misterpessimistic wrote:Chris OConnor wrote:
The next fiction book scheduled is Wicked by Gregory Maguire. I've asked the community for fiction book suggestions and am still waiting for our existing members to get excited by the reintroduction of fiction. Wicked is a highly rated good read, but as of today I haven't seen much excitement by that choice. But I also haven't seen much excitement by fiction in general.
I read fiction more than anything right now...but it is a specific fiction...mostly sci-fi. I have little interest in "real-life" fiction type books, like the current selection, and I just will not read it. I was going to try to read "wicked", but I am not too hot over the whole "let's re-write what someone else wrote" type of thing. But I would at least try to read it.
"Ender's Game" was a great selection for fiction and I think the best convo we had with a fiction book. Fiction is a very personal thing...we have to find out what the concensus is here for fiction preferences and try to gear a choice based on that.
Mr. P.
Like Mr. P., I generally prefer science fiction to most of the more general interest fiction being written. I did read
A Thousand Splendid Suns but wasn't all that taken with it. I won't read
Wicked because it just doesn't appeal to me.
I read
Atlas Shrugged, along with most of Rand's other work, years ago and might have gotten involved in that discussion but now it appears that isn't going to happen anyway.
These days, I find myself more likely to be reading non-fiction than fiction, but if a work of fiction catches my eye, I'll snap it up. However, most of what makes the "best seller" lists just doesn't appeal to me.
People's likes and dislikes are very idiosyncratic when evaluating what fiction to read. I think it's probably going to be very difficult to find something that has the kind of broad appeal you seem to want. This isn't meant as criticism, by the way, just an observation.
I wish I could offer some constructive suggestions, but the books that most appeal to me probably wouldn't appeal to most of the rest of the group. For example, I'm a big fan of John Brunner and think a discussion of
Stand on Zanzibar might be very interesting. In more mainstream fare, John Fowles'
Daniel Martin might be worth considering. Neither book meets the criteria that seems to apply here, and I doubt either one would have enough appeal to be selected.
George