Hi, I’m Jen and I have a reading problem.
Nothing fictional appeals to me. I can’t find anything decent, nothing I can sink my teeth into.
Am I asking too much to want every book I read to be excellent, exciting and encourage my mind to wander in new directions? I don’t think so. But more and more often lately, I’ve found what I’m looking for in non-fiction instead.
The Historian (Elizabeth Kostova, 2005) was probably the last fiction book I read to hook me. To be fair, most books would have a problem following that. Although, I’d like to thank somebody somewhere for Jasper fforde. His books are so full of wit that they suffer almost endless rereadings. And then you can explore the websites. And then you can use his words to name your blog.
Anyway, non-fiction. A couple of recent examples: The origin of the British (Stephen Oppenheimer, 2006) and Beyond the Great Glen by (James R Nicolson, 1975). One’s a look at the geography of northern Scotland, the other a review of linguistics, genetics and archaelogy to identify differences between “Celts” and “Anglo-Saxons”. They are full of fascinating ideas, much more interesting than most recent fiction I’ve attempted to plough through. North Sea oil was just taking off when the Nicolson book was written; it’s particularly intriguing and a little sad to see what was expected and hoped for at the time.
The other thing I’ve found to replace my nightly reading are podcasts. The BBC stuff is great, but I’ve loved the Scottish history walks created by the OU. I’mfamiliar with Dunfermline and Edinburgh so I can visualise them in my mind’s eye, but I’ve never been to Finlaggan or Kilmartin (should have visited the latter while at uni but slept in on the day of the archaeology fieldtrip, much to my disgust).
Anyway, to return to fiction, I’ve been trawling through if-you-like-that-then-try-this lists only to find that I’ve already read most of the things that are suggested. Hmm.
I’ve also been adding my own stock onto LibraryThing and I’m fascinated by how many people share my taste in books: apparently not many. I’ve noticed that I am the only lister for several books. Naturally the majority don’t choose to catalogue their books, and many of mine are of local interest only, but it’s intriguing nonetheless. Still no LibraryThing widget for WordPress, although I hear rumours of whispers of work being undertaken.
