![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
More book thoughts
Sun, Mar. 14th, 2004 12:05 amBecause I very rarely do not think about reading in some way, shape or form.
I don't know -- I've been reading for so long that I can't quite imagine the shape of my life without a book in hand (and a stack on the nightstand, and some under the bed, some on the dining table, some in the bathroom...). And it's so rare to find people who are like this, who understand that near-addiction, and even rarer still to find the people with that addiction who read genre. Or maybe, genre has a lot of the addicts? I'm not quite sure, since I've never quite talked this much book talk with people who don't read genre, because I read mainly genre. It's like this strange, hidden side of my life that very few people get an actual look into. They all know I read, of course. When I was a kid, I think the first thing everyone noticed about me was that I carried a book everywhere. You never know when you might need it, and every single time I left it at home or forgot was when I wanted one the most. Read through dinners, through playtime, through recess, through class (if I wasn't caught), sometimes even when walking places. One of my high school friends perfected the art of walking down the stairs while reading -- I haven't been able to do that really without halfway killing myself, which would be tragic because then I would never finish the book.
But there's a secret place in me full of book, full of all these different worlds, of Narnia and Six Duchies and Middle Earth and Fionavar, of worlds where people wear lace and wigs and dance the waltz. And sometimes, it's so strange to me that I'm not actually living in those worlds.
I sometimes wonder if I am boring people to death with my book posts, and then I figure, oh well. I love my LJ because it lets me gush and rant and be indifferent about my books, it makes that space in my life for them. I don't really talk about them to anyone, not to the boy (who is not really a reader), not to my family, and the friends I used to talk booktalk with are far away and not as accessible via IM =(. And there are just times after having read something that has somehow changed something in me in which I need to get it out somehow. It's like being fannish about shows no one watches. LJ relieves that pressure a bit, which is why my enthusiastic book posts are generally incoherent ramblings ;).
This was actually going to be on romance (again), because I am glomming my new genre. Actually, not really a new genre, since I started dabbling in it in seventh grade, but up till college, I was always ashamed of it until sophomore year I had a roommate who read them too. So I stole all of hers and got some more exposure and got to talk about some of them. Visiting her house was awesome -- giant bookshelves in the basement! That's where I discovered Laura Kinsale. Then there was LJ and an actual community of romance readers and lots and lots of recs.
I wonder if my romance reading preferences are even more heavily influenced by personality and past history than my other reading preferences. If a romance knocks me off my feet, everything has to work just so -- the author can't recover as well from a false step as someone writing fantasy might be able to. I think it's because so much depends on the characters in romance, and there's so much cliched tropes that piss me off as well. I think my thing for cold, reserved and secretly wounded heroines (the female version of the alpha bastard?) is from falling deeply for Eowyn in sixth grade. I used to like alphas, but more and more my tastes in RL and in books are starting to match up -- I like the jokers, the nice guys, the ones willing to take on and love and heal the above angsty heroine. Part of this is probably because I find the broodiness pretty boring in real life, so the intensity becomes less and less compelling unless I really identify with the character (Wesley!).
The thing for westerns I'm pretty sure comes from Little House on the Prairie, later translated to reading various books on the Oregon Trail, which sparked several fantasies around seventh grade, fed by that Sunfire title Amanda. The thing for turn-of-the-century is unexplained -- maybe from that sort of hazy time period of many children's books? I can never quite get straight when A Little Princess is, or E. Nesbitt's books, or Peter Pan, so it's a strange blend of the past and present in my mind. It could also be from Anne of Green Gables.
Hrm.
I don't know -- I've been reading for so long that I can't quite imagine the shape of my life without a book in hand (and a stack on the nightstand, and some under the bed, some on the dining table, some in the bathroom...). And it's so rare to find people who are like this, who understand that near-addiction, and even rarer still to find the people with that addiction who read genre. Or maybe, genre has a lot of the addicts? I'm not quite sure, since I've never quite talked this much book talk with people who don't read genre, because I read mainly genre. It's like this strange, hidden side of my life that very few people get an actual look into. They all know I read, of course. When I was a kid, I think the first thing everyone noticed about me was that I carried a book everywhere. You never know when you might need it, and every single time I left it at home or forgot was when I wanted one the most. Read through dinners, through playtime, through recess, through class (if I wasn't caught), sometimes even when walking places. One of my high school friends perfected the art of walking down the stairs while reading -- I haven't been able to do that really without halfway killing myself, which would be tragic because then I would never finish the book.
But there's a secret place in me full of book, full of all these different worlds, of Narnia and Six Duchies and Middle Earth and Fionavar, of worlds where people wear lace and wigs and dance the waltz. And sometimes, it's so strange to me that I'm not actually living in those worlds.
I sometimes wonder if I am boring people to death with my book posts, and then I figure, oh well. I love my LJ because it lets me gush and rant and be indifferent about my books, it makes that space in my life for them. I don't really talk about them to anyone, not to the boy (who is not really a reader), not to my family, and the friends I used to talk booktalk with are far away and not as accessible via IM =(. And there are just times after having read something that has somehow changed something in me in which I need to get it out somehow. It's like being fannish about shows no one watches. LJ relieves that pressure a bit, which is why my enthusiastic book posts are generally incoherent ramblings ;).
This was actually going to be on romance (again), because I am glomming my new genre. Actually, not really a new genre, since I started dabbling in it in seventh grade, but up till college, I was always ashamed of it until sophomore year I had a roommate who read them too. So I stole all of hers and got some more exposure and got to talk about some of them. Visiting her house was awesome -- giant bookshelves in the basement! That's where I discovered Laura Kinsale. Then there was LJ and an actual community of romance readers and lots and lots of recs.
I wonder if my romance reading preferences are even more heavily influenced by personality and past history than my other reading preferences. If a romance knocks me off my feet, everything has to work just so -- the author can't recover as well from a false step as someone writing fantasy might be able to. I think it's because so much depends on the characters in romance, and there's so much cliched tropes that piss me off as well. I think my thing for cold, reserved and secretly wounded heroines (the female version of the alpha bastard?) is from falling deeply for Eowyn in sixth grade. I used to like alphas, but more and more my tastes in RL and in books are starting to match up -- I like the jokers, the nice guys, the ones willing to take on and love and heal the above angsty heroine. Part of this is probably because I find the broodiness pretty boring in real life, so the intensity becomes less and less compelling unless I really identify with the character (Wesley!).
The thing for westerns I'm pretty sure comes from Little House on the Prairie, later translated to reading various books on the Oregon Trail, which sparked several fantasies around seventh grade, fed by that Sunfire title Amanda. The thing for turn-of-the-century is unexplained -- maybe from that sort of hazy time period of many children's books? I can never quite get straight when A Little Princess is, or E. Nesbitt's books, or Peter Pan, so it's a strange blend of the past and present in my mind. It could also be from Anne of Green Gables.
Hrm.
Tags:
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
2. 
3. 