(Nimue)
I've always been an avid reader, and I read widely. At the same time I have spent my whole life struggling to find books I want to read. Going into big bookshops depresses the hell out of me – all those front tables with celebrity ghost written content and TV tie ins are not for me, not at all.
I'm a fussy reader. I've just put one novella down because I couldn't get on with the author's voice, and a second because I couldn't engage with the characters. Every so often I find an author I can get really excited about – Sylvia Moreno Garcia and Natasha Pulley in recent years. Finding a novel I really like is a thing of joy. Reading something that passably works for me is often as good as it gets, which is frustrating.
I read a lot of non-fiction, and around that I have a much easier time telling what I'm going to like. However, I want to read fiction about half the time.
Part of what I'm struggling with is how narrow things can be within speculative fiction and how depressing things set in the 'real world' are – and how unreal those things often are too. I don't have any interest in dystopian fiction. I don't mind the odd YA novel, but on the whole they aren't what I'm looking for. I've found gems in the witchlit category, and I read classics sometimes. I'll occasionally read romance, crime and thriller novels but generally I find they aren't my thing. I like gothic work, and I like the kind of horror that makes me feel at home (Clive Barker).
The authors I like most tend not to fit into neat genre boxes, and tend to be some distance from the straight white socially Christian guy who went to Oxbridge model.
I want to be surprised, and enchanted. I am open to being comforted and challenged. I like queer, Pagan and non-binary rep, and authors who know what they're talking about and who will take me somewhere I haven't been before. I like diversity, I want to see the world from unfamiliar angles, with characters who make sense and have depth. I want character driven stories. Who should I be reading?
And if you're thinking 'me!' then please, please get in the comments.
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