because I don't bug karen enough with my unrealistic book desires

[Jasmine]

PACING: slow. generally I like pondering as long as the book doesn't get too bogged down in being too smart for it's own good. I like stuff like kundera where the book falls off into philosophy periodically. I do however really like short chapters and being overwritten is a problem for me, I'm not one that's usually asking for more words for the sake of more words. I like brevity and I like succinctness.

STORYLINE: I like convoluted things, but linear is okay. I just tend to be a little add so things that jump around work really well for me. I prefer books to be about psychological elements, I tend to ignore any action that is occurring in a book. I'm more a thinking and feeling kind of person than a down and dirty lets get this done kind of person. plus action scenes make me sleepy.

FRAME: I like the tone to be generally depressive realist. I want good things to happen but not in ways that don't seem real. like in learning to lose when the girl is constantly terrified her boyfriend will not like her tomorrow. I do like some relationship elements although generally happy endings are not my think, sort of hornbyesque relationships that are totally fucked up but go on anyway work well for me. basically think could I have that in real life? if the answer is no I won't care for it. I'm varied on the level of detail I like but generally less is more. I like minimalist writing a lot and I can't stand character descriptions. I don't care what his hair looks like.

CHARACTERIZATION: I don't like a lot of characters because I am not good at remembering characters names, there can be more if keeping them straight is not important like in ulysses where they are kind of all different thoughts in one person's head. I like that. also if they recur enough that I can pick them up and sort them out later that's fine, stuff like infinite jest where most important characters recur and are distinct enough to know who's who. I'm also not huge on intense character development. I don't think people change that much so random character turn arounds in books annoy me. I like first person mostly I think but I change my mind on that a lot.


I don't know if I did that right.

[Kinga]

Hello,

Now I don't know if I am doing this right either but I would like to suggest two books that I would like to suggest.
I think they tick most of the boxes (but then I could be completely wrong)

I see you read quite a lot of world literature, so here it is, a Hungarian one and a German one.

1) Embers

2) Three Comrades

EDIT: I see that I am supposed to reply in a similar manner with Pacing, Storyline etc. I will do so when the time allows

OK edit again:

So they are both Central European (not Eastern, thank you very much).
They are not action packed but focus more on subtleties of different relationships between people.
'Three Comrades' is linear and 'Embers' is retrospective (if I remember correctly).

I would say Three Comrades is slightly sweeter but of course we're talking bitter sweet lost to the WWI generation.

They both have three main characters, two men and a woman, so you should be able to keep up ;-)

[Kathrina]

It seems you have the right sensibility for Eastern European literature. I'm intimidated to recommend too many 'cause you read sooo much I'll just be redundant, but you might try Herta Müller orNorman Manea, if you haven't done so already.

[karen, future RA queen]

Tommy wrote: "I liked embers!"

does it fit her preferences?

[Deb]

Jasmine can you give a few examples of books you really like?

[Jasmine]

Thanks guys I will look at those two

Good call deb given at least one of the examples I gave was a book I don't actually like.

I liked learning to lose by david trueba which is pretty closely what I based the preferences on. The pets by olafsson. [Book: The trick is to keep breathing|468488] by janice galloway. Apathy and other small victories. How to fail. The stranger is probably my favorite book. My favorite by kundera is probably the book of laughter and forgetting if that helps

[karen, future RA queen]

did you ever read any of these, or did you just move on to other questions?

[Jasmine]

I didn't read them, because I felt like I made a mistake with the original request in that it wasn't specific enough, I mean clearly it's very specific but it lacks direction so I tried again with better direction.

[karen, future RA queen]

many directions!