Books...your theme preferences

[gbb]

And do you know why ?

I sometimes wonder what attracts you to certain kinds of book (or film for that matter)...and what (if anything) it says about you.
Ive always like Solzhenytsin...just started Gulag Archipeligo for the third time. Just read 'One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich'...again ...enormously enjoy most of his books.
Also, Faithful Rulsan by Gorgi Vladimov, again another story about the Russian Gulag system.

Stalingrad by Anthony Beavor, Ivans War by Catherine Merridale....there's a common theme...they're all quite dark and forbidding.

Why do i like them ?, even my music choice is heavy and industrial.

Do you have a theme that abides...is a persons preference influenced by events as a teenager ? I was always (and probably still am ) a quite shy and awkward teenager, did my mood at the time dictate what i was reading and it just stuck with me ?
Or do i just simply enjoy those kind of books

Mind, i did read 'James and the Giant Peach' at 40 years old

A bit of a heavy subject, but i'm not shy to open my soul...

 

[swee'pea99]

I positively avoid Russians, along with South Americans and Germans. I tend to read what the book club says, but thinking back over the last couple of years, the one clear distinguishing characteristic of the books I've really liked - rather to my surprise - is women authors.

 

[Noodley]

I stopped reading books after I read Peter Pan - no point reading anything after that really...

 

[rich p]

A large percentage of biographies and autobiographies for me.

As to why? No deep-rooted angst but I have grown to prefer real life stories to fictional ones.

I might write my own autobiography but what do you think it should be about?

 

[beanzontoast]

Stalingrad by Anthony Beavor, Ivans War by Catherine Merridale....there's a common theme...they're all quite dark and forbidding.

Why do i like them ?, even my music choice is heavy and industrial.

Possibly our lives nowadays are so sanitised that our psyche longs for contact - safe contact through books - with more stringent times and the strange events that go with them?

In my case, I have a taste for wartime fiction. As a post-war baby, I'm a peaceful person and yet I find the novels and factual accounts of events from WW2 quite fascinating, especially books about the convoy system. I think ordinary people actually were different then in outlook, behaviour and belief, and reading about it is the closest you will ever get to understanding what life was like for them.

Like you, I've re-read some books several times down the years. Funny thing is, ever so often I seem to take a break from 'themed' reading altogether. I have a pile of 4 books that I bought before Christmas and haven't so much as opened the cover of as yet. I have no doubt I will get in the mood for them at some point, but at the moment I'm into anything a bit lighter.

 

[John the Monkey]

Gbb, if you want to follow that theme a bit more, "Gulag" by Anne Applebaum is a good history of the system, and "Man is Wolf to Man" a superb personal account.

Anthony Beevor wrote a very good book on the Spanish Civil War as well that's well worth a read - it was on one of the budget Military History imprints when I bought it.

 

[thegrumpybiker]

My wife's an avid reader of those "tragic real life stories" (I think there's a section in Waterstone's actually called that, believe it or not) and pretty much shuns fiction.
Not so keen on that genre myself although I can highly recommend Stuart: A Life Backwards by Alexander Masters. It's about a homeless guy who wants to figure out what made him turn out the way he did. Powerful and very emotional, you'll laugh and you'll cry.
Anyway, I'll read pretty much any genre really, although I've got a thing for rock biographies and rock/pop music history.

 

[threebikesmcginty]

although I've got a thing for rock biographies and rock/pop music history.

I love the ones about the old country music/rock and roll singers - for example the books about George Jones, Lefty Frizzell or Jerry Lee Lewis would make Ozzy Osbourne blush .

Quite remarkable that GJ and JLL are still with us!

 

[thegrumpybiker]

I love the ones about the old country music/rock and roll singers - for example the books about George Jones, Lefty Frizzell or Jerry Lee Lewis would make Ozzy Osbourne blush .

Quite remarkable that GJ and JLL are still with us!

Yes I must admit I need to familiarise myself with the roots of rock n roll/blues etc.

 

[Flying_Monkey]

I read almost non-stop and all kinds of things. I have a particular weakness for experimental fiction, literary sf, slipstream, short stories, poetry, 'big' history and quality political reportage. I tend to find biography the least satisfying genre, though there have been a few I have enjoyed...

As to why... I don't know. I like what I read to be challenging, thought-provoking and to go beyond me and my limited experience.

 

[jig-sore]

i very very rarely read fiction. i mostly read factual, true crime or biographies. i like to be either educated or slightly disturbed/affected by a book.

this also extends on to films as well. after years and years of trashy horror films like nightmare on elm street, i like to watch the real extreme and shocking stuff like saw and hostel. also have a bit of a thing for zombie films.

 

[ComedyPilot]

Travel and adventure books, mainly.