Books you love that fit other's "hard no" criteria

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

What I find somewhat annoying is as you are reading the book, you start noticing that EVERYONE is a lesbian, and you can count the number of straight people on one hand!

I mean I get that you want to read about something that you think represents you, but come on that is just not realistic. For me, it's all about balance.

Yes, I've seen that too. There's an easy solution if you want to do that. Put your characters in a fantasy or alternate world where such relationships are the cultural norm or at least ordinary. Many writers have actually done that.

[JSWolf]

delete post

[Camellia]

• Romance (and erotica!)
• "Trashy" book covers
• Gratuitous gore (I'm a splatterpunk fan)
• Comparisons (perfect for fans of ____!)
• Gun porn (though it's called bolter porn in the specific universe I like )

[issybird]

Classics.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by issybird

Classics.

I have found using an ereader has gotten me to read more classics. Partly because they are usually free, partly because it's fun to look at the different editions available here, at Amazon, Gutenberg and Standard Ebooks.

Spending that much time looking at them keeps them in my mind more than the paper editions ever did.

My ereader showed me that I love Nathaniel Hawthorne (The Scarlet Letter and House of the Seven Gables, at any rate). In school, the only Nathaniel Hawthorne we read was Dr. Heidegger's Experiment (which I do remember liking).

[Sirtel]

My "classics" period was late teens and early twenties. I read lots of classics then (not because of school, but because I was interested). When I got older, I lost interest in that kind of literature and it never returned. I don't expect it will. OTOH, my love of fantasy, science fiction and (to an extent) historical fiction has never waned since childhood.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

My "classics" period was late teens and early twenties. I read lots of classics then (not because of school, but because I was interested). When I got older, I lost interest in that kind of literature and it never returned. I don't expect it will. OTOH, my love of fantasy, science fiction and (to an extent) historical fiction has never waned since childhood.

I went through something similar, though my classics of the time were primarily what I thought of as the Great Americans. I read almost everything Steinbeck wrote. And lots of Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. I never truly warmed up to Hemingway. But I loved Fitzgerald and Steinbeck.

I do think you're missing out on something when you dismiss 'classics' as a genre. Poe's stories and The Grapes of Wrath are both classics. But that's about all they have in common.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I went through something similar, though my classics of the time were primarily what I thought of as the Great Americans. I read almost everything Steinbeck wrote. And lots of Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. I never truly warmed up to Hemingway. But I loved Fitzgerald and Steinbeck.

I do think you're missing out on something when you dismiss 'classics' as a genre. Poe's stories and The Grapes of Wrath are both classics. But that's about all they have in common.

It's not so much that I dismiss them as a genre, but that I no longer find myself attracted to older books. I prefer modern genre fiction these days. No idea why. It just is what it is and I see no reason to force myself to read something, now that I'm close to fifty. There isn't enough time to read everything I want to read, let alone things I don't want.

Btw, I didn't like Hemingway either. Don't really remember Steinbeck or Fitzgerald, although I certainly read a book from both, at the very least. Probably just felt meh. I tended to like romantics more than realists. Victor Hugo, Dumas, George Sand, sisters Bronte etc.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by issybird

Classics.

Are these older books that are considered as classics or newer books with a "This book is a modern classic of whatever genre" in the description?

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

I see no reason to force myself to read something, now that I'm close to fifty

This has been my motto since I was close to fifteen, let alone fifty.

[Luffy]

I would really love it if one day my brain went click and I developed a love of classics written by Gaskell, Wharton, the Bronte sisters and Austen. But I'm not holding my breath.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Are these older books that are considered as classics or newer books with a "This book is a modern classic of whatever genre" in the description?

It was partly tongue in cheek, as there are some who won’t read anything labeled “classic” even though, as was pointed out above, classic isn’t a genre.

However, I did essentially mean older books. In part, because that’s what people usually mean or infer by the word and in part because classic by definition is something that’s stood the test of time. But also because “modern classic” is a term that’s used much too loosely, to apply to almost anything. It’s akin to those blurbs that say, “in the style of Courtney Milan and Cormac McCarthy” which were anathematized in the other thread.

I also think that as I get older, I keep increasing the number of years necessary for something to be a classic, even a modern one. I think fifty years, but then I think 1970 seems pretty contemporary. So I push it back to 1960 but then I realize that’s more an acknowledgment of a line when society started a cosmic shift and that’s why it appeals to me. Sixty years is roughly two generations, so maybe it works at that. Ask me in ten years if I’ve moved the marker to 1970.

TL;DR: Classic is mostly a “I know it when I see it” judgment. The Victorians, of course. Hemingway, ditto. Rowling, nope.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by issybird

Classics.

Classics is a very generic term. I think you may want to narrow that done a bit.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

My "classics" period was late teens and early twenties. I read lots of classics then (not because of school, but because I was interested). When I got older, I lost interest in that kind of literature and it never returned. I don't expect it will. OTOH, my love of fantasy, science fiction and (to an extent) historical fiction has never waned since childhood.

I've read a lot of classics. But the thing is, what I read and what you read may be two entirely different set of classics. That why the term on it's own is too generic and has to be more defined.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I went through something similar, though my classics of the time were primarily what I thought of as the Great Americans. I read almost everything Steinbeck wrote. And lots of Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. I never truly warmed up to Hemingway. But I loved Fitzgerald and Steinbeck.

I do think you're missing out on something when you dismiss 'classics' as a genre. Poe's stories and The Grapes of Wrath are both classics. But that's about all they have in common.

From what we've found out, these "great American authors" may not be great. In fact, some may be not nice people even if they are a product of their time.