River ,'Objects In Space'
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
I had thought a girl I knew in college was the least tactful person alive, but Susan's co-worker has proved that wrong.
As for alternate history being the stuff of YA, even Newt Gingrich (insert gesture warding off the evil eye) has written alternate history, as well as some actual writers including H.G. Wells, Winston Churchill, Allen Drury, Vladimir Nabokov and Philip K Dick.
Also, you're both wrong. The most interesting era is America in the late 19th century.
I like Anne Tyler, too. Although I must admit she's not the poster girl for "Wow, then what happened?" storytelling. But I don't want that all the time.(Weird thing for a crime junkie to say, maybe, but it's still true.)
Reading for pleasure, as opposed to reading for enlightenment, is considered juvenile. I think adults are only supposed to read things that have insightful things about the angst of modern existence. Anything else is trite escapism.
Excuse me while I go back to my SGA fan fic.
Reading for pleasure, as opposed to reading for enlightenment, is considered juvenile.
Why can't you do both at the same time?
I'll take europe between the wars
and the lead up to the civil war as the most interesting time periods in history.
It boggles my mind that people make a lot of judgments about what other people read. Admittedly , Matt has opinions about what I read - but he understands that 1) it isn't going to stop me 2) ill informed opinions will be beaten by a large club and 3) and volunteering an opinion when I am trying to read is a sure fire way to annoy me. Plus he also knows that after himself, I am his best source for new reading material
I do not like most serious modern novels. I wish something to happen in a novel. Things happened in works of literature all the way up to around the 1950s, when suddenly writing had to be all twee and introspective to be respected. There was once a New Yorker cartoon that poked fun at the very type of fiction the New Yorker often runs. It showed a guy in the kitchen making a sandwich and said something like "He smoothed the peanut butter over the crisp toasted bread, the same whole wheat bread his mother had bought all those years ago. He watched as his knife formed hills and valleys in the brown paste and dreamily slid the knife over his creation again and again. There should be jelly, made from wild beach plums....."
Why can't you do both at the same time?
Because it shows you're not the serious-minded sort who can take their enlightenment straight-up, without being diluted with paltry pleasure.
up to around the 1950s, when suddenly writing had to be all twee and introspective to be respected
When the beatniks started being ironic and sophisticated, and enthusiasm became gauche.
I just took an online "Geek, Nerd, or Dork?" test, and the first question was "Do you read fiction?"
WTF?
well, obviously, reading anything other than non-fiction or technical manuals completely contradicts anyother geek/nerd/dork credentials you may wave at it