this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2026
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I want to read, but I dont know how to find my type of books. (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 week ago by roomy@lemmy.world to c/books@lemmy.world
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This is probably asked here a lot so i apologise. Almost every day i think about siting down, and having a nice read, but i just dont know how to find the books i like.

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[–] Carrolade@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Yeah, I take several random samples of the prose from throughout the book, just to get a good sense of the overall style. Though I do always begin with the first paragraph, and on at least one case, that was enough to immediately close and buy the book.

That being the over-the-top, sorta Victorian prose of Jacqueline Carey:

Lest anyone should suppose that I am a cuckoo’s child, got on the wrong side of the blanket by lusty peasant stock and sold into indenture in a shortfallen season, I may say that I am House-born and reared in the Night Court proper, for all the good it did me. It is hard for me to resent my parents, although I envy them their naïveté...

She then keeps going just like that for three large books, probably totaling something like 2k pages. I loved every page of it.

[–] yeahiknow3@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 week ago

Wow, good call. That paragraph was uniquely unpleasant.

[–] SlurpingPus@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

Not a very accurate method, but any discerning reader should get into Nabokov right away from:

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth.

[–] whalebiologist@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I had to hop off kushiel's dart, but you are spot on that the writing style is evocative.

[–] Carrolade@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

Yeah, if anything about it bothered you, that was probably smart. The trilogy is, among other things, a very slow yet steady escalation of horror.

She did write two other trilogies in the same setting following different characters that you may prefer more. Different narrators does change the prose, but she still manages that same fluidity, which is what I always loved so much about it.