Quote:
Originally Posted by disconnected
I started by making a list of books and authors that immediately came to mind as being particularly enjoyable or memorable. Then I looked up their dates.
I have been a total mystery addict (especially the "Golden Age" sort -- thrilled that so many are ebooks now) since I found Nancy Drew at age ten or thereabouts, so I wasn't surprised that a great percentage of my list was mysteries.
It was a bit shocking though that after I sorted by date, I found that almost every non-mystery book I had listed was published between the late fifties and mid eighties and read by me between the mid sixties and mid eighties, when I was aged about twenty to forty. I can remember reading NYT book reviews, sharing books with friends, and having long late-night discussions of books we'd been reading.
Apparently when I turned forty I reverted to reading mysteries almost exclusively and tuned out the rest of the literary world forever.   |
It is very interesting to note those patterns. I participated in a poll/discussion once where we all went to our bookshelves and gave percentages of the male to female writers found there. There was also a genre breakdown. I think the most fun was had because we surprised ourselves with the stats!