I mentioned science fiction in the P.S. of the previous post, which brings me along to a New Year's topic.
I've been racking my brain, but I believe I have read only one or only three science fiction books in my entire life. It was a thing called The Foundation Trilogy and I read it when I was 13. I read an omnibus version in one volume (like this one) but it was originally three novels, which is why the number confusion.
Somehow, all of these images came up in an image search for "Isaac Asimov." From left to right, Arthur C. Clarke, Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo, Frankenstein's monster, Hana Rahil Berman, Borges, Poe, the Duke of Windsor, Harold Pinter, an etching of Fermat, and a pencil drawing of Carlos Santana. Don't ask me.
The author, Isaac Asimov, was quite famous at the time (1970), and might still be. I had read an admiring interview of him and wanted to read one of his books. (The thing I remember about the interview now is that Prof. Asimov, who was very prolific, had six IBM Selectric electric typewriters, and when one of them broke and had to go in for repair, he fretted about it until it came back.) I remember enjoying The Foundation Trilogy a lot; I have good memories of the experience, and a high opinion of the book(s), and I'm glad I read it(them); and although I remember what the volume looked like and the picture on its cover and where I was when I finished it and all my impressions about it at the time, I do not recall a thing about the plot or action. And, after reading it, without conscious intention at the time, I set science fiction aside, without prejudice. I bear the genre no ill-will and no disrespect whatsoever. It just didn't seem like my cup of tea. Tea is not my cup of tea either, come to that. I say that also with no animus at all. One can't like everything.
Or at least, one doesn't.
New Year's 2017
2016 was a terrible year for me. I'm glad it's ending. My annus horribilis, with apologies to Her Majesty. It marks the start of my old age I'm sure, emotionally, if not technically.
(Technically old age begins at 65, according to the DSM IV. I'm 59 for a few more months yet.)
For one thing, I like to read, but I read only 30 or so books in 2016, my lowest total in a long time. And because I read mostly nonfiction, my tradition is to read at least one famous or celebrated novel every year, and this past year I read no novels at all. Not even that ceremonial single one.
This seems a mistake. I like nonfiction, but it needs a little leavening.
But 2016 is over now, and I mean to move on. I intend to think positively, keep moving forward, hold my head up, and meet the future with fortitude and resilience. With cheer, even. For one thing, I have a whole list of resolutions this year, and some of them I am damn well going to damn well keep [sic].
...Beginning with that novel. I'm not going to let 2017 go by without observing my old tradition.
Past "annual novels" have included Jane Eyre (loved it), Treasure Island (surprisingly thin, I thought, although perhaps I was just out of sync with it), In Cold Blood, David Copperfield, and Native Son (excellent, retaining its power to shock). I attempted Moby Dick one year but foundered on its rocky shoals. I tend to like to "read around" the book I choose, too—reading criticism, ancillary works, and watching film adaptations if there are any (I watched three film versions of Jane Eyre). My question is, any suggestions? Perhaps something fat and grand and a page-turner. And nothing that will be too hard on me.
Nothing by Kafka(!).
Mike
There is usually only one "Open Mike," but I didn't want to let that grammar post just hang there.
Original contents copyright 2016 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.
A good year
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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:
John Camp: "Shame! Good nonfiction gives you only facts, which you already probably have enough of, while good novels attempt to get at truth, which nobody ever has enough of. Maybe you should assign one of your minions to search the Internet for a credible list of the 100 greatest novels of all time, and TOP could sponsor a great novels club, read one novel at a time. We'd have all 100 read in eight years or so. Persistence is your friend in almost everything (except murder, burglary, etc.) and the reading of great novels would not be an exception."
Nigel: "Dickens...Bleak House. Fat and grand, and a page turner (for me, at least). Your difficulties with Moby Dick and science fiction reminded me of this wonderful interview with Ray Bradbury."
Mike replies: That is wonderful. I always liked Ray Bradbury, because of Dandelion Wine. And come to think of it I did read Fahrenheit 451, which I'm pretty sure counts as science fiction—raising my lifetime total.
Rip Smith: "Go back and read The Foundation Trilogy again. I read it when I was in high school and then again some time after I passed the 59-year-old mark. It was even better the second time around."
MarkR: "Books? If you need your literature fix just put some Dylan on the turntable."
Mike replies: Oh dear. As Ctein used to say, put down that can opener and step away from the can of worms....
RubyT: "Since I don't see it mentioned here, I'd like to put in a good word for Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset, in the Tiina Nunnally translation. I did not discover it until about 10 years ago—it's actually a trilogy and won the Nobel Prize in literature. It gives such a vivid picture of life in 14th-century Norway and mixes the small details with the great questions of life in a delightful manner. Even though it is long, I am planning to read it for a third time in the coming year.
"In my youth I probably read 300 books a year, and even now I try to read at least 50, so I do not call this my favorite book lightly."
Mike replies: Thanks. I just downloaded that.
Yvonne: "Michel Houellebecq is the one of the most interesting authors I've read of late.
"I didn't think I would like him (especially because of the crass way he writes about sex and women), but about a year and half ago, I read all of his books in a very short time. I got kind of obsessed.
"If you like your authors politically correct, stay away, but if you enjoy subversion and satire, which can be laugh-out-loud funny, you will have come to the right place.
"The central theme is his work is the decline of western civilization, and while his characters revel in hedonism and sex (if they can get it—the sexually frustrated male is a common character) they find little joy or satisfaction there, but they know they can't go back to traditional values, which are finished for any number of logical reasons.
"Perhaps the best book to start with is Map and Territory. The protagonist is French photographic artist, who becomes a commercial success creating works based on Michelin tourist maps. It was the first one I read.
"The Possibility of an Island is a sort of Si-Fi look at the human predicament—a Scientology-like cult finds a way out of the dictates of normal biology and creates a race of pseudo-people. I really enjoyed it, even though I'm not normally into Sci-Fi.
"I read Submission (France elects a Muslim president in the 2020s), and I'm looking forward to whatever he does next.
"And Whatever is his first book, which is also very funny, but veers off into craziness at the end. However, his descriptions of the modern day work-place make for great satire rooted the mundane lives of a couple of IT drudges who work for the French Ministry of Agriculture.
What I think, fundamentally, is that you can’t do anything about major societal changes. It may be regrettable that the family unit is disappearing. You could argue that it increases human suffering. But regrettable or not, there’s nothing we can do. That’s the difference between me and a reactionary. I don’t have any interest in turning back the clock because I don’t believe it can be done. You can only observe and describe. I’ve always liked Balzac’s very insulting statement that the only purpose of the novel is to show the disasters produced by the changing of values. He’s exaggerating in an amusing way. But that’s what I do: I show the disasters produced by the liberalization of values.
"This quote from Houellebecq goes some way toward summing up the general themes of his work."
No Brothers Karamazov?
I certainly agree with the whole 20 books of the Aubrey /Maturin series, starting with Master and Commander. One reviewer commented about his "encyclopedic knowledge" of the world his "fighting sail" novels are set in and another (NYT?) said something to the effect of, "if Jane Austin were writing sea stories, this is what they'd look like, so you'd be touching base with both your genres." I've read them all at least three times.
Pride & Prejudice.
But, for 2016, you could easily manage "Truth is the Daughter of Time" by Josephine Tey. Voted best mystery of all time in 2010 by the Mystery Writers Guild (which may be a bit of a stretch) it used to be offered by Audible Books read wonderfully by Derek Jacobi. Local library?
Posted by: Thomas Turnbull | Thursday, 29 December 2016 at 01:07 PM
Two novels that might appeal to your "reading around" a book: "Against the Fall of Night" and "The City and the Stars", both variations on a theme written a few decades apart by Arthur C. Clarke. Yeah, they're science fiction, and fairly "hard" in that they feature scads of technological doodads and whatnot, but that's mostly just scenery. They somewhat un-obviously recount an ordinary person's dealings with an extraordinary situation, and they are brisk reads.
Daniel Keyes' "Flowers for Algernon" is short enough to nab this year. For another read-around, pair it with "2001: A Space Odyssey", also by A.C.C. and also not really about space travel.
I also second the recommendations of LeGuin's "The Dispossessed" and Ian M. Banks (note the "M"), and add Nancy Kress, particularly "Beggars in Spain".
Posted by: Peter Dove | Thursday, 29 December 2016 at 01:26 PM
My strategy is to read one book of fiction, then one of non-. There are lots of good suggestions for novels above, but may I suggest you try Moby Dick again? If you get bogged down on the chapters that deal with technical aspects of whaling (oh joy, another chapter on try-pots!), just skip them.
Posted by: D | Thursday, 29 December 2016 at 01:46 PM
John Scalzi's Old Mans War.
Posted by: Helio E Gomez | Thursday, 29 December 2016 at 01:46 PM
'facts, facts and more facts'. Hard Times by Dickens, and quite short not that that is an issue I am sure.
Otherwise the list is endless. However, please give Stoner a go, by John Williams. An American novel I only read a couple of years ago and it went straight into my top 10. And me a lifelong reader of 62.
Happy new year.
Simon
Posted by: Simon | Thursday, 29 December 2016 at 02:36 PM
I'd recommend "Huckleberry Finn." I've read it at least a half dozen times since childhood, most recently a month ago, and I get something different from it every time I read it. There are passages in the book that are simply breathtaking. As Hemingway suggested, it is THE great American novel.
I have an extra copy I'd be glad to send you if you don't already have one.
Posted by: Rodger Kingston | Thursday, 29 December 2016 at 02:56 PM
Mike, even if you did not have a great year, your blog made my year so much richer. It is much more than photography. I just pickup Blue Highways, a book I read 30 years ago, but forgot, and am enjoying it much more the second time around. I have written down several book titles from the comment section of this post that need to be read in 2017. Thanks so very much for all your thoughtful comments about photography or life, and I hope your 2017 is better. All the best.
Posted by: Eric Erickson | Thursday, 29 December 2016 at 02:57 PM
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.
Posted by: Darlene | Thursday, 29 December 2016 at 03:24 PM
You're a dog guy, Mike — buy this one immediately and read it to Butters! Go to Amazon through your portal, choose one day shipping, start reading when it arrives and you'll easily beat the deadline for 2016!
Seriously.
"Judy: The Unforgettable Story of the Dog Who Went to War and Became a True Hero," by Damien Lewis.
(It's even available on Kindle so you could download a sample today!)
Posted by: Thomas Turnbull | Thursday, 29 December 2016 at 04:46 PM
"Tales of Pirx the Pilot"
Five short sories about spaceship pilot. "Pirx is ordinary man, has little if anything heroic about him. He grows with problems he faces – the Pilot has to prove the worth of an imperfect man confronted with the world of machines and machine thinking."
The book keeps you in suspense, it is full of "romance" and intelligent sense of humor.
Posted by: Maciek Miechoński | Thursday, 29 December 2016 at 05:19 PM
My apologies if it has already been mentioned in these comments already, but Independence Day by Richard Ford just might be the ticket for you Mike. It won the Pulitzer back in the 90's. It's actually the second in a set of four novels about the main character, Frank Bascombe, but there is no harm in beginning with the middle novel in this case. Hope you have a much better year in 2017.
Posted by: Bob Ash | Thursday, 29 December 2016 at 06:52 PM
I would give +1 to a large number of titles already mentioned (see below) but first some I don't yet see:
Crime and Punishment - Dostoevsky
Or, if you want to skip murder, read his "The Brother's Karamazov" instead - Fyodor D won't disappoint, either way.
War and Peace - by Tolstoy - be sure to get the newer translation done by Pevear and Volokhonsky - an amazing book. Yes, 1200 pages can hold your interest.
Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
The Grapes of Wrath - J. Steinbeck
And I know you said "no Kafka" - but I have to say "The Trial" had a profound influence on the way I think about authority.
Huck Finn- by Mark Twain
Finally, for Sci Fi that doesn't often read like most Sci Fi that you've ever read - Try Gene Wolfe. Start with "Shadow of the Torturer" - first book in his "Book of the New Sun" quartet. If you aren't hooked by the third chapter, don't bother going further.
Now, here are some others I would press the "me too" button for:
The Lord of the Flies - William Golding - the theme has been touched on in a ton of TV and movie story lines - why not start with the original "collapse of humanity" novel?
Bleak House - Dickens - should be required reading for anybody considering making themselves party to a lawsuit.
Catch-22 - Joseph Heller (yes, there is a movie - the book is far, far better).
To Kill a Mockingbird - by Harper Lee
Master and Commander - Patrick O'Brian
The reason you might like O'Brien's entire set of novels is that they are so carefully researched that as somebody that prefers non-fiction - you get both - a tremendous (and accurate) historical understanding of British Navy life in the age of Napoleon *and* you get fascinating characters that could have "been there". Can't miss.
The movie Master and Commander: Far side of the world was made by combining two of O'Brian's novels into one movie story. Good movie, in and of itself.
Posted by: Severian | Thursday, 29 December 2016 at 07:41 PM
@cfw said: I too always wondered why most (if not all!) of the "hits" that pop up in image searches are completely unrelated to my search terms, particularly with respect to names of people. The results almost seem random, which of course is not what "search" results are supposed to be. I'd like to get to the bottom of this happening.
Search engines are all about monetization. Google shows a lot of recommended for you results that are totally unrelated to my searches. If someone built a for pay general search engine, something like lexisnexis is for legal searches, I'd be the first to sign-up.
Posted by: c.d.embrey | Thursday, 29 December 2016 at 09:55 PM
No one mentions the Virgil Flowers books by some guy named Sandford? For shame!
Posted by: Alan Ross | Thursday, 29 December 2016 at 10:22 PM
O B O Y - One Book One Year
Posted by: David Graham | Thursday, 29 December 2016 at 10:51 PM
A second vote for “A Suitable Boy” by Vikram Seth, also “The God of Small Things” by Arundhati Roy -- the two are almost enough to convince you that Indians have taken over English and the novel! BUT they are old fashioned, the olde Englishe novel done better than ever, with wonderfully detailed Indian settings.
Today you get things like “The Shipping News” by Annie Proulx, “The Girl Who Saved The King of Sweden” by Jonas Jonasson (it has some weak points but over all keeps the humor coming with bits of recent political history mixed in -- well, recent to a 75 year old which I will be in four more days), and “The Accidental Tourist” by Anne Tyler.
For thrillers, Steig Larsson’s “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” trilogy takes a lot of beating. The translation from Swedish is a bit stodgy at times but the stories are terrific, and while occasionally the background stuff gets a bit plodding, it is fascinating in itself because of what it tells you about the convolutions of a very different system of law and justice from most places and gives great context for the Julian Assange case.
John Le Carre does classic work in the spey genre; "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" is probably his best, but a couple of his recent ones, where he is grappling with the world of today where corporate profits have come out from behind "national interests", are not quite as easy. They are good stuff.
Martin Cruz Smith is a great writer and his novels are loaded with extraordinarily detailed and accurate scene setting which he provides without the ghost of a plod. Best known for “Gorky Park” and the other Renko novels set in Russia, I think his best is “Rose” set in 19th century England with African overtones (he talks about malaria with a VERY authentic tone -- malaria and I are old friends), and “Nightwing” set in the USA’s south west, about Native Americans, mainstream Americans, and vampire bats (real ones) si something pretty different.
BUT really interesting is Carrie Fisher. Having abandoned thousands of books when I moved back to paradise from Australia five years ago, I buy my books these days in “The Secondhand” (there is no bookstore here in paradise, Rabaul, in the New Guinea Islands, and while my daughter sent me a kindle, I can’t get hooked up), and a couple of weeks ago, I came across “Delusions of Grandma” by Fisher and couldn’t believe my eyes. You reckon that girl could fill a metallic bikini well (although I think her best role was in “The Blues Brothers”)? Wait until you see how she can -- or rather, could -- write. Turns out she was a highly respected screen writer and script doctor. In the early hours of the morning the other day, I was writing an email about her to my younger daughter when I referred to Wikipedia to check a couple of things about her earlier years. To my astonishment, I caught them in the middle of changing the “is” to “was”. Dead less than an hour. So sad, such a talent gone when I had only just discovered her. I will be reading more of her.
Isimov? Interesting 50 years ago; stilted and kind of silly to my eyes when I last looked perhaps 20 years ago. A bit teenage, and while he could churn out the words, his writing isn’t up to much and his plotting isn’t great either. The SciFi which has endured for me is the work of the Englishman, John Wyndham, and the best of his is a little book of short stories, “The Seeds of Time”. “The Day of the Triffids” and “The Kraken Wakes” are good apocalyptic stuff. For the massive intergalactic whatnot, the first couple of Frank Herbert’s “Dune” series lasted pretty well for me.
Some other good SF/fantasy stuff is "The Time Traveler's Wife" by Audrey Niffenegger, and for rough, tough, shoot-'em-up action, John Birmingham's "Weapons of Choice, World War 2.1" and the two subsequent books in the "Axis of Time" trilogy. The three books are an alternative history of WW II after a time warp accident, but they are replete with lots of real history too. Birmingham is a newspaper writer with a sharp eye for detail and the extraordinary.
Harper Lee’s “To Kill A Mockingbird” is great, an old favorite, but avoid the sequel like the plague (I came across it for the first time at The Secondhand just the other day; a waste of 40¢), and I was greatly moved by “I Heard The Owl Call My Name” by Margaret Craven which as a godless geezer, I see as a story of the human condition in a place where life is real (somewhat influenced by living here in paradise, I suspect, and therefore much closer to the earth, the sea, the struggle to live, and life and death, than people in the first world).
Gawd, did you have to get me started? It is way past my nap time!
Good reading and have a great New Year, Mike. And now that while you have had Annus Horribilus, you have helped others avoid the same.
Cheers, Geoff
Posted by: Geoffrey Heard | Friday, 30 December 2016 at 03:12 AM
John Camp: "Shame! Good nonfiction gives you only facts, which you already probably have enough of,
If you haven't read it, I'd recommend Robert Caro's LBJ biography, particularly the third volume. If you have, I'm surprised by the comment.
Similarly, Pepys' diaries.
Posted by: Nigel | Friday, 30 December 2016 at 04:26 AM
Lots of wonderful books are recommended above, but most of them are awfully serious.
Sometimes a comedy is much more rewarding (remember that this officially means that there is a happy ending). Among the classics, you can't go wrong with Jane Austen, start with Pride and Prejudice as mentioned above. I love Catch-22 which is a great black comedy. But for sheer fun, no-one can match P G Wodehouse: there's plenty of choice, sample the Jeeves and Wooster short stories or go the whole hog at Blandings Castle. A critic once called Wodehouse 'English Literature's performing flea', which he liked so much that he used it as the title of his autobiography. But I don't think anyone has ever matched his style and verve.
Posted by: Alan Hill | Friday, 30 December 2016 at 06:13 AM
Bit late for this, but what the heck? Unlike many here, I will stick to science fiction, aka speculative fiction.
What turned me onto science fiction (I do not call serious work in the genre ‘sci-fi’ as it’s considered disparaging by many) was when I received a bunch of books, picked at random by staff from The Adelaide Circulating Library sometime in 1964, which had been posted 240km to my little town of Caltowie in South Australia’s Mid-North. On opening the large cardboard box, Asimov’s ‘I, Robot’ was face-up on the top of the nearly-full box.
I think I read the Asimov first, and it opened up a world to me—of thought, of history, science, environment, and technology. I had not heard of Asimov, or indeed of the genre, but that changed swiftly. The Three Laws of Robotics constitute a rudimentary moral system.
Asimov was not the greatest of stylists—I consider his science writing to be more captivating (I have been keeping an eye out for ‘The Left Hand of the Electron’ for many years) but he has an important place in the canon. Though the short story ‘Nightfall’ (1941) was very well-written. Asimov was a biochemist, but a polymath with it.
I dutifully read the Foundation trilogy in the ’70s, about a plan to shorten the inevitable dark ages after the fall of the Galactic Empire as predicted by Hari Seldon and his ‘psychohistory‘. The goal was to reduce the subsequent chaos from 30,000 years to 1,000. Worthy but tedious.
Robert Silverberg, Theodore Sturgeon, Ray Bradbury, Roger Zelazny, James Tiptree Jr, Robert Heinlein, Philip K. Dick, Frederik Pohl, Gene Wolfe, Samuel R. Delany, Ursula Le Guin, Joanna Russ, Walter M. Miller, Jr, and Alfred Bester were writers who had style, and what’s more, something to say! More Than Human is a great and uplifting work from Sturgeon.
One SF writer who presses my buttons very well is Kim Stanley Robinson, whose concerns and themes range from the environment (the Mars trilogy, Antarctica, the Washington novels) to space exploration and settlement (Aurora, 2312) to alt-history (The Years of Rice and Salt). A short story/novella that never fails to lift my spirits is posted here (12,750 words—I use Safari Reader View to read long online content) http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/history.htm
If you enjoy that, you would also enjoy Aurora, my choice as Robinson’s most effective and affecting novel—the reader cares about one character, a hybrid analogue/digital ship’s computer so much, there will be tears upon its destruction.
Enough!
Posted by: Ian Goss | Friday, 30 December 2016 at 06:56 AM
Like you, i prefer non-fiction and I don't read much fiction. (Btw, I teach English Literature to 11-18 year olds in the U.K.) I do read more contemporary poetry than many English teachers I know. Two classics to recommend; 'Heart of Darkness' by Joseph Conrad and 'Mrs Dalloway' by Virginia Woolf - both quite short novels.
Posted by: Mark Cotter | Friday, 30 December 2016 at 07:30 AM
Wow, what a question -- and one size does not fit all.
I am reading War and Peace for the third time now. Each time in a different translation. I am enjoying the old Maude translation this time. In this third reading I am picking up more of the comedy tragedy, and irony that I seem to have missed previously.
Gravity's Rainbow or Against the Day by Thomas Pynchon. Probably the second as a bit more approachable. Pynchon can be an acquired taste.
The Foundation Trilogy actually expanded to maybe six or nine books -- converging the Foundation stories with robot detective stories. I think a bit dated now. The Dune Trilogy must be up to nearly 20 volumes now, talking about scope creep.
I second Dickens. I second Kristin Lavransdatter (in the new translation). A later translation of Les Mis (Penguin). A recent translation of The Count of Monte Cristo (unexpurgated! - Penguin).
The Savage Detectives (Bolano). A quest novel with an incredible cast of characters speaking in the first person. How the author (and the translator) manage to keep all the voices intact and distinct is a marvel to me.
And on a photographic theme, Blow Up by Cortazar. Short story, but interesting.
Posted by: Bruce Appelbaum | Friday, 30 December 2016 at 08:29 AM
If you are looking for fiction that is well written as well as absorbing, suggest you try Patrick O'Brian. Described as among the best historical novelists of all time, his English grammar and prose are a joy to read (he was Irish of course).
Posted by: David Runyard | Friday, 30 December 2016 at 09:57 AM
Like you, I tend to read nonfiction, but try to turn to fiction once or twice a year.
My most-recent novel was The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, which in broad strokes is a retelling of Hamlet with the central character a mute boy. It's set in Wisconsin, your old stomping grounds, and dogs and dog training feature prominently. I sped through it.
Posted by: John Yuda | Friday, 30 December 2016 at 10:24 AM
You might enjoy 'The Year of Reading Dangerously' by Andy Miller - a book about re-learning to read in middle age as the author did as a child, complete with a list of book recommendations ('The list of betterment'). Really entertaining and also pretty practical advice.
Posted by: Neilclasper | Friday, 30 December 2016 at 03:22 PM
Philip Roth's later books are well worth your time. My favorites are "Indignation" and "Nemesis". Both are filled with emotion and introspection.
Posted by: Techfan | Saturday, 31 December 2016 at 10:28 AM
I missed this the first time through...
Asimov was one of my favorite writers when I was in junior high and high school and I devoured large volumes of both his SF and non-fiction (mostly astronomy and physics). His SF is OK, but at the time his non-fiction was really a thing of beauty. There probably has never been a general audience non-fiction writer who covered so many different subjects at a reasonably high level of quality. Sadly most of those books are long out of print and the material in them is theoretically long out of date, although how much that matters is hard to say.
I read the Foundation books in high school but didn't really understand them until later. Somewhere on my shelves is a single paperback with all three of the original books in it that was signed by the author himself. I also have in my files somewhere a postcard that he sent me in 1977 when I apparently sent him a letter indicating that I had really enjoyed two of his books. The books are unnamed, oh well.
Since you read Jane Eyre, let me recommend a book called The Eyre Affair by Jasper FForde. This is the first of series of soft SF/Fantasy novels about an alternative England where among other things people can travel through books. It's a light romp with fun literary references to make you feel illiterate. The first three books are very strong but then you can feel him getting tired of the material a bit.
Posted by: psu | Monday, 02 January 2017 at 09:17 PM