I'm legitimately sorry that you feel ashamed to look at the YA section, but the alternative to that isn't lashing out at the entire rest of the bookstore for being boring, overrated crap.
regarding your weirdly exacting specifications, how about Palm-of-the-Hand Stories by Yasunari Kawabata? I've had to buy three copies of this book because I keep loaning it out to people and they never give it back. I'm sorry, he is a male, and it is from the 1920s, but every single page in there is magic. some of them are a little sad, and some of them have unhappy endings. most of them are simple and sweet. it has a floating, dream-like quality even though the stories are very bare. one of them, "Mr. Thank You", is maybe my favorite thing ever written by anyone.
I don't automatically reject everything written by a man, or need it to be written before the 1990s. I'm not lashing out, either, nor calling anything boring and overrated crap. I love the wordplay in Shakespeare's plays, the wicked humor in The Canterbury Tales, and everything about The Importance of Being Earnest. But I also love David Klass's You Don't Know Me, His Dark Materials, Karen Romano Young's Cobwebs and Annette Curtis Klause's Alien Secrets.
Some of my favorite writing is by Keith Roberts, because of the clarity and exactness of his writing vocabulary- reading his words is like watching very carefully blown-glass pieces clicking together in some amazing, transparent machine. But so much of his stuff has sad endings that I nearly always have to put the book away after a good cry at the end of each short story. I'm just wondering if any well-written adult books that have the potential to be happy ones.
Thank you for the recommendation, I will try it out!
Do you enjoy plays as well as novels? There's romance in it but not an unbearable amount - I have yet to meet anyone who didn't like Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest.
Holy shit, my favorite play, and one of the only assigned readings at school that I sank my teeth into with gusto. I ♥ The Importance of Being Earnest.
In that case.... anything else by Wilde? The Picture of Dorian Grey deals with dark themes aplenty, but it retains his love of wordplay and beautiful descriptions.
Dorian Gray is one of my favourite books ever. The unedited edition is delicious, too. It helps if you are into the decadent movement. If you want to read Lady Windermere check this: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/790
Try Life of Pi, by Yann Martel. Also The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, The History of Love by Nicole Krauss and Until I Find You by John Irving. All adult books with great writing and only one of those doesn't have a happy ending.
I'm incredibly specific when it comes to reading, but there definitely ARE fictional adult books I can read and love.
Neither Life of Pi not The Book Thief has a happy ending tho... idk about the others, haven't read them. Also, The Book Thief is categorized as YA in America.
To be honest I don't know how The Book Thief is categorised here in Portugal, I got the book from a hostel while I was travelling around. I just figured it was an adult novel because the theme is very dark and intense and the writing is not that easy to get into or follow in the beginning. But hey, publishers probably know better than me. :P
I finished, but struggled through Life of Pi when it came out, because I felt difficulty feeling anything but indifference towards it. I neither liked it nor hated it, nor was I bored by it. Just left indifferent.
I'll give The Book Thief a go, but what I've heard about it makes me feel like I might not finish it. No offense. :|
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regarding your weirdly exacting specifications, how about Palm-of-the-Hand Stories by Yasunari Kawabata? I've had to buy three copies of this book because I keep loaning it out to people and they never give it back. I'm sorry, he is a male, and it is from the 1920s, but every single page in there is magic. some of them are a little sad, and some of them have unhappy endings. most of them are simple and sweet. it has a floating, dream-like quality even though the stories are very bare. one of them, "Mr. Thank You", is maybe my favorite thing ever written by anyone.
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Some of my favorite writing is by Keith Roberts, because of the clarity and exactness of his writing vocabulary- reading his words is like watching very carefully blown-glass pieces clicking together in some amazing, transparent machine. But so much of his stuff has sad endings that I nearly always have to put the book away after a good cry at the end of each short story. I'm just wondering if any well-written adult books that have the potential to be happy ones.
Thank you for the recommendation, I will try it out!
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I've always meant to read Lady Windermere's Fan. :)
I tried Dorian Grey and had to put it down. I have difficulty explaining exactly why.
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I'm incredibly specific when it comes to reading, but there definitely ARE fictional adult books I can read and love.
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idk about the others, haven't read them.
Also, The Book Thief is categorized as YA in America.
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I'll give The Book Thief a go, but what I've heard about it makes me feel like I might not finish it. No offense. :|
What're the other two about?
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