tree_and_leaf | (no subject)

A splendid book meme, from

aedh, via

naraht.

Pick a number to get an answer from me. Or give your own answer to someone else's question. Or just borrow the meme – it would be amazing to see this one get some traction!

1. A book that haunts you

2. A book that was an interesting failure

3. A book where you really wanted to be reading the "shadow" version of the book (as in, there are traces of a different book in the work and you would have much preferred to read that one)

4. A book with a worldbuilding detail that has stuck with you

5. A book where you loved the premise but the execution left you cold

6. A book where you were dubious about the premise but loved the work

7. The most imaginative book you've seen lately

8. A book that feels like it was written just for you

9. A book that reminds you of someone

10. A book that belongs to a specific time in your mind, caught in amber

11. A book that came to you at exactly the right time

12. A book that came to you at the wrong time

13. A book with a premise you'd never seen before quite like that

14. A book balanced on a knife edge

15. A snuffed candle of a book

16. The one you'd take with you while you were being ferried on dark underground rivers

17. The one that taught you something about yourself

18. A book that went after its premise like an explosion

19. A book that started a pilgrimage

20. A frigid ice bath of a book

21. A book written into your psyche

22. A warm blanket of a book

23. A book that made you bleed

24. A book that asked a question you've never had an answer to

25. A book that answered a question you never asked

26. A book you recommend but cannot love

27. A book you love but cannot recommend

28. A book you adore that people are surprised by

29. A book that led you home

30. A book you detest that people are surprised by

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

sir_guinglain

8, I think.

tree_and_leaf

Dorothy L Sayers, "The Nine Tailors."

el_staplador

3, please.

This is interesting, because I know exactly what the question is getting at, but I'm struggling to think of a good example.

And this isn't exactly one, because it's not that I don't enjoy what we actually get, but every time I read "The Three Hostages," I'm very frustrated that we don't get Mary's side of the story, because she is canonically off being awesome, and we see hardly any of it.

Edited Date: 2021-03-21 06:56 pm (UTC)

Oh, this sort of falls under this heading, but: while the actual murder in "Murder Must Advertise" is satisfying and clever, the drug smuggling plot and the Bright Young Things are tedious, I'd much rather have a whole book of office politics and the advertising trade, all things considered.

naraht

16 please!

Julian of Norwich, "Revelation of Divine Love." On my kindle, because it has a back light.

legionseagle

27 please.

Any of the Susan Howatch Starbridge novels*. They're thoroughly over-wrought books about mostly dreadful people who somehow never seem to see QUITE how dreadful they're being, even when they are supposed to be Learning Important Spiritual Lessons, but they fall bang into my id vortex.

* Not the St Benet ones, even though I think Lewis Hall is one of the better characters, but I cannot bear Nicholas-the-Rapist.

(Oh God. I've just discovered that the first holder of the "Starbridge Lecturer' post she funded at Cambridge is a man who had his licence removed, and was forced to resign from the University, for abusive conduct towards at least one undergraduate. Ugh. Life unpleasantly imitating art, there).