Reading Thursday

[frayadjacent]

I'm very, very, oh so painfully slowly reading The Left Hand of Darkness. For the first time. After being a Le Guin fiend for most of my 20s. It's the only novel she published between 1968 and 2002 that I haven't read. I bought the book while visiting laurashapiro and lamenting that I had gotten rid of every single Le Guin book I owned when I moved across the world, only to find her works generally are not available as e-books. (Though, to be fair, if the used bookstore I sold them to got them in the hands of someone new to Le Guin, I'm glad I did it.)

Anyway, it's not that I don't like the book, I'm just having a lot of trouble bringing myself to read anything right now, unless it's work related. Which sucks.

I also do not enjoy how sexist the POV character is, but to be honest that isn't the reason I'm getting through it so slowly. I hate when I get like this! I was such an avid reader of fiction as a teenager (besides Le Guin, I mostly read nonfiction in my 20s), and somehow it's just...harder now.

Comments

[laurajv]

I find fiction very difficult these days -- I've been reading probably better than 75% nonfiction since I was 20, and I'm now 37. And most of the fiction I read is fanfic!

[frayadjacent]

Yeah, fiction seems like so much more of an emotional commitment, I guess. I admire that you read fic! I'm as bad about that as any other fiction. In all cases I stick with authors I know and am totally unadventurous.

[yohjideranged]

I get this way sometimes - in fact, I am in it right now - except mine stems from a being forced to read things I don't want to read during school. It always takes me forever to get back into reading after classes.

I hope you get your reading groove back soon.

[frayadjacent]

Thanks! I suspect this partially comes from a solid decade of reading mostly science texts for school and work, which is exhausting even after all this time.

[vintagewitch]

If you could suggest one book by LeGuin, what would it be? For whatever reason, I haven't read anything by her and am meaning to get into it!

[frayadjacent]

Hmm, if I had one book to recommend it would either be The Dispossessed (a novel) or A Fisherman of the Inland Sea (a short story collection).

If you prefer fantasy (those are more sci-fi), I really like the Earthsea series. All of them, actually, even the oft-denigrated first three, but I'm not sure they're a great place to start? If you read the whole series you'll trace major changes in her political beliefs, writing style, and so forth, which is fascinating in itself.

Outside of the Eathsea books and the Dispossessed, my favorite books by her are all short story collections. But if you don't want the male pov in those books, there is also The Telling, which I loved the first time through but less so on reread, and Four Ways to Forgiveness, a collection of interrelated novellas about a slave uprising. Major warnings for rape and graphic violence in that one though.

[luzula]

I'm sorry it's slow going! : ( It's one of my favorite books. But yeah, I know how it is--mood plays a large role in how much I enjoy a book, too.

[frayadjacent]

Your enthusiasm is helping motivate me! Also we just switched to Estaven's (oops I think that's their name) POV and that's much better.