because the to-be-read pile is not large enough

[rushthatspeaks]

Well, actually it is-- if I had an actual pile as opposed to a list full of objects I do not necessarily own, the pile would be constantly threatening to crush me, and would take up more of the apartment than I really want to think about. And working at a bookstore has given me a whole new set of priorities, since if I care about spoilers I now have to make sure to read the new releases pretty quickly.

(Digression: Dear ninety percent of everyone who walks into the store: I do not know when the new George R. R. Martin is coming out! No one knows! I will put up a sign or something when there is information! Aaagh! End digression.)

But anyway. I've been spending a lot of time with comfort reading over the last few months, because there has been a lot of stress going on, and I am starting to come out of that phase, and would like to assist myself in coming out of that phase.

So, can anyone rec me books you think would be out of my comfort zone? I'm looking for stuff that is definitely good, but is nothing it would ever occur to me to read. The subject areas I already read compulsively are fantasy, science fiction, litcrit on the above, classical studies, urban planning, that thing we still annoyingly refer to as 'the Western canon', history from ancient Greece to the Enlightenment (again, sigh, mostly European, though I do try), film criticism, mythology/mythography, and medieval theology.

If you can't think of anything that would be out of my comfort zone, or don't know me well enough to speculate, I will cheerfully accept recs for things that would be out of anybody's comfort zones, although I would prefer that you not rec me things that have absolutely no point other than to be profoundly depressing, and I would appreciate warnings for either nasty things involving insects or large quantities of sexual violence.

Thanks!

Comments

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Colin Cotterill, The Coroner's Lunch, is mystery. I keep recommending it to everyone in hopes that some of them will read it: set in Laos just after the Communist Revolution, magical realist murder mystery, great characters, the start of a series. So good.

Hilary McKay's Casson family series is children's mainstream, so lovely.

My local SF bookstore put up a sign with things they didn't want to talk about, and one was the construction then under way, and another was the new George R. R. Martin. Poor things.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

I enthusiastically second both Cotterill and McKay.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

*writes recs on library list*

Where does one start with Hilary McKay? I have seen them before at the library, but they aren't numbered or anything and I can't tell what order they go in.

I am considering putting up a sign about the Martin myself.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Saffy's Angel.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

If you haven't read it already, The Mahabharata! Either the Menon or Subramaniam translation.

Joe R. Lansdale's East Texas books-- Bad Chili, Mucho Mojo, Two-Bear Mambo. They might involve insects given the setting; lots of violence but not generally sexual. Very funny, very "politically incorrect" in the interest of accurately depicting local attitudes, more depth of feeling than one might expect.

It was mid-April when I got home from the offshore rig and discovered my good friend Leonard Pine had lost his job bouncing drunks at the Hot Cat Club because in a moment of anger, when he had a bad ass on the ground out back of the place, he'd flopped his tool and pissed on the rowdy's head.

Since a large percentage of the club was outside watching Leonard pop this would-be troublemaker like a Ping-Pong ball, and since Leonard hadn't been discreet enough to turn to a less visible angle when he decided to water the punk's head, the management was inclined to believe Leonard had overreacted.

Leonard couldn't see this. In fact, he thought it was good business. He told management if word of this got around, potential troublemakers would be sayin', "You start some shit at the Hot Cat Club, you get that mean queer nigger on your ass, and he'll piss on your head."

Leonard, taking into account the general homophobia and racism of the local population, considered this a deterrent possibly even more effective than the death penalty. The management disagreed, said they hated to do it, but they had to let him go.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Didn't I have to make you read the first page of the Lansdale before you'd read them? :D There are more in the series - Savage Season, Rumble Tumble, and Captains Outrageous, although I don't think the later ones as good.

Lansdale also wrote the novella that became the movie Bubba-Ho-Tep, which is classically insane Lansdale: the narrator is Elvis, stuck in a nursing home in East Texas and along with John F. Kennedy he has to stop a rampaging redneck mummy. Must be read (and seen) to be believed. There's a novelization of the movie, but I have not read it and don't plan to, because the story and movie are enough for me.

At any rate, Lansdale writes the Texas I grew up in, not the sterotypical Texas. Well, not quite as violent, but you get the gist.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

I have seen Bubba-Ho-Tep, but I didn't know it was based on a book. Man, that was a profoundly strange movie.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

It's pretty close to Lansdale's original story and flavor, and judging by some of his horror I've read, more on the mainstream side. I'd call his horror East Texas Weird.

[sovay]

I have seen Bubba-Ho-Tep, but I didn't know it was based on a book.

I knew it was a book only because I ran into it at Readercon in 2005 and consequently bought it for the person who had showed me the movie. It seemed only fair.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Ooh, the Lansdale sounds fascinating! I will try that.

And I have the Mahabharata right here, and I should really read it.

Thanks!

[sovay]

So, can anyone rec me books you think would be out of my comfort zone?

Eric Jay Dolin's Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America (2007). Because did you know that John Hancock went into politics because he blew out his family's whaling fortune?

Richard Fortey's Dry Storeroom No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum (2008). Because

The Crypts [cryptogams: "a broad term for plants that have 'hidden' reproduction, rather than replicating themselves from obvious things like seeds"] also helped to save the United Kingdom during the Second World War. At the outbreak of war there was a curator of "seaweeds"—marine algae—called Geoffrey Tandy. He had come to the Natural History Museum from the BBC. He had a wonderful voice, and was a close confidant of T.S. Eliot's; he it was who made the first ever broadcast of Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats. According to his successor, Tandy was a competent taxonomist and contributed many herbarium sheets to the collections, which are still referred to today. However, he was not much of a publisher, and wrote only two scientific papers while at the Museum, a deficiency that eventually led to him being called up before the Trustees; he excused himself on the ground that "writing up" was not part of his job description. He apparently ran two families in tandem, from which one son on the illegitimate side survives. The reason he saved the country—possibly even the world—from Nazism was because he was a cryptogamist. Evidently, a functionary in the Ministry of War had never heard of cryptogams, and thought that Tandy must have been an expert in cryptography (that one extra letter ensures that the words appear next to one another in the dictionary). He was recruited to Bletchley Park—centre of signals intelligence during the war—because of his alleged talent in solving messages written in code. He had to work alongside the great brains that were tackling the mysteries of the Enigma Code—the only seaweed man among the ranks of cryptographers. It was a most fortunate screw-up. When sodden notebooks written in code were recovered from German U-boats, they seemed beyond recovery. However, Geoffrey Tandy knew exactly what to do. The problem was actually not so different from preserving marine algae. The Museum supplied the appropriate absorbent paper, and the pages covered in cryptic language were saved from soggy obscurity. The code was cracked, thanks to the fact that the word Linnaeus used for organisms reproducing by spores was but one letter different from the word describing messages written in code. One thinks of James Thomson ("The Seasons," 1730): "A lucky chance that oft decides the fate / Of mighty monarchs." Or dictators.

C.P. Cavafy, The Canon: The Original One Hundred and Fifty-Four Poems. Because the poems are awesome and this edition is bilingual.

Any of these suit?

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

I have started the Fortey, actually, and it is awesome.

Ooh, bilingual Cavafy! I didn't know there was a bilingual.

*notes down whaling book on library list*

[trifles.livejournal.com]

Everyone, to my mind, should read Amanda Foreman's biography of Georgiana, the Duchess of Devonshire (which I was madly in love before I even knew they were making a movie of it, yuck pitooie). Also, Vic Gatrell's City of Laughter, an extremely thorough look at Georgian/Regency caricatures/cartoons. There are footnotes! So many glorious footnotes.

(Note: The temptation to post a huge list of related texts is, ah, extreme.)

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Succumb to temptation! Please! The Georgians are not a period I know as much about as I would like.

Glad to hear the Foreman is good, as I have been eyeing it speculatively for a while but have been rather put off by the movie-tie-in cover.

[trifles.livejournal.com]

In my as-yet-unwritten ten-second review of the Foreman, I plan to especially praise whichever smart production editor it was who had the running head give the year of whatever was happening. Easily made it the best biography I've read.

Huzzah! Lists! Here's what I've actually read (I'm leaving off the to-be-read stuff, and anything in the bibliographies... which might as well be to-be-read):

Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire, Amanda Foreman
Privilege and Scandal: The Remarkable Life of Harriet Spencer, Sister of Georgiana, Janet Gleeson (excellent bookend to Foreman's)
The Regency Style: 1800-1830, D. Pilcher (horribly enough, I only got half through this because I had to move. I want it back! It's about Regency architecture and sensibility and it is fascinating)
A Royal Affair: George III and His Scandalous Siblings, Stella Tillyard (which I did not finish, because it was all higgledy-piggledy, but it did give forth a pile of interesting leads to follow, like the utter crazyness of Christian VII of Denmark's marriage to George III's little sister, which then affected how George treated his own daughters... etc.)
City of Laughter, Vic Gatrell (this, and the following, are all reviewed in my last review post, near the bottom)
The Prince of Pleasure: The Prince of Wales and the Making of the Regency, Saul David
The Trial of Queen Caroline: The Scandalous Affair that Nearly Ended a Monarchy, Jane Robins
Perdita: The Literary, Theatrical, and Scandalous Life of Mary Robinson, Paula Byrne
Princesses: The Six Daughters of George III, Flora Fraser

[trifles.livejournal.com]

While I'm at it, please feel free to poke around my del.icio.us Georgian and Regency lists (with a great deal of overlap, naturally), and my Google library, which contains mostly primary source Georgian/Regency texts and folklore.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

You are awesome. Thank you!

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Zen Body-Being: An Enlightened Approach to Physical Skill, Grace, and Power (http://www.amazon.com/Zen-Body-Being-Enlightened-Approach-Physical/dp/1583941592/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1223926954&sr=8-1)-- it's an ambitious look at how to live better by paying attention to the details of physical experience.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

I could really use that, actually. Thank you.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

You're welcome. Here's some more in that range, in case you need more book recommendations.....

Two that are good for getting started:

The Way of Energy by Master Lam Kam Chuen (www.amazon.com/Way-Energy-Mastering-Internal-Strength/dp/0671736450). Introduction to standing meditation.

The 10-Minute Rejuvenation Plan: T5T: The Revolutionary Exercise Program That Restores Your Body and Mind (Paperback)
by Carolinda Witt (www.amazon.com/10-Minute-Rejuvenation-Plan-Revolutionary-Exercise/dp/0307347176) Detailed how-to for The Five Tibetan Rites, a yoga/calesthenic set that I've found amazingly valuable.

And another ambitious one:

Stalking Yang Lu-Chan by Robin Johnson (http://www.amazon.com/Stalking-Yang-Lu-chan-Robin-Johnson/dp/0865344825/ref=pd_sim_d_1). Very careful description of what to pay attention to for standing meditation and T'ai Chi.

[thomasyan.livejournal.com]

I forget if you have heard of a book titled something like Destroy this Book!, which has instructions on various ways to mangle it. *whimper*

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Oh, fascinating. I shall look for that.

[thomasyan.livejournal.com]

Hm, maybe I misremembered. The closest a quick search turned up was Wreck this Journal.

[queenlyzard.livejournal.com]

I second this recommendation.

Also recommending: "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" by Dave Eggers-- definitely outside my comfort zone, but I loved it nonetheless. Anything by Michael Pollan. From the "medical" section, "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down" by Anne Fadiman, and anything by Atul Gawande, Jerome Groopman, or V. S. Ramachandran (all three of whom have wonderful sense of humor). Also, from the sci-fi section, anything by Spider Robinson, and Minister Faust (he has two books so far-- one serious and one not. Both are good).

[earis.livejournal.com]

You may enjoy the archaeological theorist Bruce Trigger.

He is one of the more satisfying archaeological theorists I have ever read, bcause he doesn't forget about Greece and Rome.

Also, I read a hilarious romance novel recently by Georgette Heye called 'The Masqueraders.' It's got corss-dressing siblings, a very large man, a trickster, and Jacobites. What more do you need?

[oracne.livejournal.com]

Yay Bruce Trigger!

Who has nothing to do with Roy Rogers. Though that would be an interesting crossover.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

*notes down Bruce Trigger*

I love Georgette Heyer, she is one of my favorite comfort authors. Have you read These Old Shades and its sequel Devil's Cub? They are the ones that strike me as most tonally similar to The Masqueraders and I love them, although I think my favorite Heyer is The Convenient Marriage, because it has a scene of, essentially, slapstick that is one of the few things I know that never stops being funny.

[sovay]

I love Georgette Heyer, she is one of my favorite comfort authors.

I have always been fond of Sylvester, or The Wicked Uncle. Gothic melodrama runs aground on real life, with good eyebrows.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Sylvester I initially ran across when I was too young for it, I think, which has colored my thoughts on it.

Have you read Venetia? It is the one in which there is actually sexual tension, and also by far the best heroine.

[sovay]

Have you read Venetia? It is the one in which there is actually sexual tension, and also by far the best heroine.

I have not, but it's right here in the living room. My mother loves Heyer. I have spent years collecting hardbacks from used book stores and library sales for her.

Your birthday present to me ends with a cliffhanger! I sic a giant squid on your plumbing!

[eredien]

Spaces of Hope by William Harvey - My amazon review .

The Alley by Eleanor Estes - can't remember if I rec'd this before of if you'd read it already, but I will recommend this book to anyone.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

The Harvey looks awesome.

You rec'd me The Alley about five years ago, and I enjoyed it thoroughly.

[oracne.livejournal.com]

As far as mystery goes, did you ever read Dorothy Sayers? I can't remember if you ever talked about it. GAUDY NIGHT is the one most beloved by attendees of womens' colleges.

THE VANISHED CHILD by Sarah Smith is one I rec a lot. Mysteries by Kate Ross--CUT TO THE QUICK is the first of the four.

You might like Sarah Caudwell--very literary and funny mysteries.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Gaudy Night is one of my favorite remembering-college books.

I need to actually finish the Smith, I was on a trip with a loaner copy and had to return it before it was over.

Caudwell is awesome, isn't she? I read Thus Was Adonis Murdered aloud to Ruth fairly recently.

*notes down Kate Ross*

[oracne.livejournal.com]

Alas, there are only four Kate Ross, but they are most entertaining. I like Regency mysteries.

[soapdemon.livejournal.com]

Robertson Davies writes some of my favorite novels; they are canadian and humanistic; i recommend the cornish trilogy. I, too, am working in a bookstore; how are you finding it?

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough, or perhaps not that oddly, I was assigned the Cornish trilogy in a class on Arthurian literature. I should probably read some of his other stuff too.

I love my job. It is bar none the best job I have ever had. I mean, it is retail and I don't actually automatically hate anyone who walks into the store, which is such an odd experience. And I have Absolute Power over the graphic novels/manga section and a lot of influence over the others.

How do you like yours?