(no subject)

[shadowkat]

Thank you to the two people who gave me virtual gifts! Mucho appreciated.

Not a fan of Valentine's Day. Bad things happen to me on Valentine's Day.


*Sprained my ankle, got beaten up by the side-walk, and broke up with best friend of 25 years
*Got Robbed - someone broke into my apartment while I was sleeping and stole my lap-top, after I'd done my taxes on it.

Just to name a few.

Also can't do the chocolates - for some reason they put wheat-gluten in the boxed chocolates, I've no idea why. So bought home-made dark coconut raw chocolate instead.

This morning they named the top three favorite Valentine's Day movies. I can't remember the third one. But one and two were: The Notebook (which I've never seen)
and Pretty Woman (which I *cough*like*cough* but everyone else I know outside of the Momster despises because well, we've already had this conversation, I'm not in the mood for a repeat.).

What I'd like? A list of favorite romantic novels, preferably written after the 19th Century and Early 20th. I ask people online for a list and I get clobbered with the Brontes, Jane Austen, Edith Wharton, and Henry James. Bleargh. Outside of Austen, most of these are just depressing or like watching The Way We Were fifty times.

Modern Romantic Novels - post 1950. Got any???

Ponders. I'm drawing a blank. Lots of romance novels...but nothing of a literary vibe.
I know I've read a few. So why is my mind a blank?

* Bridget Jones Diary (Pride and Prejudice satire)
* Sunshine by Robin McKinely...okay maybe not a romantic novel, felt romantic to me
* Time Traveler's Wife - which I admittedly have yet to read
* Night Train to Memphis by Elizabeth Peters - more lame mystery/adventure with romance
* Checkmate by Dorothy Dunnet...romance by way of Alexander Dumas

I don't know you got any? No Edith Wharton allowed! Also nothing by Nicholas Sparks or the guy who wrote Bridges of Madison County ( I did read the later book). And no, Stephanie Meyer! Other than that...

Comments

[rebcake.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. I'm kinda iffy on the whole "literary" genre. Does that just mean "no spaceships"? (No, don't tell me, I prefer to pretend to be above it all.) Anyway, I like books that have a light romantic tone. "The Thin Woman" by Dorothy Cannell is a fun, spoofy mystery with a Bridget Jonse-y feel, although it came out years earlier.

You might try "Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston, "Memoirs of a Geisha" by whatsisname, or "Like Water For Chocolate" by Laura Esquivel to break out of the all-white ghetto, though they are none of them light. They were popular, any road.

"The Virginian" by Owen Wister is pretty romantic, as are the later "Horatio Hornblower" books by C.S. Forrester. Both were written in the 20th century about earlier times. I've never read "The African Queen", also by Forrester, but his other stuff is good, so that's promising.

Uh, I just realized that some of those are from the 20s or 30s-40s. Do as you will.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

No, literary means no "bodice ripper romance novels" by Kathleen Woodwiss. LOL! Because read a ton.

I've actually read everything you listed but The Virginian and Horatio Hornblower novels. And The African Queen.

Their Eyes Were Watching God is frigging hard to read. Basically a poem in dialect. But well-written. Memoirs of a Geisha wasn't bad, but I don't think I'd call it romantic, so much as tragic - reminds of The Way We Were. Did I see the movie? I can't remember the movie. I remember the book very well. Read it for a book club back in the 1990s. Like Water for Chocolat was wonderful. As was the movie. There's another one called Chocolate - that takes place in France...with Johnny Depp. Both were made into films. Read the books and saw the films. (also book club related).

Haven't read The Thin Woman. That's new. May look it up. Prefer light romantic tone. Melodramatic gets on my nerves.

[Sigh, I got to listen I'll Always Love You twice this week - first Jennifer Hudson, now Mercedes on Glee.)