booooooooooookses.

[schmerica]

Please to rec me books?

I like nonfiction. I like genre fiction of all kinds. I like funny books and quirky books and books with history or language or books or expatriates or food. I like both brand new books and older books. I read a lot and very quickly, but am easily bored (often, but not exclusively, with mainstream literary fiction). I am not well-read in the categories of YA or romance, and both are large enough that I am wary of guessing on goodness on my own.

Behind the cut tag is the list of the books I have read and enjoyed (that is, I'm kicking off the sucky and mediocre books I finished anyway) since December 2004, for context:

The Last Camel Died at Noon by Elizabeth Peters
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Welcome to Temptation by Jennifer Crusie
Miracle and Other Christmas Stories by Connie Willis
Frederica by Georgette Heyer
Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
The Snake, The Crocodile and the Dog by Elizabeth Peters
The Invention of Love by Tom Stoppard
As Meat Loves Salt by Maria McCann
Sunshine by Robin McKinley
Empress of the World by Sara Ryan
A Massive Swelling: Celebrity Reexamined as a Grotesque Crippling Disease by Cintra Wilson
Grass as His Pillow by Lian Hearn
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares
Made in America: An Informal History of the English Language in the United States by Bill Bryson
Weird and Tragic Shores: The Story of Charles Francis Hall, Explorer by Chauncey Loomis
The Second Summer of the Sisterhood by Ann Brashares
A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libby Bray

Comments

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Reading Freedom & Necessity and (the admittedly incredibly different) Sorcery & Cecelia within a few weeks of each other convinced me that "Napoleonic wars-era historical epistolary fiction" was a *way* underused genre.

*scribbles down other book names*

[damned-colonial.livejournal.com]

*peers at you*

Just checking, since I kinda know you through DS and not elsewhere, and you only friended me recent... you do know what commodorified and I write, right?

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

...Well, now I'm not sure. I'm not interested in the navy/ships/actual battles parts of the era, which is what I assumed most of the fannish stuff was. Do you write other stuff int he time period?

[damned-colonial.livejournal.com]

Yes. We write, specifically, Napoleonic-era historic epistolary porn. In Hornblower fandom. Well, OK, the epistolary bits aren't the porniest, and vice versa, but it's a shared universe sort of thing where porn and letter-writing are big themes.

The All the King's Men series (http://scriptorium.infotrope.net/fiction/series.mhtml?s=atkm)

Sample epistolary fic (http://scriptorium.infotrope.net/fiction/thus.mhtml) (will make more sense in context, but should give you some idea of style)

[damned-colonial.livejournal.com]

Dammit, why do I never think to change my icon for comments?

[commodorified.livejournal.com]

Oh, and Kate Ross' four: A Broken Vessel, Whom The Gods Love, Cut to the Quick and The Devil in Music. Wonderful Regency mysteries.

[dsudis.livejournal.com]

Oh, enthusiastically seconded. I love these!

[holyschist.livejournal.com]

Thirded! I especially adored The Devil in Music.

[dine.livejournal.com]

oh! these are fabulous - I only wish there were more in the series.

note to self - find copies; reread