Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Literature, with a capital 'L'

I've been finding it hard to think which books to read next. To that end, I turned to Amazon's recommendations system, which has occasionally served me well in the past. However, I was rather surprised this time to find the recommendations packed with GSCE study guides, past papers, and the like. I was confused by this, until I found out why: it was because I have recently ordered "Lord of the Flies" from them.

This amuses me. It seems the only people who read such books are poor students being forced to do so. I dread to think what's going to happen when I add "Nineteen Eighty-Four" and "Brave New World" to the history.

Meanwhile, I'm finding myself running short of reading material. I'm trying to ration out my current authors of choice (Fleming, Cornwell, Iggulden) to last the rest of the year, and I find I have very limited patience for reading yet another tedious, derivative and unending fantasy series (of which there are many). There's also a limit to how many 'worthy' books one can read in sequence - probably about two.

On the plus side, I have successfully corrected the slip in the reading, and am instead now a full week ahead of schedule. Huzzah!

#20: "Doctor No", by Ian Fleming

1 comment:

Kezzie said...

Ooh I find it hard to ration my authors of choice- I just want to devour everything by them!!! Tis so hard to stop reading! Much sympathy. Why not try random? Or go to the library and mooch. Or better, go to a second hand bookshop and see what you find. I mostly get books from a second hand bookshop, because you never know what you find. Much of my reading material, being not ashamed of reading kiddie's books, comes from the fact I need to vet books I buy before I put them in my class bookshelf. And then I can say 'Hey, I read this GREAT book this weekend, who wants to read it?!' and then all of them want to read it! Even the reluctant readers! Try a kid's book! There are some fab ones around! Have you heard of Philip Pullman's 'Ruby in the smoke' part of the sally lockhart series, they're really good! Mind you, maybe it's just me that likes kids books!