**Questions

A continuation from the January "What are you reading now" thread.

The rule of sorts: End your post with a question. I don't actually care for hard rules like this, so do as you like. Anyway, here is a chance to ask questions in a thread that no one owns and that has no other purpose or expectations. No promises how anyone will answer, or whether they will. But, someone might. The intended idea is that you ask something about the book(s) you are reading, or have read recently. But, that's not a rule (of any sort). So, ask about your book, for book suggestions, or about something completely different.

I'm reading Towers of Midnight, the 13th book in a series started by the decease Robert Jordan, and now getting completed by Brandon Sanderson. I'm impressed with what Sanderson has done, really impressed. But, still, my question: Can a second author ever really write a proper sequel of another author's work?

My daughter is reading those also. She thought Sanderson had done a pretty good job but felt you could still tell, of course, that the prose was not Jordan. I think she is just happy to have things wrap up. Is the 13th the 2nd of the 3 it was going to take to finish it off?

I seldom read books that would fall in this category, so I can't say. The only one I can think of off the top of my head is Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama. Gentry Lee clearly took over the latter books, which I thought paled in comparison to the first.

If you ask me, those more than paled in comparison. They were pretty terrible, and I seem to remember them getting worse as they went on.

I have the vague impression that I must have seen this done adequately well at least once in my life, but I can't actually think of any examples at all.

Lois, yes, the next one is really supposed to be the last. I agree with your daughter, Sanderson did good job (actually, a really great job considering how many ways there were to go wrong that he seems to have avoided so far), with a slightly different feel. He improved things in several ways. Not sure whether it's better or worse, but Sanderson does move the story, where Jordan tended to drag out scene after scene of questionable important.

bragan - The 2005 Pulitzer Prize winner, March, was a sequel of sorts to Little Women, if that counts. I haven't read LW, so can't comment on it's adequacy.

I read Little Women when I was very young, but I haven't read March, so I can't comment, either.. (And, huh, it seems the touchstones aren't working again. Or still. Or something.)

I think I see that as a slightly different sort of thing, though. Otherwise, I will say that I've read some pretty good Sherlock Holmes pastiches.

I've read both and I thought March was a worthy sequel-of-sorts.

>5 dchaikin: I've also read both, but I don't see March as a sequel. I thought it a good book, but I'm not fond of the idea of romanticizing Bronson Alcott. Brooks used as her inspiration, Bronson Alcott, much like Louisa May used her family as inspiration. Don't get me going on Bronson Alcott...

If we are talking about these kinds of expansion stories, I've read a number that I enjoyed. They are, of course, contemporary literature with modern prose, attempting to tell another side of the story. A Far Better Rest by Susanne Allen tells Sidney Carton's story from The Tale of Two Cities. Sally Beauman's Rebecca's Tale tells another viewpoint of Du Maurier's Rebecca (seems I have another related to Rebecca around here somewhere). And, of course, the now classic Wide Sargasso Sea tells Bertha Rochester's story from Jane Eyre. I thought all of these were quite good. I don't make a habit of this kind of reading but the titles accumulate over the decades:-)

What? No one has wanted to write Causabon's story from Middlemarch?

(touchstones still not working, unless you put the book's page number in manually)

>8 avaland: Avaland beat me to it and I agree with her assessment, except that I didn't care for the book. In March, Geraldine Brooks tells the life story of the father of Little Women though she conflates his character with much of the actual life of Bronson Alcott (without going detail, I'll just say Alcott was a narcissistic nut and leave it at that). For some reason, examples of true sequels written by another author are eluding me, except that one that was written for Gone With the Wind a few years back. I never read it though.

The queen of the sequel and expansion story must be Emma Tennant - she has done Jane Austen sequels and expansions on both Emily & Charlotte Bronte, Thomas Hardy; variations on Robert Louis Stevenson & Henry James. There are probably more?

It is interesting that sequels and expansion stories are often derided as poor and unnecessary (but then fans of novels can be quite protective) while novels about writers, that often mimic a writer's style and his/her writing a specific work are quite acceptable. Writers like Colm Toibin & David Lodge have done Henry James; Michael Cunningham Virginia Woolf; and so on...

Writers as detectives anyone? Jane Austen? Oscar Wilde?

I've always felt that Jeff Shaara was able to pick up where his deceased father Micheal Shaara, of Gods and Generals fame, left off with their Historical Fiction series about the civil War. Although you can tell the are by two distinct voices.

>9 theaelizabet: That would be The Wind Done Gone by Alice Randall. (and am impressed you could stop at "narcissistic nut." I knew if I went there, I wouldn't be able to stop:-)

>10 Jargoneer: I've noticed her Austens, but perhaps not the others. I've never been inclined to read any.

It is interesting that sequels and expansion stories are often derided as poor and unnecessary (but then fans of novels can be quite protective) while novels about writers, that often mimic a writer's style and his/her writing a specific work are quite acceptable. Writers like Colm Toibin & David Lodge have done Henry James; Michael Cunningham Virginia Woolf; and so on...

That is a very interesting observation. Is it because of who is writing it, or who they are writing about? or both?

Many years back the Nabokov family tried to stop publication of Lo's Diary by Pia Pera. They needn't have bothered--it was horrendous.

There's also Finn by Jon Cinch--the story of Huck Finn's father which I haven't read, but which I have heard is quite good.

And there's Foe, Coetzee's version of Robinson Crusoe, which I have not read, but would like to.

I have read Finn. I agree that it's good.

Question: When we rate or review a book here on LT, clearly we are doing so based on our personal experience of the book. How much of your rating or review do you think is based on your reading of it (which could be affected by concentration, mood, sophistication as a reader...etc), and how much is based on the book (prose style, story how the story is told, the story itself, the characters...etc). And do you acknowledge any of this when you review?

For example: You read Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse and find yourself bored to tears with this never-ending boat trip to the damned lighthouse. You give it 2 stars and a scathing review. Do you call it a bad book because your experience with the book was awful or do you acknowledge that maybe you don't understand what the author was trying to do there?

I may not have articulated this well, but I think you catch my drift. Clearly, reviews are by nature subjective, but how do you measure your experience with a book?

#15 Lois - Interesting you ask this right at the time that I've begun shying away from starring books.

One of my biggest problems with writing reviews is trying to separate my experience from the quality of the book. I have the conceptual ideal that reviews should discuss the quality of the books outside our own experiences. But, this has some problems: it demands a certain kind of expertise in the reviewer; it dehumanizes the review in a way; and I think it's hard to keep this kind of review honest.

So, despite it being my ideal, I actually try to avoid this and limit my review to my own experience; and I try very hard to emphasize that in the review. I think this makes my reviews more valuable because the reader sees where I'm coming from and evaluate my review with that in mind. Also, it seems honest.

It's an interesting question. In my case, I think the answer varies a bit... I do try to rate books based simply on how much I personally found them enjoyable, engaging, and satisfying, rather than making any attempt at objectivity. That feels more honest to me, and it's more useful to me as a personal record of how much I actually liked the book. And, frankly, trying to maintain even a pretense at complete objectivity is a losing proposition from the beginning. I can't read with anybody's brain but my own.

All that having been said, though, there sometimes are books where I know my personal reaction is probably idiosyncratic in some way, or when my intellectual perceptions of a particular book don't match my emotional ones. In that case, I usually do make a point of saying so when I review. A good recent example for me was The Unit, which I thought was in many ways a very flawed book, but which worked for me very well, anyway, because the premise hit some of my personal buttons very effectively. Which is most of what I said in my review of it. I also gave it four stars (which I translate as "a good book").

One thing I think I may do, though: I usually won't knock the rating down any for a book that I personally liked but feel may be objectively flawed. Heck, I respect a book that can succeed for me despite such handicaps. But I may sometimes give a book an extra half-star or so if I think my problems with it were more mine than the book's. Sometimes that just feels more fair.

And that also raises an interesting related question I'd be interested in hearing people's answers to. When you rate a book, do you rate it as an example of the kind of thing it is, or on some kind of absolute scale? What I mean is this... I might give a fun bit of brain candy the same rating as a nuanced literary work. That doesn't mean that I consider them objectively equivalent, just that each succeeds equally well in hitting the target that it's aiming at in a way that works for me. Do you do the same, or do you use some sort of fixed rating system with Shakespeare, say, at the top end?

(Though, actually, typing this, I just realized that the bottom end of my own scale is fixed. You have to be pretty much as bad as anything I've ever read to get one star out of me. But most of it is pretty flexible.)

Excellent question Lois. The way I use stars is more a personal tool to compare books in my own library. It's not an apples to apples comparsion but more of a genral feeling of how the book worked for me, regardless of how well written a book may or may not be. I think I'm jus rehashing what's already been said here, but my whole commenting process is subjective. My hope my reviews/comments is to communicate what I enjoyed about the book to people with similar interest. I'm not at all concerned with the art or construction of a story. I have no background or desire to break down a book in any kind of objective manner. Spending the time trying to tease out those kind of details makes it harder for me to enjoy the overall story.

So without an objective measure I try to steer away from negative reviews althogether. I acknownledge that a particular book didn't work for me for whatever reason. On a rare occasion when I see some glaring flaws that would help others determine if they would or would not enjoy a book that isn't being stated then I will say something about those specific flaws. The only example of that I have of this is The Historian. And like Bragan I tend to add half stars and even whole stars to books that I didn't like, but that has some merit that I just don't get.

#15

Reviewing and/or rating books on my thread is always going to be subjective. Strangely enough the review causes me less problems than the star rating system. When reviewing I tend to make the review personal and often will relate it to whats going on in my head at the moment or to something that's happened to me in the past. This will inevitably colour my review, but as I am writing this thread from a personal perspective I figure this is OK. I do find myself influenced by other reviews and try therefore to write my review without referring to other peoples comments. It usually takes me 3 or 4 days to read a book but only minutes to write a review and therefore the tenor of my review will be influenced by how I feel at the time of writing rather than at the time of reading. To compensate for this I do keep a notepad beside me when reading so that I can jot down my feelings at the time of reading.

The star rating system is a real teaser for me. It is the first thing I look at when reading other peoples reviews. I am conscious of my own star rating and find it difficult to justify some of the ratings especially when comparing books that I have rated equally. I feel that perhaps I should give explanations as to how I rate the books. This could however get very long winded. What criteria do other LTers use to star their books?

As with the other responses, I generally rate books based on how they worked for me as a reader. If I got a lot of joy out of the book, I'll give it a high rating. If the book left me with a negative impression, I'll give it a low rating. To do otherwise strikes me as unnecessarily pretentious and dishonest. After all, books should be written with an audience in mind. If I, as the audience, enjoyed the book, it will get the appropriate rating. Because of this, I have given some "literary" works like Ulysses high ratings but have given similar works like Gravity's Rainbow lower ratings. I know that Gravity's Rainbow is supposed to be a great book, but it didn't work for me. I'm not going to give it a high rating as a mere appreciation for what the author was trying to do.

>20 baswood:: I sometimes feel as if I should be providing explanations of my ratings, too, because I know everybody's system is a little different. Mine goes something like:

.5 stars: An abomination. If I believed in burning books, this would be on the pyre.

1-1.5 stars: It's bad. It's really, really bad. Possibly offensively bad.

2-2.5 stars: Not good, mediocre at best.

3-3.5 stars: Okay to not bad. May be flawed, but not without redeeming qualities, or a reasonably pleasant but forgettable read.

4-4.5 stars: Good to really good.

5 stars: Possibly one of the best books I've ever read. One that's going to stick with me for a long, long time.

One interesting thing that I've noticed is that I do seem to regard every whole star as a significant quality jump, so that there's a bigger difference between 3.5 and 4 stars, for example, than there is between 3 and 3.5.

And yet, the ratings I end up giving still often feel disturbingly arbitrary...

I've never been comfortable with rating—starring—books. It's so black and white and I find endless grays in my assessment of a book:-) But, that said, I do it. I rarely rate classics and usually avoid rating poetry.

>18 bragan: And I do rate a book against its literary peers. When I rate mysteries, the book is measured against other mysteries...etc. And to some extent, general and literary fiction is done the same. Even within literary fiction there are "kinds" of books one can measure against (for example, Angela Carter, when on the jury for the Booker prize, referred to being deluged with so many "library" books - which I suspect is the same books I call "book club books")

I am, of course, subjective in my comments about a book, but fiction, for example, is so varied that I cannot always trust my immediate response to a book to be the true measure of a book, or my experience of it. I'll try to write a bit more on this when I have some extra brain cells (which are in short supply this week).

So, that brings me to a follow-up question/s: can you name a book in which, your response to the book looking back, is different than your immediate response to the book was?

#23 can you name a book in which, your response to the book looking back, is different than your immediate response to the book was?

This is my normal experience, not the exception. Actually, I'm unable to review a book right after I finish, as I'm still caught up in the temporary emotions. Time is needed to let my brain energy settle. (It's a bit of an odd balance. I begin to forget the book, and, more significantly, the experience of reading the book - the thoughts and emotions, as soon as I finish it; yet, it takes time for my experience to coalesce into something coherent. So, reviewing means waiting for some kind of response, but not so long that I forget the reading experience itself.)

ps - I tried yesterday to post why I'm having trouble rating books yesterday, but was surprised to find I couldn't actually explain it (or maybe that it just doesn't make sense). But, basically I find that most exquisite books and poetry aren't ratable - it doesn't make any difference how exactly good they are compared to something else. They just are, so to speak. Only books with clear limits and flaws fall into a sensible rating category. At least that is my thought of the moment. I didn't feel this way a year ago...and not exactly this way even a few months ago.

I normally rate based on my experience/understanding of a book, but in my reviews and thread, I try to think about whether it was that there was something fundamental that I was missing that the author was trying to achieve.

I giving ratings, though, about 3 stars are for literary attributes - character development, prose composition, whether the work achieves what I think it's trying to achieve. The other two stars are based on my enjoyment.

23: For me, that book was The Great Gatsby. I didn't like it at all when I was reading it and after reading the ending I thought it was average at best. Having re-read it now I love it. I missed the beauty of the prose the first time, I was too busy trying to like Gatsby (which I didn't and still don't).

Recently, I read a book which I considered an excellent piece of writing, but with which I had a philosophical problem; I was in disagreement with the author's arguments, which coloured my reaction. Do I rate on the writing or the philosophy? Split the difference?

I don't use the star system for this reason - even *I* don't know what I'm rating, so what use is it to others? I prefer to write reviews, so that I can say what my issue is - and others can see if they agree / disagree.

I have never felt I could rate/star books, mostly because of the apples and oranges issue of how to compare books that may have vastly different ambitions. Is a five-star book one I loved? Is it one I loved in which the author attempted to do something difficult and amazing but not one I loved that was just a really fun read? Etcetera. I also believe everybody uses stars differently, so I don't pay any attention when I'm reading a review on a book page. But I DO pay attention to stars given in reviews by people whose reading I've come to understand and appreciate -- but I pay much more attention to the reviews themselves and to the people writing the reviews.

Having said that, I of course have favorites, and these I mark with an asterisk on my list of books read and include in my "Favorites of Recent Years" collection.

Back to reviews. I try to give a feeling for what the book is about, but I really see my review here on LT as an expression of my reaction to the book. I try to make this clear, and I don't shy away from saying a book wasn't for me, but I try to explain why.

And as for changing reactions, I sometimes find that a book that I didn't completely love while I was reading it really stayed with me and caused me to think about it long after I finished it.

>23 avaland:: I'm sure there have been lots of examples of books I've changed my opinion of over time, but the one that leaps instantly to mind is Her Fearful Symmetry, because with that one it happened remarkably fast. As soon as I shut it after finishing, my opinion of it started to drop, and it kept on dropping the more I thought about it. If I'd waited 24 hours to rate it, I probably would have been less generous than I was.

Both my reviews and ratings tend to be initial snap judgements based largely on my experience with the book. A lot of the reason why I rate and reviews is for my own personal memory. I've noticed (especially since joining LT) that there is a lot I don't remember about my reading and how I felt about it. Just sitting down the write the review often times helps me engage with the book more than if I would have just moved on. My reacations definitely change over time (I've found myself changing star ratings when doing catalog maintenence on occasion).

My reviews are all over the place. Sometimes, when I have time and inclination, I write a proper review, but mostly write a quick description of my reaction to the book. Or even just a brief plot description, if the book isn't already reviewed on LT. The reviews are for my own benefit, to help me remember the book and to explore my own experience with it.

That said, reviews aren't entirely subjective. It's one thing to dislike, say, Hemingway's pared down prose, or Byatt's elaborate descriptions, that's a matter of preference. It's another thing to see poor writing or sloppy plotting or a sermon dressed up as a novel. Those, I think, aren't matters of taste.

I've changed my rating now and again, too, when I've found that a book has stuck in my mind (like We Need to Talk About Kevin).

#30, janepriceestrada, I'm also someone who finds "there is a lot I don't remember about my reading and how I felt about it" and am glad to know I'm not alone! I too find writing it down helps me think about the book as a whole beyond the experience of reading it; I wouldn't have known that if I hadn't started writing comments about books here on LT two years ago.

With regard to the question about having a change of heart about a book I think, in my own case, I've had second thoughts about books that I have rated very highly. Books I rated at the bottom of the heap are gonna stay there. A stinker is a stinker. But sometimes when I have just finished a book that I liked I tend to think it was better than it really was. Recent example - Mockingjay. In retrospect, I think that the only book of that trilogy that I really liked was The Hunger Games - the other two were nowhere near as good.

I have no problem using stars as I think, first and foremost, that my library and its ratings are for me. And I have no problem rating classics as some of them are most definitely better than others. After all they were not always 'classics'. I do admit to taking into account that in their day they might have been marking out new territory that in the 21st century seems dusty and dull, but if my eyes start glazing over (yes, The Woman in White, I'm pointing a quivering finger at you, you unadulterated waste of paper!) I'm going to be mean to it.

Probably no one should take my reviews seriously - they are hideously subjective.

#30, I agree with Jane! Also, one of the reasons I wanted to start reviewing my reading, or at least noting it, was that I have a tendency to read too fast and not really think about what I'm reading. I think it's worked, mostly.

Sometimes I find that I can't come up with a star rating for a book - for example, at the end of The Alexandria Quartet I felt that all I could do was talk about my response to it rather than the book itself. But generally I don't find it too difficult, although of course it is very subjective. I do think about the ambition of the book as well - as Rebecca says, "in which the author attempted to do something difficult and amazing".

But overall my 'test' is how keen I would be to recommend it to other people - as a rule of thumb, 5 stars means I'd pretty much recommend it to anyone, 0.5 that if I saw someone I didn't know pick it up in a bookshop I would sidle over and tell them it was rubbish. (My catalogue's not loading properly at the moment so I can't check, but I am pretty sure I only have one 0.5 star read).

The other kind of book I can't easily rate is one which I stopped reading not because I was actively hating it but because it wasn't really gripping me. It feels unfair to give a poor rating if the book's OK and if I haven't given it a chance to prove itself by reading it all the way through.

On the question about changing reactions, I definitely find that you can't tell immediately after reading a book what the longer-term impact of it will be. I have many books on my shelves which I know I've read but I can't tell you a thing about. Alternatively, I had a 'meh' reaction to The Blind Assassin as I was reading it, and in fact did not keep my copy, which I very much regret now as I really would like to re-read it.

I am one who gives stars to books I've read, though I much prefer to have people read my reviews to get my feelings about the books. I try to choose what I read very carefully, and a book I've rated 3 stars is one I have no hesitation in recommending, especially if based on my review it sounds interesting. That being said, my expectation is that most of the books I read will be at least 3 star reads. A 5 star book is one which in my wholly subjective opinion will be or deserves to be still being read in 50 years.

Today I closed a book 146 pages in and dumped it in the box of books to get rid of. I just couldn't waste anymore time on something so poorly written, and I generally finish the books I begin, if only for the pleasure of writing a scathing review afterwards.

So here are my questions: Do you finish every book you begin? What causes you to quit reading (and I'm not counting those books you are dipping in and out of or theoretically plan to finish someday) a book? Which was the last book you gave up on, and why?

Never give up, never surrender. :)

I'm a bit OCD, as I've indicated, so I never give up on a book. I'm a fast enough reader, too, that I rarely feel that even a bad book is going to consume a big enough chunk of time to make discarding it necessary.

There are different reasons for stopping, of course. Bad writing is very different from, say, finding yourself angered or disgusted by the author's stance.

Sometimes I find something redeeming from my persistence, and sometimes the book is bad enough to be funny. (Had one of those recently.) But maybe I've just been lucky: while I've had books I've disagreed with, even to the point of being angry, I've never hated anything enough to stop.

I can't remember the last time I gave up on a book. I suppose this means that I have to be careful in my choice of books or I will feel like I am wasting my time if I get a book that I really struggle with.

I recently read a 990 page fantasy novel that wasn't that great and common sense should have told me to stop reading after the first 100 pages, but of course I didn't. I wonder if this behaviour is a bit compulsive.

I was in my late 30s, if not my 40s, before I could give up on a book I was reading and didn't like. Now I'm happy to give up -- there are just too many books I want to read. I'm also better at picking books I think I'll like than I used to be. That said, sometimes I'll finish a book I"m not enjoying if a lot of people I respect have liked it, just to see if I change my mind.

I'm obsessive about finishing books once started, even when they really don't deserve it. I think a large part of that is sheer stubbornness. Part of it is optimism, because there's always the possibility that the book will redeem itself and turn into something worthwhile (and, indeed, this has happened fairly often with books that started out not doing much for me). And part of it, I suppose, it that it bugs me not to know the end of a story, even if it's not a story I actually care all that much about. I don't like that feeling of having something left unfinished. Although I'm getting better about that last thing, at least. I find myself increasingly willing to abandon movies and TV shows that I'm not enjoying.

Do you finish every book you begin? What causes you to quit reading (and I'm not counting those books you are dipping in and out of or theoretically plan to finish someday) a book? Which was the last book you gave up on, and why?

I read almost every book that I begin, especially if it's been highly recommended by someone on LT whose tastes are similar to mine, or if it's received glowing reviews from reliable sources, or if it's a book that starts slow but ultimately becomes worth it, e.g., The Lacuna and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. I'm more likely to skim through a book rather than discard it, unless it's a long and dense read; I did that with The Literary Conference by César Aira, since it was a short novel. I'm more likely to put a book aside and try it again at another time, but I'll discard it if I still don't like it after multiple attempts. I don't have a fixed page count in my head, a la Nancy Pearl, either.

I think that the last book I gave up on was The Death of Artemio Cruz by Carlos Fuentes. I tried reading it three or four separate times, and was frustrated and irritated with it each time.

Do you finish every book you begin? What causes you to quit reading (and I'm not counting those books you are dipping in and out of or theoretically plan to finish someday) a book? Which was the last book you gave up on, and why?

I'm at the same age as rebecca, and also happy to dump a book it and I are getting along. I think I choose more carefully these days, so it isn't often the poor quality of the writing that offends me, but there could be other reasons: too slow-moving, offensive in some way, too dated... There are some books which I set down because I'm not in the right frame of mind for that type of book at that moment. Most of the time I return to them, on occasion I don't. For example, I have no good excuse for not finishing Ron Rash's Serena last year. It clearly is a very good book and I have enjoyed some of his other work. I just put it down that last time and didn't pick it up again.

The most recent book I did not finish is Andrei Codrescu's The Poetry Lesson. Let's just say that I didn't want to be in the same room with his protagonist, the poetry professor. Life is too short.

I have a tag "Abandoned", which includes seven since 2007 (I joined LT in June 2006).

Those seven were:
-Four books I simply wasn't in the mood for and wasn't enjoying. I might try them again.
-A poetry book I wasn't "getting".
-A book with terrible writing.
-A history book that I think was manipulated to match some religious preconceptions.

I also have three books in my "Currently Reading" collection that I haven't picked-up in months. I really want to read two of them; the other I wasn't enjoying.

Over that same period of time I have eight books with ratings below 3, which means I didn't like them.
- 3 for bad writing (including the popular Edgar Sawtelle)
- 3 nonfiction that basically lacked any valuable content
- 2 poorly written "adventure" books
- 1 book of fiction that was religiously motivated in a way I found annoying (Narnia, book 7; I liked 1-6)

Too much info?

So I'm reading two somewhat older history books on topics that I have previously read a more modern parallel. This is not something typically do, and I'm encountering a naivete I wasn't aware I had. In both cases I loved the newer books because of the fascinating narrative drive in the history. Now, reading the older books I'm discovering that the narrative drive was already there long ago. The newer books didn't plagiarize, they re-wrote it their own way, updated, and corrected. However, the point is they didn't discover the narrative drive in these histories, they only rewrote it.

This is making me kind of bummed. My (very personal) question: What do I make of this?

The books:
Current read
The Everglades: River of Grass by Majory Stoneman Douglas (published 1947)
Newer parallel
The Swamp: The Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise by Michael Grunwald (pub 2006, read by me in 2007)
Comment:
MS Douglas has a narrative ability far superior the magazine-like style of writing of Grunwald (think Slate). She doesn't site sources, but instead writes a beautiful and incomparable history. But, keep in mind, I liked Grunwald...a lot.

Current read
The Seven Sisters : The Great Oil Companies and the World They Shaped by Anthony Sampson (pub 1975)
Older parallel
The Prize : The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power by Daniel Yergin (pub 1991, won Pulitzer Prize, read by me in 2003)
Comment:
Yergin's focus is on oil itself, not oil companies, but still that's a big part of his book. Sampson already had that part of the narrative firmly down, and presents it very well. I'm thinking this narrative likely existed long before Sampson.

>44 dchaikin: I don't know, what do you make of it?

That I'm still very naive. :)

So, I'm reading The Twin by Gerbrand Bakker and I'm totally in love with it. I don't have a great deal of time to read, but I'm sleepy this morning because I was up late reading because I couldn't stop, and I got up early this morning so I could read before work (and I'm going to be really sad when I finish because you can only read a book the 1st time once).

And I'm noticing I've done with with other similar books...four of them to be precise: A River Runs Through It, Out Stealing Horses, Goodbye to a River and Possessed by Shadows (only four copies on LT, this last one). All four are narrated by middle aged men (40's-50's), and they are all reflective, mixing some modern observations with a look at a personal past. They all have a cathartic aspect to them. (And, strangely, I hate realizing all this. It takes a little edge off, demystifying it a bit.)

Anyway, obviously there a type of book I connect with in way that seems to beyond the quality of the writing (the writing is excellent in all these books, however).

So, my question: Do you have a type of book that does this to you, that you tend to really connect with in some way?

#47 Interesting question

I tend to connect most with novels that are set in my favourite travel destinations: so far this year these have been:
The floating book Venice
Anil's ghost Sri lanka
Such a long journey Mumbai
The God of small things Kerala India

I love reading about Venice which is my all time favourite place

#47 - For me, it's multiple narrators. Almost all of my favourite books in recent years have been told from various perspectives - Atwood's The Blind Assassin and Alias Grace, Galloway's The Cellist of Sarajevo, Catton's The Rehearsal, McAdam's Fall, Hill's Any Known Blood, and Byatt's The Children's Book. Most of the time, though not all, these books also displayed a lot of research on the part of the author, and a lot of detail on the time period. Also, most of them have a rather long list of characters, rather than one main protagonist.

I can easily separate these books, which I enjoy mainly based on characters and plot, from ones I really enjoy based on writing style. Here, it is all about sparse language - McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses, The Road, and No Country for Old Men, Ondaatje's The English Patient and In the Skin of a Lion, Sabatini's The Boy Next Door, Watson's The Double Hook and Deep Hollow Creek, Moore's February, and Erpenbeck's Visitation. These aren't character-driven books, IMO, but I love them for their writing, which is poetic, and leaves much to the reader's imagination. You really have to fill in the gaps yourself, when reading these books.

So I guess these two different types of novels speak to me.

47 - I find it very easy to connect with southern fiction - Faulkner, etc - partly because the voice is so easy for me to slip into and partly because I find they tend to vivid evocations of place. I'm the opposite of Cait in terms of style. I prefer very dense prose, multiple digressions - Hugo, Henry James, etc.

>47 dchaikin: Good question. I think I make connections in many ways which can change over time. I really would need to give it some thought (I mean why have I only really connected with JCO in roughly the last decade, for example?)

Lois - I am interested in your thoughts on your parenthetical question.

>52 dchaikin: Dan, I'm not sure I have any conclusions.

I first remember picking up one of her books in 1980. It did nothing for me. Of course, at that time and in the following years, I was having and raising small children and my reading tended to be lighter -when I could read, that is. I was also working full-time nights for a police department and, well, after one has taken calls from children calling in domestics that involve their parents, or handled a accident that kills several teens or kept someone threatening suicide on the line until a car could get there...etc*, one has had enough of the dark and tragic side of life for the day.

*of course, I am neglecting to mention the "rabid" snakes, the 'my power is out' and 'what day is Halloween' calls - and, lest we not forget, the two dogs stuck together calls.

Snakes can be rabid? I did not think that they could be more terrifying!

*yes, I do know that you're joking, but will still hold you responsible for all subsequent dreams involving snakes frothing at the mouth.*

Lois, if we were talking, now would be the time I say something meaningless, like "oh, really", hoping to encourage you to go on. Or perhaps I might ask, "So, when did that change?" But, as this is a web thread, I feel rude asking that. Still, it's very interesting (and I'm very entertained by the asterisk comment). You have me thinking about the evolution of my own reading tastes.