Jane Austen/Other Book Recommendations?

Posted by Cyn | Filed under Reading

Um, I’m want­i­ng some­thing to read, and the libraries are being very slow about ful­fill­ing my hold requests, so I’m look­ing for old stuff that’s good and prob­a­bly on the library shelf just wait­ing to be loved. I think I might try some Jane Austen, as I recent­ly real­ized that I nev­er have, but the excerpts I’ve seen are wit­ti­er than I expect­ed. I’m not fond of romances or “chick lit” or such things, which is where I’ve place her books.1

If I’m going to try them, where should I start? Any oth­er authors/books you think I should try?

I don’t care to read doom-filled, depress­ing sto­ries. There’s enough of that in the real world, and I can always go look at the news. I want to read about smart, like­able peo­ple doing inter­est­ing things while ban­ter­ing wit­ti­ly. Humor is impor­tant, but goofy slap­stick non­sense loos­es me. I HATE HATE HATE “do some­thing obvi­ous­ly stu­pid, try to get out of the result­ing mess” plots.

I’ve read Lois McMas­ter Bujold, thanks 🙂 Well, all the Vorkosi­gan uni­verse stuff, any­way. Her fan­ta­sy books have nev­er inter­est­ed me, for some odd rea­son.

Thank you 🙂

1 I think to some extent I got her all mixed up with the Brontës when I was a teen, and damned if I want­ed more of that non­sense.

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Permalink | April 4th, 2009

One Response to “Jane Austen/Other Book Recommendations?”

  1. Fractional Airplane Says:
    April 18th, 2009 at 8:02 pm

    A friend of mine intro­duce me to what we call The Tril­o­gy. Unre­lat­ed but they go well togeth­er in this order-
    Sid­dhartha — Her­man Hesse
    Con­fed­er­a­cy of Dunces — John Kennedy Toole
    Tor­tilla Flats — John Stein­beck

    Also, an oldie but good­ie, favorite of mine is James Clavell of Shogun fame. Read his Asian nov­els in order, lot of fun.

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