(Nimue)
I’ve always been an avid reader, and I read widely. At the same time I have spent my whole life struggling to find books I want to read. Going into big bookshops depresses the hell out of me – all those front tables with celebrity ghost written content and TV tie ins are not for me, not at all.
I’m a fussy reader. I’ve just put one novella down because I couldn’t get on with the author’s voice, and a second because I couldn’t engage with the characters. Every so often I find an author I can get really excited about – Sylvia Moreno Garcia and Natasha Pulley in recent years. Finding a novel I really like is a thing of joy. Reading something that passably works for me is often as good as it gets, which is frustrating.
I read a lot of non-fiction, and around that I have a much easier time telling what I’m going to like. However, I want to read fiction about half the time.
Part of what I’m struggling with is how narrow things can be within speculative fiction and how depressing things set in the ‘real world’ are – and how unreal those things often are too. I don’t have any interest in dystopian fiction. I don’t mind the odd YA novel, but on the whole they aren’t what I’m looking for. I’ve found gems in the witchlit category, and I read classics sometimes. I’ll occasionally read romance, crime and thriller novels but generally I find they aren’t my thing. I like gothic work, and I like the kind of horror that makes me feel at home (Clive Barker).
The authors I like most tend not to fit into neat genre boxes, and tend to be some distance from the straight white socially Christian guy who went to Oxbridge model.
I want to be surprised, and enchanted. I am open to being comforted and challenged. I like queer, Pagan and non-binary rep, and authors who know what they’re talking about and who will take me somewhere I haven’t been before. I like diversity, I want to see the world from unfamiliar angles, with characters who make sense and have depth. I want character driven stories. Who should I be reading?
And if you’re thinking ‘me!’ then please, please get in the comments.
Druid Life 
I’m similar in my reading wants and needs, although in me it’s complicated by the fact that my illness has stopped me reading as well as writing this past half-year. But when I can read, my go-to author is Iain M Banks. He writes mainstream fiction without the middle M in his name, and that’s good stuff, but his science fiction (published with the middle M) is utterly brilliant. I consider him to be at the very top of his field, and I even have no hesitation in recommending his Culture series to those who might not normally read SF.
I love his work, and there are still a few left I haven’t read – I like him with and without the M 🙂
I love si fi so thank u
You.are on a different path with your reading and that is.fantastic go with it. My eyes are against.lol.. i.still Clive
Barker yet.(dont.shoot me) ha ha
He’s been one of my favourite writers since I started reading him at 14. Weaveworld had a profound effect on me.
I want to read weaveworld
Havent read.meant to say
If I can say ‘keep an eye on my Substack’, there’s a fair few that hit most of those marks! Lots of original and genre-crossing fiction these days, and I’m so glad of it.
I do follow you, I haven’t been managing to work out what would suit me – which is definitely a ‘me’ issue at the moment.
Have you tried EC Hibbs? She’s a star of a person and her books are smart fairytale-style goodness.
I have her on FB and she seems like a really sweet person, but the books don’t grab me at all, unfortunately.
Somehow, all of my favorite writers wrote back in the early years of the last century. I’ve tried many times to read more modern voices and find myself quickly getting bored and unimpressed. I like Arthur Conan Doyle for his historical fiction (The White Company especially), M.R. James for his ghost stories (A Warning to the Curious, Casting the Runes, Oh Whistle and I’ll Come to You My Lad), and P.G. Wodehouse for his stories about Wooster and Jeeves. I like H.G. Wells’ short stories. G.K. Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday: a Nightmare. I’m perfectly willing to branch out and read more contemporary authors, and I would welcome some recommendations too — especially in the way of Otherworld literature.”
They do have a specific sort of tone, and I like writing from that period too. For otherworldly fiction, Charles De Lint has always been my go-to. You might want to give David Bridger’s novels a go if you’ve enjoyed his posts on the blog.
I share your frustration with contemporary bookshops. In my childhood, there were these massive sprawling old bookshops like Foyles in London, or the academic bookshops on the steep hilly road up to the University in Bristol. The kind with ancient shelves, because moving all the books off to put new shelves in would have been a gargantuan task. The kind that’s a labyrinth you feel compelled to pack supplies before exploring, and you wouldn’t be surprised if you finally emerged, days later, from a different bookshop entirely, perhaps on a different world.
But those places are gone. Nowadays, bookshops are big open spaces with shelves at the edges, and central tables with boring books on. Boring! You can barely get lost in there at all, let alone for days.
However, second hand bookshops are another thing entirely. There’s a few epic ones still around. When I was in my late teens I explored one in Rochester (waaay over East, beyond even London) and came out with a four-volume series, the “Cyclopedia of Telephony and Telegraphy”, about a century old. It was written when electromechanical telephone exchanges were replacing ladies at switchboards, so documents both, in lovely illustrations. The books’ spines were falling apart so I paid a friend’s mother to rebind them for me, so the books can live on. Fantastic stuff!
I tend to go into such bookshops when I find them on my travels, so I don’t actually know where the good ones near/around Gloucestershire are. Suggestions welcome 🙂
Once again, I’ve replied to but one small point in a post here and ignored the bulk of it… Sorry! I’ve had too little time to read fiction lately, so I’m very behind. But, from when I did read a lot, I’d recommend C J Cherryh’s science fiction works set in her Allience-Union universe. She’s really interested in culture and so has some really interesting worldbuilding around how becoming a space-faring civilisation might affect humanity. According to Wikipedia, “She began writing stories at the age of ten when she became frustrated with the cancellation of her favorite TV show, Flash Gordon”.
Thank you for the recommendation. There did used to be that sort of bookshop on Westgate street and I miss it.
I lovemy Terry Pratchett n Terry Brookes with Simon R Green. Neil Gaimon thats where you ll find me hidden in the library but thank u for some names i ve not heard. Im back Raymond E Feist at the moment one of his first i never read Faerie Tale where our Sidhe has traveled over sea to the USA.
I have read that Feist novel, and a lot of Terry Pratchett 🙂
Thank you all for giving me new Authors. Ps oh oh Laura K Hamilton easy on the intellect ie not 2 pages describing how green the grase is. But she is saucy afyer reading they are a bit samey. (IS THAT A WORD SAMEY
She s saucy . Group wereleopards and wolfs. The head vampire. ” AH MA petite” he is lush and im not into love stories. Well she raises the dead and so so on. No more spoilers alerts. Who can give me a good auto bipgraphy to read. Only ever picked up 1 in library. . It was a news reporter .i had to . .go but those few.pages i read was bloody brilliant. . I ll stop writtng now have lots to read fron you all. Thank you.Nimue for this. Site.
She doesn’t do it for me, but there we go 🙂
Peter Beagle, Kage Baker, Tim Powers, Ian McDonald, Ursula LeGuin. I have way too many books, moved to this apartment over a year ago and still unpacking them. (Just 2 days ago I found another boxful — aargh!) Before I retired I lived two blocks from https://www.moesbooks.com/ –the entire second floor is used books! (It’s really hard to get the books unpacked when you keep stopping to read them…)
I would buy some. To trade i have you know china picture plates i ve got about 9 they are religious scenes. I m not at home to give a title but if any one would like to know and trade for books. ANYTHING BUT MILLS ANS BOON . which i be never actually read
The rise of online indie publishing has helped me find books that I enjoy. I find things through social media (many thanks to everyone who talked about KJ Charles where I could see it), and some genres are served by excellent search tools, like the Sapphic Bookfinder: https://iheartsapphfic.com/bookfinder/
I also ended up writing books I wanted to read, like my novels set in Neolithic Orkney – queer couples, nonbinary side characters, and (one interpretation of a) Pagan religion all feature. The first one is Between Boat & Shore: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0B3VSCHNC/
Thank you! That sounds superb.
Hi Nimue. Thanks for this blog and this question. Here’s my shameless self plug for my contemporary fantasy/speculative fiction Druid series with a diverse cast. The first book is called Wyld Druid. Here’s a link :https://www.amazon.com/Wyld-Druid-Urban-Fantasy-Action-ebook/dp/B09XHYJFCC/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=1HP0Z8L3GDX5P&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.kT8u9aqnNKyA1bD8th8nzDjILe–sTUfoEUWf4j7d5YYLQUBIeLpa0av2N_xI1Te8QbriBQBD6d_tq72XCD13C-DqqmeL1NG2m4s_XDRpeOYnm_Cc-QJAaR3R8jQcLIpVEcrAQEPrAsqgwsqG_TMQUvOVIUJ_4GI0SprCfFcrRWwUu9e6UqA26apUqII5PxV-8FmeT1c2lMNO1wF4Jv1Jw.IGx1f8DBv4GZR7ZNJ_-C5okDlPUOsldthQSUNQaoODE&dib_tag=se&keywords=wyld+druid&qid=1714588976&sprefix=wyld+druid%2Caps%2C357&sr=8-1
I’d love to hear your thoughts
Thank you for sharing this! I’ve had a look, and it sounds like a lot of fun, although I’m not sure if it’s my sort of thing – but I’m really struggling trying to work out what I want to read at the moment, so I think it might be me.
Thanks for the honest and hilarious response!
In my opinion, the fact that we now get more indie books and self-published books lead to more diversity in what there is to read. I find I get most of my recommendations from social media, but I also have subscriptions to companies that send me (fantasy) books that I otherwise wouldn’t have heard of. If you’re unsure on what to read, have you tried a blind date with a book? Sometimes they sell those in bookstores!
I am 100% with you on this, and I do normally read a lot of indy books. I just seem to be having a rough patch at the moment.
I hope you get out of your reading slump soon!
Thank you. I’ve got a lot of non-fic come in for review and endorsement, so I’m going with that and hoping my brain sorts itself out.