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Looking to Be Charmed
Aug. 25th, 2005 01:46 pmOnce upon a time, when I was a child, I was an avid gourmand of a reader. I'd read pretty much anything. Mostly I read sf, fantasy, and romances, but I'd read classics and the occasional contemporary fiction for fun, too.
When I went to college, I largely stopped reading for pleasure, and I've never really gotten back to doing so. I've been doing more leisure reading in the last few years than I did through my college and graduate years, but I find that my tastes have gotten narrower.
Most of my joy in reading comes from a very particular sort of novel nowadays, and the trouble is that it's not a genre of novel. I can't plop "science fiction" or "romance" or "fantasy" into a search engine and come up with what I want.
Because what I want most from novels is to be charmed.
I want books full of likeable, engaging, witty and preferably genteel characters. I want light-hearted, well-written stories with entertaining plots and happy endings. I majored in Literature with a capital L and I've read more tragedies than I ever wanted to. I've read hundreds of epic, sweeping novels about TEOTWAWKI or the prevention thereof; I even wrote one myself. And in the process, I've acquired a taste for small stories, stories about ordinary people with people-sized problems. Every struggle doesn't have to be life-or-death, and every life-or-death struggle doesn't have to involve the welfare of whole nations or worlds.
To list off the qualities I'm looking for:
- Likeable characters
- Witty dialogue
- Gentility *
- Happy endings
- Light-hearted
- Good-natured
- Humorous **
- Fantasy or sf setting
- Romance
- Problem resolution by wit rather than raw force or power
* "Gentility" is not the same as "nobility". By genteel, I mean "well-mannered and courteous". Jane Austen's characters are rarely if ever nobles, and the few who are noble often aren't genteel. So I'm not looking for books about princes and princesses; I'm looking for ones about people who are polite and well-spoken.
** Again, not the same as a comedy. The Harry Potter books have plenty of humor in them, but they're not written as comedies.
Examples of works that fall into my newly-created subgenre:
( Samples! )
My main incentive in writing all this out was to solicit recommendations. There aren't many books that fit all the criteria I've listed, but perhaps some of you can recommend books that fit several of them. Any suggestions?
When I went to college, I largely stopped reading for pleasure, and I've never really gotten back to doing so. I've been doing more leisure reading in the last few years than I did through my college and graduate years, but I find that my tastes have gotten narrower.
Most of my joy in reading comes from a very particular sort of novel nowadays, and the trouble is that it's not a genre of novel. I can't plop "science fiction" or "romance" or "fantasy" into a search engine and come up with what I want.
Because what I want most from novels is to be charmed.
I want books full of likeable, engaging, witty and preferably genteel characters. I want light-hearted, well-written stories with entertaining plots and happy endings. I majored in Literature with a capital L and I've read more tragedies than I ever wanted to. I've read hundreds of epic, sweeping novels about TEOTWAWKI or the prevention thereof; I even wrote one myself. And in the process, I've acquired a taste for small stories, stories about ordinary people with people-sized problems. Every struggle doesn't have to be life-or-death, and every life-or-death struggle doesn't have to involve the welfare of whole nations or worlds.
To list off the qualities I'm looking for:
- Likeable characters
- Witty dialogue
- Gentility *
- Happy endings
- Light-hearted
- Good-natured
- Humorous **
- Fantasy or sf setting
- Romance
- Problem resolution by wit rather than raw force or power
* "Gentility" is not the same as "nobility". By genteel, I mean "well-mannered and courteous". Jane Austen's characters are rarely if ever nobles, and the few who are noble often aren't genteel. So I'm not looking for books about princes and princesses; I'm looking for ones about people who are polite and well-spoken.
** Again, not the same as a comedy. The Harry Potter books have plenty of humor in them, but they're not written as comedies.
Examples of works that fall into my newly-created subgenre:
( Samples! )
My main incentive in writing all this out was to solicit recommendations. There aren't many books that fit all the criteria I've listed, but perhaps some of you can recommend books that fit several of them. Any suggestions?
