Okay, here's the deal: mostly, when it comes to fiction, I read what might be called "serious modern fiction," and that's mostly what I like. But when I'm working on something that leaves me pretty brain-dead -- like, say, trying to achieve basic competence in a language as beastly as Dari -- I like to unwind with genre fiction. Way too much liberal arts education along with a steady diet of Man-Booker winners, however, has left me with pretty high standards for things like use of language, structure, complexity of themes and characters, etc., and that's where most genre fiction falls down.
As far as I'm concerned, the God of quality genre fiction is John LeCarre, but I've pretty much exhausted his stuff. Ditto crime writers -- my favorite genre -- like Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain, Jim Thompson, Chester Himes, Walter Mosely, James Ellroy, and Elmore Leonard. I generally can't abide scifi (that'll make me a bunch of friends here, I'm sure ), but I have run through William Gibson and as much Neal Stephenson as I could stand (basically, up though Cryptonomicon, which I loved; Baroque cycle, not so much). I don't know if that helps triangulate my tastes any, but there it is.
I have an extremely smart friend whose taste I generally trust pushing Anne Rice, but I'm dubious. Instead I'm reading Tony Hillerman, who's okay but a bit "light" for my tastes.
Help!
Thanks.
As far as I'm concerned, the God of quality genre fiction is John LeCarre, but I've pretty much exhausted his stuff. Ditto crime writers -- my favorite genre -- like Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain, Jim Thompson, Chester Himes, Walter Mosely, James Ellroy, and Elmore Leonard. I generally can't abide scifi (that'll make me a bunch of friends here, I'm sure ), but I have run through William Gibson and as much Neal Stephenson as I could stand (basically, up though Cryptonomicon, which I loved; Baroque cycle, not so much). I don't know if that helps triangulate my tastes any, but there it is.
I have an extremely smart friend whose taste I generally trust pushing Anne Rice, but I'm dubious. Instead I'm reading Tony Hillerman, who's okay but a bit "light" for my tastes.
Help!
Thanks.
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