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Do you prefer reading current books? Or older ones? Or outright old ones? (As in, yes, there’s a difference between a book from 10 years ago and, say, Charles Dickens or Plato.)
How current is current?
I get virtually all my books second-hand or from the library, so it’s rare for me to get hold of a book in the year it was published. In fact I tend to categorise anything published in the last decade as fairly recent!
Probably most of what I read is from the last thirty years. I make regular visits to the middle of last century, mostly for mysteries by the likes of Agatha Christie and Ngaio Marsh and Dorothy L Sayers. And I have an entire shelf dedicated to outright old books: Jane Austen, the Brontes, Thomas Hardy, Elizabeth Gaskell, Shakespeare.... I’ve even read some truly ancient stuff - Sophocles, Euripides, Ovid. At last count I’ve read works from nine different centuries. But I don’t really have a preference for one era over another (or one millennium over another!). I’ll read anything as long as it’s good.
I'm with you all the way! And just lately, I've been really into mid-century mysteries. I am reading P.D. James's first (Cover Her Face, 1961) right now.
ReplyDeleteHere is my answer on Rose City Reader.
I tend to the current best sellers but will read anything that gets my attention.
ReplyDeleteRose City Reader: I feel inspired to pick a P.D. James out the TBR box next! Or maybe Dorothy L Sayers ... I have plenty of mid-century mysteries to choose from.
ReplyDeleteThe Social Frog: "anything that gets my attention" pretty much describes how I choose books, too!
I've been reading more modern books lately than I used to and honestly, I'm not that into them. They are okay but I think I need to head back and keep working on the Dickens books I haven't read yet!
ReplyDelete