I don't understand the appeal of reading fiction.

Non fiction is about worlds which others imagine and you can interpret. I only started reading Stephen King’s The Dark tower recently and the textured and interwoven world he has created is fantastic and now I get why he has become such an acclaimed writer. The guy who writes the Jack Reacher novels on the other is utter pish by comparison. Is fiction escapism? maybe, maybe not. I mostly detest the subject matter in Irvine Welsh novels but his ability to create an image and express it so clearly is really quite fantastic. I expect most people on here could easily change the names of authors above but with similar sentiment.

I like reading fiction, but rarely do it unless I’m on the tube/train, which means it only happens 2-4 times a month as I’m usually on my bike. Unless I’m on holiday

I’ve not got to the position of reading instead of watching TV, which is a shame as I’m sure it would help me sleep better (blue light etc)

I only started reading Stephen King’s The Dark tower recently and the textured and interwoven world he has created is fantastic and now I get why he has become such an acclaimed writer. The guy who writes the Jack Reacher novels on the other is utter pish by comparison.

One of Stephen King’s motto-y things is “it is the tale, not he who tells it”, and whilst I think he’s generally bob-on, in that respect I think he’s wrong – I think a good author (like him) can make any and all kind of stories interesting, but a Clive Cussler or a Gerald Seymore, for all their success and interesting plot lines, just totally turn me off through very ordinary writing.

I can’t help thinking that the Harry Potter saga would have been much shorter and funnier if Frank Richards had been into witchcraft.

I feel compelled to drop back into this thread with a quick and pointless update.

After finishing Robert Gordon’s masterful “The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The US Standard of Living Since the Civil War”, I picked up a copy of Iain M Banks’ “Look To Windward”.

I am enjoying it very much. I might well make a habit of reading a novel right after a book containing lots of graphs and footnotes. Mix things up a bit…

🙂

Ah thats one of the more bonkers ones if I remember rightly 🙂

I was starting to feel the same as a the OP until recently.

Then I heard an interview with Yann Martel … author of Life of Pi. A housewives favourite with more Cod (spelt right) philosophy then you could shake a stick at… but still a book I enjoyed immensely.

Anyway, Martel sent a work of fiction to the Canadian PM every two weeks until he’d sent 100 books/pieces of poetry… the PM has said he only read non fiction …. http://www.ctvnews.ca/no-more-books-for-stephen-harper-yann-martel-vows-1.602455

Why ? … Well to paraphrase … Great literature is a wonderful way to explore and understand what it is to be human… And as such, what could be more important to PM than that.

Soulful

Now thanks to this thread (or its resurrection)… I’ve remembered I’m going to work my way through those 100 books