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Jan. 7th, 2012 07:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatWell, it finally happened. I've burnt out on the romance novels. I do this. Not just with novels, with basically everything. I binge. And then...I don't want it anywhere near me. Wish the burn-out held off until I read all the books I bought. Still have five to go, dang it. But I'm burned out on the genre right now. I know the pattern now.
The last one I read wasn't that good. The Amazon reviewers were right...sad but true. Captives of the Night by Loretta Chase was a bit on the preachy side and wandered. She was trying to do a gothic, but made the mistake of going into both points of view. Also she tried to have a hero from the exotic east...which talked like a romantic cliche of a eastern Muslim prince. Westerners have a very odd view of Persia and Arabs and the East. We don't understand this culture. And tend to fall into weird generalizations. I prefer to read books from the East, not English writers views of them.
English writers either romanticize or demonize. That's the problem.
At any rate, I'd recommend skipping this one. Loretta Chase does a great sexy version of Georgette Heyer, but Mary Stewart, Helen McKinnis, Victoria Holt, and Laurie McBain...she's not.
Will most likely read a non-e-book next. The book I picked up off the street entitled "How I became a Famous Novelist" by humor writer Steve Healy. I want funny. And hello, no violence! Hopefully it won't be whiny. Apparently there are four choices: violence, romance, whiny, and non-fiction. Anyhow I've decided I have to read a non-e-book next, mostly because I decided to try and do an inventory of the books on my bookshelves today...and discovered I have over 200 books and 75-80% of which I have NOT read. This is sad. Okay, I may have read some of them...but either do not remember or got halfway through and gave up.
I was writing them down and numbering them...stopped numbering around number 59. Stopped writing after five pages were filled. And I realized I hadn't finished reading or even started reading over half of them...which is just embarrassing. Although seriously, who cares?
Halfway through Marcel Proust's Swann's Way...when I started to go to sleep because let's face it there is no real plot in this book, nothing really happens, it's basically just a long essay about a sexually frustrated guy taking walks around Paris and pondering life in general. I suppose that could be thought provoking from a philosophical point of view. Also the writing is beautiful or the translation is, whichever, I can't read it in French. Anywho, when I began to go to sleep...I thought, okay, why are we reading this? We aren't in school any longer? Does anyone really care? Hello? Life is too short to be bored by a book. Read a more entertaining one. One shouldn't have to work to read for pleasure...particularly when one works to read dry material eight hours a day, five days a week at work. I want dessert when I read right now. An escape. I don't need more information or to learn - I get that from the paper, the internet, church, the tv set, and work.
[Okay..This must be my mishearing...NY1: The Vulcan Society is going Door to Door to see if people are up on the paperwork. ME: WHAT???]
Oh...I may bore you all with a list of the books on my bookshelves shortly. You can do a meme and see how many you've read - it's bound to be more than I have. ;-)
The last one I read wasn't that good. The Amazon reviewers were right...sad but true. Captives of the Night by Loretta Chase was a bit on the preachy side and wandered. She was trying to do a gothic, but made the mistake of going into both points of view. Also she tried to have a hero from the exotic east...which talked like a romantic cliche of a eastern Muslim prince. Westerners have a very odd view of Persia and Arabs and the East. We don't understand this culture. And tend to fall into weird generalizations. I prefer to read books from the East, not English writers views of them.
English writers either romanticize or demonize. That's the problem.
At any rate, I'd recommend skipping this one. Loretta Chase does a great sexy version of Georgette Heyer, but Mary Stewart, Helen McKinnis, Victoria Holt, and Laurie McBain...she's not.
Will most likely read a non-e-book next. The book I picked up off the street entitled "How I became a Famous Novelist" by humor writer Steve Healy. I want funny. And hello, no violence! Hopefully it won't be whiny. Apparently there are four choices: violence, romance, whiny, and non-fiction. Anyhow I've decided I have to read a non-e-book next, mostly because I decided to try and do an inventory of the books on my bookshelves today...and discovered I have over 200 books and 75-80% of which I have NOT read. This is sad. Okay, I may have read some of them...but either do not remember or got halfway through and gave up.
I was writing them down and numbering them...stopped numbering around number 59. Stopped writing after five pages were filled. And I realized I hadn't finished reading or even started reading over half of them...which is just embarrassing. Although seriously, who cares?
Halfway through Marcel Proust's Swann's Way...when I started to go to sleep because let's face it there is no real plot in this book, nothing really happens, it's basically just a long essay about a sexually frustrated guy taking walks around Paris and pondering life in general. I suppose that could be thought provoking from a philosophical point of view. Also the writing is beautiful or the translation is, whichever, I can't read it in French. Anywho, when I began to go to sleep...I thought, okay, why are we reading this? We aren't in school any longer? Does anyone really care? Hello? Life is too short to be bored by a book. Read a more entertaining one. One shouldn't have to work to read for pleasure...particularly when one works to read dry material eight hours a day, five days a week at work. I want dessert when I read right now. An escape. I don't need more information or to learn - I get that from the paper, the internet, church, the tv set, and work.
[Okay..This must be my mishearing...NY1: The Vulcan Society is going Door to Door to see if people are up on the paperwork. ME: WHAT???]
Oh...I may bore you all with a list of the books on my bookshelves shortly. You can do a meme and see how many you've read - it's bound to be more than I have. ;-)