I know that we are all confirmed Outlander obsessives, but when you have a spare few hours, what else do you like to read ?

I chose horror and historical, but I would also have chosen romance and crime aswell as a few others!! Love a good horror though

I enjoy most genres, but am not fond of anything that includes too much violence or excessive cursing.

Same ~ I don't like a lot of violence or gratuitous cursing. I'm really not a fan of sci/fi and fantasy ... I like to have my characters based in some semblance of reality (as I know it).

Adding a touch of romance makes the story that much better, but I can't say I really like _classic_ romances. I just read a Harlequin for the first time in -- gee, 30 years? -- and discovered where I got into the habit of skipping pages of internal dialogue looking for actual character dialogue!

The Outlander books got me out of _that_ habit right quick!

I like historical fiction where there are relationships involved (naturally) but also ones that transport me to that time period (like Outlander). In OL I learned about Culloden and Scotland, in The Bronze Horseman series, I learned about Russia pre cold war, The Pillars of Earth and the other historical England series tell me a lot about English history. I know that it's not all accurate but it's interesting.

It's one of the things I like about the Pink Carnation series where the story is told through a post grad student doing her research on spies among the aristocracy in historical England. The way she falls into their stories as she reads their letters and correspondence and then comes back to present when someone interrupts her. It's the way I feel about a good book. I want to be able to jump into the story and stay there until it's back to reality. It's the ultimate stress reliever. And I give a book only so long to pull me in, after that I close it and move onto another one.

Wish me luck. I just picked up this 800 page book called Rebels & Traitors about the struggles between the English Civil War and the Commonwealth.

I've been reading Karen Marie Moning's Highlander books (just gotta have a hunky Scot). Fantasy and romance but nowhere near the level of DG's. Not much in the way of history. But lightly entertaining.

Thanks to you all for voting and for giving me some idea of what you like to read....

For our Book of the Month read in October, I would like to include a classic read, and have two books for you to choose from....

Tender is the Night by F Scott Fitzgerald



From Amazon.com

In the wake of World War I, a community of expatriate American writers established itself in the salons and cafes of 1920s Paris. They congregated at Gertrude Stein's select soirees, drank too much, married none too wisely, and wrote volumes--about the war, about the Jazz Age, and often about each other. F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda, were part of this gang of literary Young Turks, and it was while living in France that Fitzgerald began writing Tender Is the Night. Begun in 1925, the novel was not actually published until 1934. By then, Fitzgerald was back in the States and his marriage was on the rocks, destroyed by Zelda's mental illness and alcoholism. Despite the modernist mandate to keep authors and their creations strictly segregated, it's difficult not to look for parallels between Fitzgerald's private life and the lives of his characters, psychiatrist Dick Diver and his former patient turned wife, Nicole. Certainly the hospital in Switzerland where Zelda was committed in 1929 provided the inspiration for the clinic where Diver meets, treats, and then marries the wealthy Nicole Warren. And Fitzgerald drew both the European locale and many of the characters from places and people he knew from abroad.
In the novel, Dick is eventually ruined--professionally, emotionally, and spiritually--by his union with Nicole. Fitzgerald's fate was not quite so novelistically neat: after Zelda was diagnosed as a schizophrenic and committed, Fitzgerald went to work as a Hollywood screenwriter in 1937 to pay her hospital bills. He died three years later--not melodramatically, like poor Jay Gatsby in his swimming pool, but prosaically, while eating a chocolate bar and reading a newspaper. Of all his novels, Tender Is the Night is arguably the one closest to his heart. As he himself wrote, "Gatsby was a tour de force, but this is a confession of faith."



Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte



From The Oxford Edition

The haunting intensity of Catherine Earnshaw's attachment to Heathcliff is the focus of a novel in which relations between men and women are described with an emotional and imaginative power. First published in 1847, Wuthering Heights , is set on the bleak Yorkshire moors, where the drama of Catherine and Heathcliff, Heathcliff's cruel revenge against Edgar and Isabella Linton, and the promise of redemption through the next generation is enacted.

Wuthering Heights has recently been back in focus thanks to the Twilight phenomenom, for those who enjoy the Twilight books, and haven't yet discovered Heathcliffe - perhaps now is your chance...

Happy Choosing

I love the idea of reading and discussing a classic. I've actually been listening to quite a few classics lately and read a few that I couldn't get on audio (or at least easily and free from the library). I voted for Tender is the Night since I'm not sure I ever read that and if I did it was a loooooong time ago. I read Wuthering Heights within the last decade. And, having since read the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde, I'm not sure I could ever read WH in the same way again. But, I'll likely be happy to read and discuss whichever gets chosen.

I love reading the classics also. I would be great to have them included as threads on this site. Since my college days, I haven't had anyone to discuss them with.

I've wanted to read Wuthering Heights again for quite some time, but I've never read Tender is the Night, so I'm having a hard time picking. I'll think about it at my Labor Day bbq and get back to you. Have a great day, everyone!

Jeanette

If I've read these, I don't remember, but Wuthering Heights is more up my alley although Tender sounds interesting. This is a great idea, though, of doing the classics. Either way, I'm in.

I put my vote in for Wuthering Heights.




What a great idea!!

Okay, Wuthering Heights is my pick.

^same here...I really enjoyed the movie on AMC not long ago, it would be great to read/discuss the actual story.