Fuckin' Ready Player One. But in a good way.

Generally no, for the same reason I don't read forewords, introductions, or prefaces. I want my relationship with the author to be whatever is in the text itself, not other ideas from outside the text.

I didn't know this and I can see how it colors the interpretation of Avalon.

>and i never said they should be

Well, that was my original point, so I guess that's that.

I do somewhat, yes. I think I came up in an era where the publishing world was a bit insular. [that's one way of looking at it; an alternative way would be to say in the old days you had to be able to write to get something published.] there was more print and radio media and less tv, much less internet, too.

the upshot of that is that my conditioning had me seeing book world of the 60s and 70s as a sort of community. I know quite a bit of background on many of the people who were big names. in addition to that, many of them wrote, at some point, about their own lives. or someone else wrote their biographies.

I find all of it interesting. it doesn't necessarily illuminate or ruin whatever they wrote, for me. it's simply interesting.

when it comes to sci-fi and fantasy: I've been a side eyed skeptic from those days too. I just read too much of it not to infer that for many of them, it was alluring more because of the "freedom" to step beyond current social constraints. that's great when it's experimenting with concepts like hey, maybe race shouldn't matter. but far too much sci Fi/fantasy just used the genre to handwave far more real emotional truths - such as, for instance, real live 10 year-olds don't necessarily want to be some adult's sexbot.

I didn't conclude anything about the individual authors -that seems to be a more latter-day hobby. but nothing much that I've learned was much of a surprise.

Very rarely. Now that I've gone ebook and audiobook only I don't have the slightest idea what most authors even look like let alone details about them. Their background is utterly irrelevant to me.

I found Babel by RF Kuang unforgivably pedantic and ploddingly written. Could not finish it.

I don't but I think I should. I remember in HS our teacher would begin the lesson with speaking about the authors life. She say when they were born (1940 for example) and then ask us what events happened around that time. It was very helpful when it came to understanding why the author wrote about what they did.

Rarely. If I don't like them it will taint my enjoyment of their work.

Okay, I'ma dodge her books then but yeah very unbelievable stuff with the nice bow one-liner you were talking about

NEVER LET ME GO-Kazuo Ishiguro I felt as though I’d been trapped in a dorm room with a bunch of teenagers who just happened to be “created” to be organ donors. WTF? Then they go on a road trip. Just shoot me. Graduate to a pre donor, pre care giver dorm. It never got any better nor developed a single redeeming story line, literary quality: nice cover. Toss it way in the corner.

I don't really see any of the stuff you listed as a bad thing. I love Wuthering heights for all of those reasons

"Cujo" by Stephen King. I did throw it across the room and to this day have never finished it. I was totally furious that he killed a character . . . let's just say there was no reason for this person to die. The story was basically over at that point.

In his defense, King said that he doesn't even remember writing that book, because he was so drugged up during that time.

I think it depends on the author. So far I have been more of a reader of what are considered philosophical books, more than literary ones. And what I find to be able to, more than simply make it "more interesting", but deeply change the way I see the books is to do what you are asking. With many, if not most of what people call philosophers, there is really nothing that would change your way of seeing the book. Usually their life stories consists of, well, just "generic" ones.

Take David Hume for example. He was struggling to sell his books but that's about it.

And it may even be rather "painful", like Immanuel Kant who perhaps may even be regarded as having "no life", as they call it (although I don't reccomend mindlessly deriving wisdom from public opinion), which I however agree in that he may have been too immersed in something that he didn't necessarily enjoy to begin with, because he didn't "get it", meaning, the whole point of life which is, well, to live I guess.

And it may even make you feel "more cynical" about the book (although I argue this would be a rather wrong line of reasoning; you may become "more cynical" about the author, but not the book; the book should stand for itself regardless of the author). Arthur Schopenhauer was the son of a wealthy merchant (and was able to keep his wealth to the end of his life since he was not insane or anything), who preached about the importance of, for example, asceticism, which is the activity of not doing much activity, such as not eating. This makes some people angry since he was able to say that while having the chance to eat whatever he wanted, being a wealthy man, not least one who didn't bother to discuss the socio-economic system whatsoever other than that you should do charity once in a while if you're rich.

But once in a while, perhaps in a whole millenium, there is gonna be a person like Friedrich Nietzsche. His whole life is his book. It is one of the greatest novel I've ever read. He is the epitome of a tragic hero. Reading his life story, you will find the change from a "nice", religious child, to a ferociously inquisitive teenager who was still "nice" nonetheless, to a man completely struggling with everything he was brought in. His whole life he was immersed in a vigorous pursuit of figuring out what kind of life we, as an individual, and as a whole humanity, should live, and he not just applied, but breathed in whatever discovery he made into his own life–something which I find very moving.

When I was on a thriller kick a few months back, I would just burn through an author's whole stock if I liked them (good way to find lazy writing between books). I read a few of hers, and they all just ended up being like "oh, okay ... sure" and always tied up with a nice bow or a quippy one-liner that was just too on the nose, not real life.

I never read The Inmate, though. While I did like a few of hers that turned out okay and or weren't super predictable, every time The Inmate appeared as an option, something about the description made me think I wasn't going to like it or it was going to be too unbelievable (which it sounds like it was!).

Agree it kills the flow to make notes while reading.

Why?

If it's a fiction book then I'll make a list of themes on a sheet of paper I use as a bookmark. I don't like marking up my books because then I start to think everything is important and kind of kills the flow of the book.

No, quite frankly I don’t care. But once I discovered that a detective stories author committed a murder and spent jail time for it, before becoming an author.

Okay thanks

I never have but I love watching the Castle episodes that James Patterson was in.

Okay thanks, how do you retain all the information in the book you read?

Okay thanks

Okay thanks for the advice.

Never look up the lives and opinions of most of the classic sci-fi and fantasy authors. They were an overwhelmingly shit group, it's like every person who was a terrible person fucked off to write sci-fi. Just read their books and be happily ignorant.

If someone starts a conversation about boycotting books due to the views of the author and a bunch of people start sidling for the exit, they're probably sci-fi fans.

Some of them were just incredibly fucked up as people. H.P. Lovecraft in particular was basically a walking bundle of neurosis, fear, and hatred of just about everyone and everything, with a special emphasis on Blacks, Irish, Italian, and Jews.