So I can often enjoy genre stuff even when it's flawed, if it truly does show some imagination, or even just a sense of fun.

Mostly, I think, I'm actually less inclined to judge based on genre these days. The "all speculative fiction is interesting and all literary fiction is boring" attitude I had as a kid is clearly wrong, but I don't think the opposite statement is any more valid, either.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's a great system, and being improved all the time. I've been ordering books via it for years; you can search by title, author, or keywords. Lately they've taken to labelling book in series so you can see them listed in order, and this is very cool. It costs $1 a book., but it's so much more convenient than going to the library that has the book and looking for it. This way I can order from anywhere in the city and just have to collect my swag. They even have a feature where you can automatically save a list of what you've borrowed.

I am only sad that there's hardly any classic SF left, and some authors like Vernor Vinge just aren't on the shelves.

[crycraven.livejournal.com]

If it's not well written, I can't read it, and even if it's got amazing ideas I'm not willing to waste my time - hence the no genre fiction. We have to disagree on the validity of the opposite statement, because I'd rather spend time with flawed lit fic (read 'Virginia Wolf') than a buffed up piece of genre fiction. But, as we all know, YMMV!

[astrogirl2.livejournal.com]

Well, everything's a matter of taste. Me, I'd much rather read a decent and thought-provoking SF story than a piece of lit fic with pretty prose but nothing in it which actually speaks to me. Mostly, I don't remotely require a book to be well written, if it's got other redeeming qualities. All I ask is that it not be badly written. (And have other redeeming qualities. :))

Also, I really do think that the categories tend to be largely artificial anyway, with much more overlap than folks on the literary end like to admit. Atwood may swear up and down that The Handmaid's Tale isn't SF, but that doesn't actually make it not SF. And Robert Silverberg, say, may label himself an SF writer, but that doesn't mean that his Dying Inside isn't as fine a literary novel as any I've read. A "no genre fiction" rule may save you from a lot of bad writing, but it also throws out a lot of babies with the bathwater. Which is fine, if your goal is to narrow down your reading and prevent yourself from encountering as much stuff that you won't like as possible. Me, I like to cast my net very, very wide, and if I haul in some real crap with it, I also end up finding gems in unexpected places, which is totally worth it for me. But then, I read so much that even with being fairly indiscriminate, I think I still read more really good books per year than the average person might read in a lifetime. So it works for me as a strategy. Even bad books don't trouble me for very long, since I read them fast, and then I can have the fun of complaining about them afterward. :)

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

You're not really the opposite. It's not that I only read genre fiction--I actually said that I don't normally go for novels about everyday life and people. I like speculative fiction for its ideas and imagination, but I do require decent characters as well, which is why I like Scott Lynch and China Mieville.

However I will read anything that interests me, and that means some sort of twist, like humour, a mystery, an exotic setting in space of time (like the India of A Suitable Boy, or the Rome of Marcus Didius Falco) or something that distracts me from RL in some way. The Binchy is about ordinary Dubliners, not something I thought would really grab me, and it's just fascinating.

[crycraven.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think that's what I mean. If something is worthy it will jump the genre-fic label, (The Road? 1984?)but if I have to dig around too much then...


ARGH I've just realised that I am about to agree with Eliot's Function of Criticism, my least least least favourite thing in the whole wide world. Shut up, Eliot. But yeah. Genre fic, no ta. I don't see this as narrowing.

[imhilien.livejournal.com]

I know I've been meaning to read the 'Potato' and 'Zombies' books, since they both appeal to me. :)

With Maeve's books, I find I either love them or hate them. My favourite is her fairly recent 'Whitethorn Woods', which I've re-read quite a few times. :)

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I'm loving the Guernsey book! It ties in so well with the Enemy at the Door series we watched this year, but with added humour.

I really enjoyed the film of Binchy's Circle of Friends which is why I bought two at the book fair--for less than it would cost to order them from the library. I suppose not liking all of them means that she has different styles, and this is a good thing. I'll see what I think of the other one, The Copper Beech.