Bookworms, Unite!!!

Hello there, nice to meet you fellow bookworm!!! . I don't have a lot of novels for my dolls but I know there are several places who make and sell them, like on Etsy. I'm currently reading a borrowed book called the Night Circus. It's a little slow moving. I really enjoy Jodi Picoult, who wrote My Sister's Keeper. I also like Paul Russell, David Leavitt and David Leviathan. John Green if I want a quick read.
Bjd books | Etsy

 

Hi! I am obsessed with reading which is really ironic since I was terrible at reading as a kid! It was my most hated thing and it took me years to read one novel. But now, since about 2014, I've read probably a hundred novels. I read through a whole series (which was about thirteen books) in about two months. These days I read a thick novel in one to two days. I love dark fantasy stories. Some of my favourite authors include P.C. Cast (Marked series and Goddess of Partholon trilogy), Lauren Kate (Fallen series), Cayla Kluver (The Legacy trilogy), Lissa Price (Starters and Enders), Kristin Cashore (Graceling and Fire), Maria V. Snyder (Healer series)and also Soman Chainani (School for Good and Evil series). That's just a few of many...

 

Oh man...

My favorite genres are historical nonfiction about the 19th century, and general fiction published before 1912. I don't know why, but with very few exceptions, contemporary fiction just doesn't do it for me.

I recently finished "How to be a Victorian" by Ruth Goodman, which was all about domestic life and daily routines in Victorian England. I really enjoyed it!

I also read a lot of 19th century crime nonfiction because I'm a sucker for detective stories. The most recent books I recall reading are "Beating the devil's game" (a history of forensic science), "The invention of murder" (media and society's fascination with murder stories), "Prisons and prisoners in Victorian Britain" (all about the prison system).

My favorite fiction works are:

• "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll
• "The Night Tales" (specifically "The Sandman") by E.T.A. Hoffman

And my favorite of all time is

• "The Secret of the Earth" by Charles Willing Beale

If anyone wants unintentionally hilarious recommendations:

"The Divine Seal" by Emma Louise Orcutt The divine seal : Orcutt, Emma Louise : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

• Every girl is so beautiful, but the main girl is so beautiful that all other beauties pale by comparison. There is a snake-headed villain who steeples his fingers while he monologues his evil plans aloud to himself in great detail.

"The Experiences of Loveday Brooke" by Catherine Louisa Pirkis The Experiences of Loveday Brooke, Lady Detective

• A lady detective and her adventures in melodrama.

"Irene Iddesleigh" by Amanda McKittrick Ros Irene Iddesleigh

• Possibly the worst novel ever written. It gives me life.

 

Hello bookworms! Already seeing some interesting titles to add to my reading list. I’ve become a big mystery, crime, detective reader in the past few years but mostly due to one of my doll stories. Growing up I was hooked on fantasy and biographies of all sorts of historical figures. These days I still love bios, memoirs and published journals/diaries. And I sort of just randomly started reading stage plays recently. I’ve been trying to see more live theater and the plays I’m not able to attend I go and read the script and usually the original playwright’s notes on it. Also due to my increasing job schedule short stories are a gift! If anyone has recommendations for authors or published collections of short stories, I’d love to look them up!

 

I'm seeing some cool recommendations here. I like to alternate between fiction and nonfiction. For fiction, I've recently finished Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal, which I really enjoyed. It's a family drama in the style of Jane Austen, but with the addition that some people in this world can use illusion magic. I really got sucked in, and I'll be continuing the series

I'm in the mood for nonfiction right now, so I've been reading Hell's Princess, about a 19th century black-widow serial killer. I'm not normally into true crime, but this is wild enough that I might become a fan of the genre. I'm sure there's way more out there, and reading about everything this woman I'd never heard of got away with is fascinating!

I'm also reading Damn Fine Story by Chuck Wendig, which is writing advice delivered with his odd sense of humor. It's some of the only writing advice I've read that doesn't make me anxious. I've picked up some of his fiction, too, but haven't started on them yet since I'm still in nonfiction mode. XD


For short stories, I read Neil Gaiman's Trigger Warning last year and really enjoyed most of the stories. He does surrealist fantasy for the most part, and some horror. I really love Peter S. Beagle's short stories, too.

 

I love reading. I love a whole bunch of different types of books and I try to read as widely as I can. For the most part, though, my favourite books tend to be fantasy - it's such a broad and fun genre! But only in English! In French, which I need to find more time for, I read almost exclusively historical fiction. Additionally, I read a lot of nonfiction, thanks in part to my background in history. Also, turns out that going to school for history was a total boon on my reading skills - now, I can read pretty much anything but the longest, driest books in a timely manner once I get in a rhythm. Plus, I tend to get fixated on the presentation of specific historical figures in fiction, and this really helps because a lot of that fiction is... not great.

Right now, I'm on a bit of a Manfred von Richthofen kick - I just finished War of the Worlds: Goliath by Adam J. Whitlatch (good, but I prefer the movie), I'm working through The Red Baron by Peter Kilduff (it's not difficult, I just got distracted!). I have a bunch of stuff in the mail, including a comic and a choose-your-own-adventure novel, which will be a new reading experience for me! I've also been reading a surprising amount about Madame Tussaud - the novel by Michelle Moran was surprisingly good, and I love the French Revolution, so I went down a bit of a rabbit hole there.

Oof, my favourite series! The Legend of Eli Monpress, the Hearstrikers series, and the Paradox trilogy by Rachel Aaron (Bach for that last one.) Really great fantasy/sci-fi-fantasy/sci-fi with these amazingly developed worlds and magic systems, usually with some really great messages and themes. They aren't perfect, but they're close - to me, at least! There's also Erin Bow - my favourite is her dystopian YA novel The Scorpion Rules (tragic gay royal babies! snarky evil AI overlords! goats!!) but I also really enjoyed Plain Kate and Sorrow's Knot. I also really like Havemercy and Shadow Magic by Jaida Jones and Danielle Bennett - among many things, I adore the cultures they're set in. The Runestone Saga by Chris Humphreys is probably my least-known favourite, but I find it a great horror series with some really neat historical details. My unquestioned favourite French series is Chevalier d'Eon: Agent secret du roi by Anne-Sophie Silvestre. It was the series that actually got me reading in French (take that, nine years of private school!)

I don't really have a preference for type of book! I guess I lean a little towards physical copies, since I will buy physical versions of e-books I really enjoyed, but I do read a lot of ebooks. I actually have both a Kobo and a Kindle because the Kobo is nicer and more convenient, but I wanted Kindle exclusives too. I've also been listening to a lot of audiobooks while at work - I get Hoopla through my local library, so that's a lot of things to listen too! It's not on Hoopla, but the Heartstrikers audiobooks, narrated by Vikas Adam, are easily the best I've ever heard.

I also read a lot of manga! I don't know if there's one genre I really, honestly prefer over another. Lately I've been reading a lot of supernatural shoujo manga. The Demon Prince of Momochi House quickly became one of my favourites! My other favourites are Here is Greenwood, A Bride's Story, FMA, Haikyuu!!, Frau Faust, Ancient Magus Bride, Ghost Hunt, Genjuu no Seiza, Shiranui Kitanroku... One reason I'm excited to go back to Japan is to buy a physical copy of that last one, along with the series Burai by Iwasaki Youko. I love the Shinsengumi and the supernatural, so Shinsengumi + supernatural = ...

 

Yay my people!! I read all the time. Mostly fiction (though I do non every once in a while), Urban Fantasy is my fav, also horror, mystery, crime, action-adventure and scifi-fantasy, some regular\high fantasy, sometimes a cozy mystery (especially the ones with magic and\or food involved!), and every once in a while, YA. I am currently re-reading Meg (since it's been over a decade since I last read it and the movie just came out). I love Preston and Child's Pendergast series, The Dresden Files (which may never finish now), Stephen King, Karin Slaughter Jo Nesbo, Kim Harrison, Stephen Blackmoore and about a million others.

I love recommendations so this thread is win.

I used to have a lot more books, but I had to downsize after I got into BJDs and they took over my main book shelf XD but it's ok, but now I have room for more? ...ok that's not really true, I have books everywhere now because I decided I don't like ebooks and only buy real ones again, and I have a lot of graphic novels too. Sigh.

 

Even though I killed this thread, two years later I need it alive.

Anyone read the Dresden Files? Is the last one any good? Should I bother?? Peace Talks was so abysmal I can't bring myself to even buy the next one. and it's in my wishlist so I see it often and think about it.

I feel like I should give it another chance since I have so much invested in the series, but after attempting to read the Twilight series I have realized that life is too short to read books that are not good.

 

I'm currently reading Joe Hill's Full Throttle, and loving it. No surprise there-- he reads a lot like his father, not just where horror is concerned. Late Returns hits the strange and wistful and heartfelt just right.

I am a horror junkie, but I'll read just about anything, as long as I find it enjoyable. I mean I tend to prefer genre fiction in general

Favorite books overall:
-Good Omens
-Watership Down
-The Left Hand of Darkness

And then anything by Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, Oscar Wilde, and while not everything by Conan Doyle, I am a fan of the Holmes canon and while I have enjoyed various adaptations, pastiches, and loving nods, I can be picky and pedantic about them (Wishbone the dog did a better job of Irene Adler than 99% of men ever could).

(Re: The Dresden Files, I felt like the bits that I would enjoy were quickly outweighed by stuff I could not enjoy, so despite having it recommended to me by a few people, I never did get into it)

 

A bookworm thread! Reading is one of my favorite things in the world. I think I'm a little bit of an oddball here though: my tastes tend towards nonfiction, especially history, and classics. Currently on a weird binge where I started "Makers of Rome" by Plutarch, finished the chapter on Coriolanus, decided I also needed to read Shakespeare's Coriolanus play, and am going to watch the film version of the play Ralph Fiennes did when I'm finished with the play. After that I have a book on Vikings history (one of my top favorite eras) to finish, and then Anna Karenina by Tolstoy is my next novel to read, probably (though I also have Wolf Hall to try....we'll just see what I end up in the mood for next.) I don't only read stuff most people think is boring though, lol-- one of the best novels I've ever read was Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clark, and I do like fantasy as a genre in general.

 

Oh I did not know this thread existed!

I prefer paperback books, because I tend to read when commuting. But I tend to buy hardbacks when I truly truly love the books. (Also, because by the time I am finished reading it, the paperback is usually bent, stained, with all its corner smashed in, etc. because they are dragged off in my bag since I basically live in the train between my home, my workplace and the library.

I love historical fiction, but I have been occasionally tempted to read fantasy, generally because I don't watch TV except for the news and want to keep up with whatever popular shows and movies my friends and younger cousins are talking about (A song of Ice and fire, Harry Potter, but I totally gave up on Twilight 20 pages in. I just can't do pure romance. I hope to be their "relatable cousin", since my brother rarely plays along, but romance is too tall hurdle for me XD).

My favorite books are those written by Oscar Wilde. He's so, so funny, in a very dry way. Also "1984", a classic, but the Orwell journalistic style of writing is something I had to study and still apply today. It's still a very actual story, with themes that resonate stronger than ever. I read some Conan Doyle and Shakespeare. I quite like theater, so I tend to seek out scripts. I love anything related to the war of Roses or Henry VIII (fiction and non-fiction). I loved "The Sunne in Splendor", in particular. I also bought Wolf Hall, but I am waiting for my exams to end, I don't dare to start it before, lest I only read this and not what I am really supposed to read for my exam. Priorities, I don't have them. XD

I also love and collect cooking books from the different countries I had the pleasure to visit. I especially love the historical cooking of England in medieval times, the English have preserved a lot of their cooking culture, and they have so much stories tied to a lot of dishes that it's very interesting to read, not only for the recipe, but also to understand how people lived in this time period.

And of course, while I read a lot of books in English, I also read in my mother tongue. I don't know if there is a lot of French people on this forum, but "Les Misérables" by Victor Hugo is well worth your time, as most of the themes are still of very actual importance to this day. And it's a very moving story. "Les rois maudits" by Maurice Druon is also exceptionally good historical fiction.

My German is rather poor, yet I could appreciate "Der Besuch der alten Dame" from Dürrenmatt. I know a lot of people suffered it when they had to study this in high school, but this is such an interesting story and one of the very few love stories that I really like(well..."love turned sour"). It really is a good representation of human greed but also of our hypocrisy. (Basically, it's about an elderly woman who promises a famished village a fortune if one of them kills the man who jilted her after getting her pregnant and condemned her to a harsh life. At first, no one in the village wants to kill the man. But little by little, they are living above their means, thinking that someone is going to kill him and hoping that it will be another or that the man will commit suicide. The more the time pass, the more enticing is the idea of killing him...it's not unlike our dilemna with counterfeits and things produced cheaply by overworked people in sweatshops: people can so easily be enticed to get the shiny beautiful thing and lying to ourselves to justify the people being crushed by our decisions) Also, it's a theater piece, and it has been played many times. If you ever have the chance to watch a performance, I strongly encourage you too!

 

@lyaam12 I made it through the first book in the Game of Thrones series, but I thought it was pretty dull and too crowded with too large a cast of characters. That and the fact that the series will probably never be finished turned me away from bothering to pick up the next one. I did make it through the whole Twilight series, somehow, but I had to force myself to finish it and it was because I promised a friend I'd read it with her. The last one in particular was kind of excruciating. So you didn't miss out there! It really is intense, how applicable 1984 and Animal Farm both are to current times. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley was also prophetic from a different angle. I read cookbooks too! And the German play you mentioned sounds super interesting. The "love gone sour" theme reminds me of a novel I read last year called Gunnar's Daughter by Sigrid Undset (it's a Norwegian novel but I read the English translation). It's a medieval era story about not only love gone sour, but honor and revenge, and it was one of my favorite books from my 2020 reading.

 

@thedarkeststar13 : Oh I totally understand you about GoT. I quite like it, because it's very inspired by real wars and real kings, yet it may never be finished, which would be disappointing. Starting from book 2, characters start to die, and others take some dimension, so it becomes more interesting than in the first book.

Good to know I have not missed much from Twilight! It's so weird, because I read that it was inspired by "Wuthering heights", and it was so much more interesting to me (again, it's "love gone sour" and "psychopathic love". I like those types of books, but it would totally freak me out if I should witness this in reality. ).

If you are interested, the German play by Friedriech Dürrenmatt was apparently translated as "The visit" in English with numerous adaptations. A lot of people learning German have read it, since it's such an iconic piece of the German litterature (so you may find a translation in the foreign languages section if you are interested). It's not the hardest book to read (it's middle to high school level) but it's a beautiful and horrifying story.

For more details, in the story, Alfred Ill has jilted Claire Zahanassian, because it would make his life easier. The village basically exiled Claire, who lived as a prostitute who climbed to power and wealth as a serial black widow. She impoverished the city by buying all the factories and such. When she returns, she promised a billion of Swiss franks, a fortune, to the village, conditional on them killing Alfred. And of course, while waiting for someone to kill Alfred, she lives in the village, organize her nth wedding, showing off her lavish lifestyle to the village she basically robbed every resources from. She's basically tempting them into debt, short of outright saying: "Alfred is the reason why the village fell on such hard times. Kill him to have the life you should have had, a life more like mine". While Claire obviously wanted revenge on Alfred, she also wanted revenge on the village, because they exiled her due to the fact that she was unmarried, pregnant and jilted, basically a unashamed prostitute for this era. They clung to their "honor principles", so Claire wanted to sully their morals by corrupting them with money.

I often think of that play when I have a morally difficult decision to take involving money (of course, for things way less extreme than killing or exiling someone. My life is not that interesting XD). That book has a lot of dark, painful and actual themes. Weirdly, the author always said it was intended as comedy. While there are a few light-hearted moments, I humbly beg to disagree. I had the pleasure to watch a representation with very talented amateur comedians. It was very intense. Some scenes were downright chilling. And the last scene felt like lead.

Thank you for your recommendations! I will be sure to check them out this summer!

 

@lyaam12 OH The Visit! I LOVE that play-- I got to see a really great performance of the english translation years ago, during a theatre festival, and it was an absolute experience. I knew just enough going into it about what the story would be, but not how it would end.

 

Ooh, Watership Down is on my 'to read' pile because I loved the film as a kid (I like freaky things, and wow did parts of that blow my mind as a child). I read The Plague Dogs when I realised it was back in print, and really enjoyed it. It's a bit heavy handed, being a product of its time... but it managed to leave me in tears at the end despite me not being the type to cry.

I have been very tempted to dip my toes into some Sherlock Holmes. Especially as I presume I can read it free on kindle..? The amount of free books has kept me occupied for a while, and let me read things I wouldn't try otherwise :3 so I really like my kindle for that.

Sorry for the ramble XD

I recently read Earthlings by Sayaka Murata. It's a really unusual book, and warning - contains some difficult subject matter... but I found it relatable in some ways. o_o Not so much the ending, but the feeling of isolation/incompleteness.

I started reading The Count of Monte Cristo again XD I already read it, but thought as I'd finished a few books that I owed myself a favourite. The other books I read over and over are The Prodigy by Herman Hesse, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. I also want to revisit Les Miserables, and Solaris. Definitely gotta clear some of my reading pile before I can revisit old book friends.

I read a decent amount of manga too. Current favourite is The Way of the Househusband. XD it's so funny, I can't wait for more!

Edit because I only read half the thread: I read Twilight years ago, first because I was given the first book as a joke, and then I borrowed the rest from a friend. It's... interesting. There's a lot to analyse, even though the books aren't very good. o_o Kinda similar to Harry Potter, where there's a lot of problematic stuff to unpack if one looks for it. I think my most painful book experience though was Ready Player One. It hurt, a lot.

I last read 1984, and Brave New World when I was a teen. They're waiting for me to visit them again. XD I had to read Animal Farm for an English class, which usually seems to put people off books, but I was fine with it. (Though when I was 11 I was into Stephen King, and my English teacher at the time said it would give me nightmares. XD it didn't, but I probably shouldn't have been reading them haha)

I was into Shakespeare as a kid, and if anyone has kids, the illustrated Shakespeare Stories books are an excellent way to introduce children to the plays, plus the watercolours are beautiful. I'll be honest that a lot of my overall knowledge of Shakespeare goes back to reading those when I was young. I still have my copies XD just in case I need to share them...

Actually I quite enjoy some children's books. I have a lot of fairy tale collections, and stuff like Alice in Wonderland, Gobbolino the Witch's Cat, some of my favourites from Beatrix Potter, and all the Moomin books. It's a delight to read well-crafted children's stories. :3

I like paperbacks best. The freebies on kindle are great, but I buy print copies of any that I like to have a real forever book :3

 

Definitely no need to apologize for rambling about books! At least some of the Holmes canon is in the public domain so you should be able to read some for free, I'd think.

 

If it's at Project Gutenberg it's definitely public domain. As long as you kids are reading, and hopefully getting some different POVs, it's all good. Any good book is one you want to read.

Nothing like moving to make you wonder if you have too many analog books. We'll just say I have one 5x5 and at least two of those 4x4 Ikea Kallax full. Very few are fiction because as a writer it takes a library just to write one book. I have at least a 5x5 of ebooks and plan to get more.

 

OOOO books!
I love suspense, thrillers, mystery, horror, true crime and occasionally romance of the paranormal or Austen kind lol.
Right now I am reading the Dark Tower series by Stephen King (he is my all time favorite author) I tried for years to get through the Gunslinger but couldn't get past the first few chapters and recently decided that I was going to read it through if it killed me. I am glad I did, and I am also glad I started now and don't have to wait 6 years between books (I am so sorry to you all that had to wait!) I just started book 5 today so I am hoping to finish the series by months end, if not within the next few weeks!

 

@jenlovesdolls Don't worry, I quite commonly have false starts with books. I think I bounced off both Les Miserables, and The Count of Monte Cristo the first time I tried to read them. (With TCoMC it was a particularly painful bounce as I'd gotten past the prison part, and up to Albert being introduced, so starting from scratch was... ouch!) It was worth sticking with though, and now they're some of my favourites! XD I've heard a lot of people talk highly of Dark Tower, although I only know a little about it myself. Hooray for powering through!

 

Despite being a King fan of decades, I haven't gotten through the Dark Tower series, either-- mostly because my local library never had the second book in. And there are so many other things to read that I never thought to put in a hold, though once I'm back to making regular library trips, I should.

 

I’ve loved reading since I was 7 when I read my first chapter book and graduated to adult books at 11. I went through all the Stephen King and Dean Koontz books at the local library by 13 and read The Earth’s Children Series by Jean Auel at 12 (there was only 4 books in the series at that time.) Reading was an escape from life, no matter the situation, life can be a mess and everyone needs to get away sometimes.

I read horror, classics, historical, drama, fantasy, memoirs, and biographies. A few years ago I read a bunch of young adult series with my son who was a teenager at the time. I love the smell of books but I have found it more convenient to read on my iPad kindle app, the last book I read was in print but that was because it was a gift from a friend. I just found an Etsy shop today that makes tiny, readable books for dolls so I’m adding a few to my favorites to make an order soon.

My favorites are mostly by Stephen King, his writing has always made me feel like I’m there. It reminds me of what the book store owner said in The Neverending Story to Bastian about reading and being there in the story.

Another was The Earth’s Children Series by Jean Auel. The first book, The Clan of The Cave Bear is about a Cro-Magnon child who is orphaned and injured, a Neanderthal clan nurses her back to health and raises her. In the second book and she goes to find her own people and the rest of the series is her life when she does find them. They take you to a place so far from the present and that’s why I read as a kid. Because she did so much research there was more than 5 years between the book releases so I would reread the series when a new one came out.

My third favorite is The Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice. I loved the histories and legends she wrote about and her description of spirituality, very rich stories.

 

Stephen King is pretty great, isn't he? Sometimes I feel he's too wordy/violent/melodramatic, but when he is good he is good. In my opinion the second Dark Tower novel is one of the best things he's ever written - from the very beginning the characters are in such desperate straits and he never lets up the pace, plus the images he creates are so vivid (I really love the doorway concept). I haven't finished the series - "Wizard and Glass" lost me a bit, I think because the characters felt a bit stereotypical, but I'll probably get back to it someday.

A few of my other favorites are: the Patrick O'Brian Aubrey/Maturin series, G. K. Chesterton's fiction (Father Brown, The Man Who Was Thursday, etc.), Shirley Jackson's "The Haunting of Hill House" (and others - she is awesome), the delightful "Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell" by Susanna Clarke, and many works by Ray Bradbury, Dickens, Joseph Conrad, Alice Thomas Ellis, Willa Cather, Flannery O'Connor, etc.

Some writers who amaze me with the beauty of their language are Peter Carey, Andrew Miller, China Miéville, and Neil Gaiman. I also recently read Isabel Allende's "The House of Spirits," and although I'm not sure if I enjoyed it (family epics not being my favorite genre) she can WRITE.

@bentosmile - Les Miserables is such a huge book, it's no surprise that it can take a few attempts to get into it! I've read it at least twice, but there are parts that I still skim over (sewer section, I am looking at you) haha. It is pretty nice when you can conquer a bad start and really enjoy a book! I've found that listening to audiobooks helps (I listen while I work), especially if the narrator is very talented.

 

The Neverending Story has inspired me to maybe base a character on one in the book. It was a popular movie in the 80s but has anyone read the book?

 

@StellaMarigold haha oh my god the three chapters on the history of Parisian sewers! XD I think when I got to that bit I waved the book around at my partner going "three chapters about sewers! Why! Three!" XD I know I'll read them again though hahaha

@NineOneThree my partner is into Neverending Story, so one year I bought him an old (German) version with the illustrations and coloured print as a gift. And then he bought me an English version with the same later. So it's on the 'to read' pile. (I'm realising that I never compared the illustrations between the German and English versions. I presume they're the same, but it must have made translation interesting!)

 

He is definitely wordy, but I don't mind it. I love how I really get so wrapped up in the story. I don't know what it is about how he writes but the atmosphere and characters feel so real to me. Even his books that weren't the greatest or had ending that made me want to throw things, I cannot deny that the journey really did take me away! There aren't many writers that can do that for me, or maybe I just haven't discovered them yet?

Wizard and Glass was tough for me at first, so many love it, it took a while for me to warm up to it, I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it either. I am halfway through Wolves of the Calla now and I am determined to get this series done within the next few weeks if possible.

 

Having read Stephen King's book on writing he believes characters should drive the story and he doesn't like to repeat the same words too close to each other. And if you've done your characters well the audience should know who's speaking.

If you like a writer and want to write yourself then see if they have written a book or done lectures on writing.

 

This I definitely agree with XD especially the repetition of words. Whenever I'm editing my (often messy, hand written) drafts I facepalm every time I accidentally repeat a descriptive word in the same paragraph. Reading it back sounds jarring. At least in English we have a million different terms for the same thing though, because we stole them from everyone else! XD Thank you, other languages! (Sorry, other languages...)

Of course there are exceptions. But to use repetition to effect, one should try avoid it as much as possible elsewhere.

(I've been trying to get back into writing fiction proper over the past few years, which is OT for this thread... but I figured I would mention. It's been very hard to shift back after years of writing tutorials and scripts, even though I used to like writing short stories in my teens. o_o I really struggled with working description back into my prose.)

Oh, this is a bit of a tangent as well, but I really like Dominic Nobel's channel on YouTube. He does videos about about film adaptations of books, as well as book reviews. I've picked up a couple of titles because of his reviews. Notably The Charmed Wife, as I like fairy tale stuff. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it to people who aren't into the OG darker versions of fairy tales, but I enjoyed it despite the positive Daily Mail reviews. (Usually a minus for me haha! XD) Beware that most reviews for it contain huge spoilers! I bought Ringworld because of his channel too, and again it's on the pile. I've been dipping my toes into sci-fi, as I like Stanislaw Lem's books. Plus the renewed interest in Philip K Dick after they made the Electric Dreams tv series means some of his out of print stories got reprinted, and also I could get a copy of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep without Harrison Ford on the cover. XD Again, I haven't read them yet, but looking forward to it.

Oops I rambled again! O_O

Circling back to Stephen King... has anyone read Pet Sematary? I've been considering picking it up :3

 

Pet Semetary and Firestarter are the reasons I started reading Stephen King, my two all time favorites. Pet Semetary was a good movie, but of course the book is better. Another recent one I loved was The Outsider, it was adapted into a miniseries on HBO. My friend and I watched it together and I made her read the book. She was previously not a reader but The Outsider converted her and she now has a long list of to be read, lol!

 

It might have also been Stephen King who said something along the line of the first draft is you telling yourself the story and the second draft is telling it to other people. Basically when you're just starting a story, especially if it's a hand written version, just write it as it comes out. And it's not so much write what you know but...

Know what you write. Or at least know a bit about what you want to write about. It takes a library to write a book. You don't have to be an expert, unless you want to be, but at least know enough that people who are can see that you at least tried.

 

I liked Pet Semetary, but there are only a handful of his books I DIDN'T like. Even the ones I didn't like I still generally enjoyed while reading if that makes sense?

 

I have read it, and I thought it was very different in tone from the film, which I loved as a kid. There were parts where I had to put the book down and walk away for a while, because I found it so bleak, and some of the dialogue I found depressingly nihilistic, but that just might be me. It was such a severe difference from the light and fluffy film adaptation, no one really has a happy ending, and although there are some dark scenes in the film, they play out 50 times worse in the book. One infamous scene is incredibly disturbing in the book because that character has a voice so you get to hear it's thoughts during it. I couldn't imagine a child getting any pleasure from reading the book, I found it a heavy read, but also a slog at times. I didn't know that the first half of the book is what the film was based on, and that the second half I believe is what the second film is based on. The first half is good, but the second I found incredibly boring. Again, just my opinion. I am not a very patient person when it comes to fiction, I don't read much of it, but when I do it needs to be short and concise.

Anyhoo, chiming in: I am a dedicated reader who gets through on average 50 books a year. Most of the books I read are autobiographies/semi autobiographies, mainly written by social misfits like Billy Childish (my favourite writer), Charles Bronson, and Dennis Cooper. I love a really raw, confessional and borderline unlikeable narrator. I also love books on history, especially about the history of medicine, music, death culture, the occult, and true crime. I love graphic novels as well, I'm a big Junji Ito fan, but don't read any other manga. His adaptation of No Longer Human is one of the greatest books I have ever read. My other favourite books are too long to list and span such a massive range of subjects!

If you love books truly disturbing, twisted, perverse and miserable then I am always up for recommendations and providing them! We can swap Goodreads usernames via DM if you're super nerdy about books.

 

@honestrabbit - I admire people who read a lot of nonfiction books - you must learn so much! I read nonfiction for research, but for pleasure I prefer fiction.

Actually, I'm working on a novel set in the 1800s that involves the history of medicine - do you have any suggestions from those you have read since you have an interest in the field? The book on that subject I read most recently was "The Butchering Art" by Lindsey Fitzharris, about Joseph Lister and the development of antiseptic during the early 19th century. It was really interesting, and was well written in my opinion.

 

I am trying to revitalize my bookworminess. Used to go through books like crazy but now less so.

I have been reading memoirs and history books because I have been interested in the Napoleonic era.

I really like memoirs but since these were written in the 1800s, sometimes it is slow going because I don't always know what exactly they are referring to and need to stop to google stuff. More recent translations tend to give more footnotes for context, but the ones that were translated around a hundred years ago are like you're on your own I'll have like two notes for you.

 

Ooh your book sounds interesting! I think I have read the Butchering Art. I have The Knife Man to read but that's more late 1700s. I've found that most books about medical history are either a whole history of one medical invention or a general history of medicine.

However, some suggestions of ones concentrating on medicine in the Victorian era: I highly recommend Crucial Interventions by Richard Barnett; it covers surgery in that time period and has lots of beautiful illustrations. He also wrote Medical London, which I haven't got round to yet, but sounds like it might hit the spot: A unique, stunningly-presented guide to London's past and a treasure trove of information for historians, residents, medical professionals and tourists, Medical London charts the many roles that diseases, treatments and cures have played in the city's sprawling story. It also reveals how London, in turn, has shaped the professions and practices of modern medicine. There's a fantastic book called Dissection by Warner and Edmonson, which is more of a photo collection of Victorian dissectionists (some grisly but fantastic photos), but has some text. Antique Medical Instruments by Elisabeth Bennion is incredible, as it's what the title suggests, and might be of use to you when it comes to the accuracy of the tools that were used. I use it as a reference book as I collect medical antiques. It has a ton of information in it, but it's a pricey book.

I am struggling to think of other ones solely about Victorian medicine as a whole, other than Health, Medicine and Society In Victorian England by Mary Wilson Carpenter, although I can't remember much about that one.

Some good general ones about medical history are Blood And Guts by Richard Hollingham, and Kill Or Cure by Steve Parker (lots of lovely illustrations in that one). There are a lot of fun books by Jan Bondesen that have separate chapters about stand alone medical marvels from Victorian England (I am currently reading The Two Headed Boy by him). Thomas Harris' Mystery Of The Exploding Teeth is a similar type of book. They are easy reads and full of obscure medical stories from the Victorian era.

I tend to read books that are reallllyyy specific about a medical invention that details the complete history of it. For example I recently read an academic (and naturally dry) book about the world history of using human corpses as medicine, and I have books lined up about the history of anesthesia, and one about lobotomies. So I guess it depends what faction of medicine you want to concentrate on, like surgery, quackery, mental health etc.

Feel free to DM me! Oddly I am being made into a character that's a surgeon for a friend's book set in Victorian England as I did some fact checking for her. Along with the reading and antique collecting, I also visit a lot of museums so I am a bottomless pit of medical history knowledge who loves talking about it!

 

Hi fellow bookworms!! I admire those of you with a strong enough stomach for medical history.

I'm a librarian and spend my days surrounded by books, so it often feels like my TBR is endless! Right now I'm working through My Year Abroad by Chang Rae Lee and Colonialism and Homosexuality by Robert Aldrich (a rec I got from my favorite podcast, Bad Gays).

I tend to gravitate toward SFF and romance... some of my favorite authors are Octavia Butler, Ursula LeGuin, KJ Charles, and Ruth Ozeki. I can never resist a charming yet morally bankrupt first person narrator, either.

 

I was a voracious reader in my younger days, and decided recently to pick back up on that, of course with the timing that I had just prior to that packed up most of my library to move it. I'm a big SF&F fan, personally, and had kept aside a couple of those type of books when packing, so I just dove in (the graphic novel "Midwinter" and an omnibus copy of "The Last Herald-Mage Trilogy"). Turns out I'm still a bit of a voracious reader when I give myself the chance. Since the move is still in progress (and it'll be a bit still before I can unpack and reshelve everything), I figured I'd just give myself one direction to read in the meantime that would take a while, so I've been reading Dragonlance for months now, with plenty of stuff to go. (Plus, most of the books are really cheap secondhand!)

 

A read a ton, but usually in bursts because I won't do anything else while I'm in the middle of a book. I love paperbacks, but I mostly only use my Kindle these days because its light, I can see better with it and I can fit all the books I want on it for long trips. My favorite book of all time is The Hounds of the Morrigan by Pat OShea. I just read the Raven Cycle series by Maggie Stiefvater and enjoyed it. I think a lot of people expect it to be more fantasy related and become disappointed by the mundane ending, but I think the point is that you are in control of your own destiny.

 

So many good recommendations in here, but my GoodReads Want to Read list is already 400+ books long and I have stacks all over the house.
Pandemic anxiety really killed my ability to focus on reading but I'm midway through Octavia Butler's Pattern master series and I just tossed back some KJ Charles fluff on a particularly sad day. Also picking my way through the fascinating Bestiary of the Anthropocene which is a literal bestiary of man-made/hybrid things like Fordite, animal prosthetics, and GM mosquitoes.

 

Ooh, KJ Charles is another good author. The Charm of Magpies series is a favorite of mine.

 

Yes, quality writing always! I read that whole series while I was wretchedly ill and it was so lovely to read some fantasy novels with characters treating one another with kindness.

 

It was really nice to read a series with no ridiculous misunderstanding with lots of angst. They had moments of conflict, but forgave each other easily and with love. I admit I didn't enjoy Jackdaw as much because I have a bit of a grudge against Jonah for being a jerk in book 3, even if everyone else eventually forgave him.

 

Aah, I'm really glad to find another big nonfiction reader here! (If you've got any recommendations on good histories of the occult, I am all ears)

I'm currently on a real spree of books about LGBT culture and history (A lot of which are, well, autobiography or autofiction written by social misfits, ahoi), and just finished Raven Kaldera's "Hermaphrodeities" which feels like it's the real middle of the venn diagram of occult and LGBT

Next on my list is Preciado's Pornotopia, which is mostly about architecture and creating social archetypes, and how one influences the other.

 

Yay, non fiction lover! It depends where your interests lay in the occult as there are far too many amazing books out there that get super specific about one area. The general ones always seem to be very shallow and sensationalist. Let me know what part of it really interests you and I'll have a scan of my bookshelves.

Reading history/anthropology books about LGBT culture is another of my favourite types of books to read. Totally fits into my love of books about/by social misfits. I'm currently reading Butch Queen Up In Pumps, which is an anthropological examination of the Detroit Ballroom scene. Its very dry but absolutely fascinating. Hermaphrodeities sounds perfect! I'm going to look that one up.

I think I used to message you quite a bit in DOA days of yore @Ratty !

 

I just read a short story collection by Daphne Du Maurier-- I'd never read any of her writing before, but now I'm definitely interested in reading more. This book had the original story that Hitchcock based "The Birds" on-- the story was so creepy. All of the stories in the book actually had a strong element of suspense and dread. I think my favorite was the one about the (haunted?) apple tree, but I enjoyed every one of them.

 

@Ratty @honestrabbit
I've been meaning to read more about Queer history! My interest was sparked after watching the show Pose. I finally realized just how much I don't know!

I feel like the ace spectrum isn't as welcome in queer spaces, so I've been struggling to figure out how I fit into the community. I think this was backwards, because I don't know enough about the community itself to understand my place within it. So I'm hoping by reading more that I can fix this, as well as truly appreciate how much the community has done, in particular black trans women.

My contribution to the queer book recommendations is fiction (hold on!), but it really encapsulates how internalized acephobia and arophobia feels and just rips you apart.
Loveless by Alice Oseman.
It is written through the lens of a college freshman who loves love and romance stories, but is unable to figure out what it is that she wants and is pressured by her friends and family, as well as herself, to "find someone". I cried for about half of the book. It's the most seen I've ever felt.

I usually stick to typical fantasy and science fiction books, I've been trying to widen my genres and diversity of authors. Books that are a piece of fresh air in fiction are The Raybearer by Jordan Ifueko (Afro Fantasy with fantastic imagery and world building), The Seep by Chana Porter (Sci-Fi Dystopia featuring a Trans character of color), and Memoir's of a Polar Bear by Yoko Tawada (Cold War Historical fiction as told... by a polar bear? It's a surreal read). All three avoid most genre trappings and offer unusual perspectives not found in mainstream fiction.

A Vast Large Expanse of Sea by Tahereh Mafi does have some typical teenage romance affairs, but it's more than worth it for character development and writing style. The book follows a teenage muslim girl in post 9\11 America minding her own business unlike everybody else. Despite the tension, it's a really funny book. Great balance of humor and romance while also not pulling punches on the vitriol of islamophobia. Also, she break dances.

 

If you're a fan of Pose, then 'Butch Queen Up In Pumps' is the book for you, as it gives a comprehensive history of Ballroom culture overall, but through the lens of the Detroit scene. It's written by a man who spent his time in it, and interviewed members of the community for the book, so it's a solid book about LGBT culture. Whilst Pose mainly focused on the trans women, drag queens, and gay men of colour in the Ballroom scene, the book shines a light on the other just as important people in the black/Latino LGBT community: the drag kings, trans men, and lesbians, which I think are not given enough credit. Similarly, if you're into music, then the book 'Breaking Down The Walls Of Heartache' is an amazing book about LGBT music culture, so covers the Ballroom scene briefly. It starts as far back in history as possible through to modern day, and covers as many LGBT musical icon's lives as it possibly can. You could use it as a doorstop though, as it's huge, but I whizzed through it as it was a lot of fun, and I got so many new musicians to listen to out of it.

 

Ah hell yeah! Thank you so much