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rushthatspeaksWell, 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!
(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!
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Date: 2008-10-27 05:52 am (UTC)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).