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What would you like to discover this year?


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I tend to stick to the same kind of genres and authors too, so I'm going to try and widen my reading habits this year. I've had a fair few suggestions and recommendations over on my reading blog so I'm going to try and use them as a basis to start with.

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I'll be trying out some "new" classic authors this year (well, new to me - LOL!) including Chalres Dickens, Joseph Conrad, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Victor Hugo, Rudyard Kipling, Choderlos de Laclos,Lew Wallace, Tolstoy, Thackeray and John Bunyan (I have books by each of them waiting to be read!).

 

I'll also be trying out more foreign authors.

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I want to have another go at Alistair MacLean's books. I first read them between the late 60s & late 70s and was rather critical at his poor contemporary characterisation marring the often good plots. I still feel tha same way about the unrealistic squeaky cleanliness of his "good guys", but feel that I am now able to read through those and enjoy the story for what it is. I am going to start with one of his later books - Circus.

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I'm planning on reading some Dickens this year. I read A Christmas Carol over the holidays and I really enjoyed it. :D

 

Dickens is one of my favorite authors! My recommendations, if you're just starting out with him, are David Copperfield, Nicholas Nickleby and Oliver Twist. All of them are great stories and are not as dense as some others, like Bleak House or Dombey and Son, both of which I also really like. But I wouldn't recommend reading them until you've had a chance to get used to Dickens and to decide if you really like him.:friends0:

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I'm looking forward to discovering some new authors, such as the Brontes, Capote and Thackeray, and also reading more modern literature (of the past 10 years), because I tend to neglect that a bit.

 

I'm also hoping to read a bit of crime; a genre I've never really explored before.

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Guest fireball
I'll be trying out some "new" classic authors this year (well, new to me - LOL!) including Chalres Dickens, Joseph Conrad, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Victor Hugo, Rudyard Kipling, Choderlos de Laclos,Lew Wallace, Tolstoy, Thackeray and John Bunyan (I have books by each of them waiting to be read!).

 

I'll also be trying out more foreign authors.

 

Fair play to you Kell. The maybe "oldies" but you've a helluva selection to chose from, just pace yourself though, those writers can be overwhelming.

 

Just enjoy and have a ball.! :friends0:

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I'll most likely be reading them at a pace of only one or two a month (I average 8-10 per month, so that's not too bad, I reckon). Seeing as how I have a whole host of different challenges to work on, I think they'll get balanced out a fair old bit. Looking forward to getting stuck into them though. :friends0:

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I'd like to discover another excellent modern author who thinks about outside the box - therefore probably someone foreign. Someone who'll fit my collection of John Lanchester and Tibor Fischer and Haruki Murukami and David Mitchell and Ismael Kadare. Cormac McCarthy looks a good bet, as does Philip Roth, after reading one book by each last year.

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Dickens is one of my favorite authors! My recommendations, if you're just starting out with him, are David Copperfield, Nicholas Nickleby and Oliver Twist. All of them are great stories and are not as dense as some others, like Bleak House or Dombey and Son, both of which I also really like. But I wouldn't recommend reading them until you've had a chance to get used to Dickens and to decide if you really like him.:friends0:

Thanks for the recommendations. :D I'm pretty sure my Mum has a copy of David Copperfield (it's one of her fave books) so I'll borrow that one at some stage.

 

I've added the others to my Wishlist on Amazon so I don't forget which ones you've suggested. :irked:

 

ETA: Amazon have the Wordsworth editions for £1.99!!

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Last year I discovered Pratchett and Fforde. This year I hope to find a thourogly engrossing, gigantic series of books, probably fantasy and probably Australian. That will consume half the year before I blearily come out of a book coma and read Pratchett again. Thats the best case senario. I'll probably just re-read my favorites until a new Pratchett/ Croggon / Canavan / Pullman (I heard rumors) comes out.

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I'd like to discover another excellent modern author who thinks about outside the box - therefore probably someone foreign.

 

I'll offer a name I've brought up several times before and will again, no doubt... Erlend Loe from Norway. Brilliant author! Naive. Super. is one of the most fascinating books I've read in a long while. Also Mikael Niemi's Popular Music is an awesome contemporary book.

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  • 2 weeks later...

A Tale of Two Cities is good. The Old Curiosity Shop, Oliver Twist and Great Expectations won't disappoint either. Hard Times is a short read but not one of my favourites.

Although Dickens isn't my favourite Victorian read, do not fear his style. Indeed you will enjoy the tapestry of Victorian life and come to understand why the likes of Dickens and Hardy used the power of their novels to criticize and poke fun at the morals of Victorian life. Sit back and enjoy

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Great Expectations comes to mind as having some of the most evocative and memorable scenes of Dickens' novels. His books are generally very wordy but if you can get past that, they are a very entertaining and satisfying read.

 

Good luck - hope you find something of his that you enjoy.

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David Copperfield was my first Dickens, and it was outstanding! I thought Great Expectations was boring, and I didn't finish it. A lot of people live it, though.

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