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For the last 18 months or so, I've read very little of my usual fantasy/epic fantasy fiction, and even less of the science fiction I have always enjoyed. For about a 10 month period, I think I read for my fiction needs almost exclusively historical romance (also, to my mind, a form of fantasy -- I don't say that as a criticism) because it was what I could read. I read a few skiffy things as a beta reader and in one or two cases for quotes but otherwise I just mostly couldn't read sff.
I note that I am always reading non fiction, to a greater or lesser degree, sometimes for pleasure and often/always for research. In general I find reading non fiction history, anthropology, religion, culture, etc quite satisfying and pleasurable as reading novels.
I do not often read novels to work; that is, I am not the audience for a novel that demands a great deal of its readers. I don't say this to suggest that novels ought never to be work. Quite the contrary. A novel should be what it is, and I for one think that variety in taste -- that people like things that don't necessarily float my boat -- is a good thing.
I just rarely read novels that are work to read, although I'm rarely sorry I do read such novels in those rare circumstances when I read them. But that sort of fiction usually doesn't so much scratch an itch for me. I would far rather read non fiction, by which I mean not biographies or memoirs, neither of which I care for as a genre in the main, but things like Wim Klooster's Revolutions in the Atlantic World: A comparative history (which I'm reading right now), Roman Law and the Legal World of the Romans by Andrew Riggsby (dipping into for research), or Servants of the Dynasty: palace women in world history ed by Anne Walthall, a collection of essays I recommend for anyone who thinks there are no roles of women in epic fantasy except as sex workers, rape victims, or mothers of heroes.
So why am I writing this post? Partly just to get back into the swing of posting, if I can, and also to remind myself that I want post more book recommendations. Which I will try to do, starting tomorrow. That is, unless I talk about how I did change my mind about a major plot point in Traitors' Gate but not in the way readers may think I did. Although I think I may have already discussed that.
Partly to note that I've swung hard back into reading sff again, and now I mostly am skipping over historical romance instead. Weird how that works.
So I'd be curious to hear about your reading shifts and changes.
I note that I am always reading non fiction, to a greater or lesser degree, sometimes for pleasure and often/always for research. In general I find reading non fiction history, anthropology, religion, culture, etc quite satisfying and pleasurable as reading novels.
I do not often read novels to work; that is, I am not the audience for a novel that demands a great deal of its readers. I don't say this to suggest that novels ought never to be work. Quite the contrary. A novel should be what it is, and I for one think that variety in taste -- that people like things that don't necessarily float my boat -- is a good thing.
I just rarely read novels that are work to read, although I'm rarely sorry I do read such novels in those rare circumstances when I read them. But that sort of fiction usually doesn't so much scratch an itch for me. I would far rather read non fiction, by which I mean not biographies or memoirs, neither of which I care for as a genre in the main, but things like Wim Klooster's Revolutions in the Atlantic World: A comparative history (which I'm reading right now), Roman Law and the Legal World of the Romans by Andrew Riggsby (dipping into for research), or Servants of the Dynasty: palace women in world history ed by Anne Walthall, a collection of essays I recommend for anyone who thinks there are no roles of women in epic fantasy except as sex workers, rape victims, or mothers of heroes.
So why am I writing this post? Partly just to get back into the swing of posting, if I can, and also to remind myself that I want post more book recommendations. Which I will try to do, starting tomorrow. That is, unless I talk about how I did change my mind about a major plot point in Traitors' Gate but not in the way readers may think I did. Although I think I may have already discussed that.
Partly to note that I've swung hard back into reading sff again, and now I mostly am skipping over historical romance instead. Weird how that works.
So I'd be curious to hear about your reading shifts and changes.