Reading preferences and personal taste

I'm curious about the personal tastes of the community here, so I ask a simple question of of preference. What is your favorite era in literary history (including present time) and your favorite author? If you feel like it, mention your favorite character or plot.

I, personally, find myself rather fond of twentieth century literature, predominantly originating in England. Aldous Huxley currently holds the position of my favorite author and I see myself relating very well to Bernard Marx, a character in "Brave New World" for his shortcomings. The plots I seem drawn to are the bleak and often hyperbolic futures seen in works such a George Orwell's 1984, Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Prior to that I rather enjoyed American Transcendental works such as Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass and Henry David Thoreau's Walden.

Here are my preferences:


I prefer satire lampooning real life experiences or references to how life is like in another part of the world. One of the threads talking about how someone abused his insurance coverage caught my attention. You know, the one ending with someone being run over by a train. I liked that.

If I could read a transcript of the excellent talk shows on Grand Theft Auto radios, I would be happy. Here is a Youtube link:


I love comedic pieces. I would like stories that appear quite normal up to a point when something ludicrous occurs. Like my summary of a romance story posted here a long time ago:

It involved a young man falling in love with a young woman only to see his lover succumb to some unknown illness. After exchanging words like 'eternity' and 'love', the love interest passes away. For some reason, however, an autopsy was done. It turned out that the love interest was not quite she (he) appeared to be, gender wise.

I prefer non-fiction. I read the newspapers (in Chinese, mind you) and I buy biographies of great people I like. "Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China" by Ezra Vogel is one tome I bought for myself.

That said, I do really hope that someone can write satirical pieces or humorous pieces for the site.

I feel so . . . dumb after reading this. The only author I recognize is Orwell and the only book 1984. I've never heard the term "American Transcendental" before and I couldn't begin to guess what it refers to.

So my favorite era is the present, but I mainly just read fantasy. I like plots that are more personal as opposed to ones where the protagonist has to save the world, but unfortunately fantasy plots tend to fall in the latter. I also enjoy stories that follow an ensemble cast as opposed to focusing on only one or two characters.

You're quite well read in classics I must say! While I notice the authors and their works, I have not read much of them.

Two of my favorites are Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club and Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea. In particular, I am amazed at Ernest Hemingway's ability to be so impressively concise yet descriptive in many of his works.

Not exactly a favorite era, but I find works written in the Renaissance and in the Romantic Era be interesting to read. Works written in these time periods seem to embody the cultures within its times. Not to say works in present day do not do the same, but written works back then were in an isolated environment, which gave it room to develop in a dramatically different way.

The Transcendental literary movement was an American literary movement which focused on the individual, becoming closer to nature, and a stance of happy civil disobedience to retain the sense of self in an industrialized world. If poetry is your thing I advise reading Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, a work I was required to read in my Sophomore year in high school that, even after the assignment was over I continued to read finding myself enthralled with the simplicity, and pleasurable verse. If you would rather read prose, I highly recommend Henry David Thoreau, whose masterpiece Walden had almost escaped my library's hungry expansion. I was debating my final selection at a Books-A-Million and had to choose betwixt Walden, which at the time I had only heard about, and an unabridged copy of The Iliad. As I had already read The Iliad, Walden found its way into my bookshelf.

Recent additions to my bookshelf include James Joyce's "Ulysses", "Team of Rivals" (a biographical work on Lincoln, pardon my not knowing the author offhand, but I can't recall without looking, and I'm not at home right now), Fyodor Dostoyevsky's "The Brothers Karamazof", and hopefully soon, Christopher Hitchens' "Arguably".

I think Fahrenheit 451 and Brave New World are also satire aren't they? Fahrenheit 451 as the title suggests involves paper (and book) burning and I've heard that the Mathlusian Belt was the idea of Huxley. May look out for them.

I love the Hitchens brothers, both of them. Christopher makes very good arguments for his anti-theist stance and Peter's insight into British politics are much in line with my political beliefs, (though I am not British).

Still, I prefer non-fiction over fiction. I listen to political speeches and read their transcripts. Not sure if that counts as a proper reading reference to you. Reality is stranger than fiction as they say.

hmm...I don't read much things here but if I were to give my two cents I prefer modern / contemporary literature because I can somehow relate to the characters with my own everyday life.

for the genres, I like comedy, absurdist things, and many else with the feelings of uniqueness and freshness--I probably would also enjoy Postmodern themed literary works if I gave my time and patience on it. I also very much prefer things that were easy to understand, without any of these convoluted usage of complex English words that left me completely lost in the point, since English isn't my primary language lol

by the other standards, I also like a kind of story where you could just forget that it's actually a story--more of a life experience given to the readers, making them experience it firsthand by the medium of text. The kind of masterful storytelling which brought the characters, the scenery, and the wholeness of the story like an actual life experience from the start to finish.

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami was one example of the story which has this kind of criterion, the other might be The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, although it somewhat absurdist in nature--the works still provide such impact.

even if I only just read one of his works, which is Slaughterhouse Five I like the writings by Kurt Vonnegut, particularly due to its concise wording and simple descriptions, yet at the same time able to tell a story with such depth and profound-ness, not to forget his brilliant sense of humor which really cracks me up by the time I've read the novel. The other would be Franz Kafka, because of his very unique storytelling which could convey such intense spectrum of emotions just by writing, though the main reason I really like him was because of his very inspiring quotes about life--it ultimately made me appreciate life more than it was before.

If I were to add another Author, it would be Italo Calvino, this man had the craziest and wildest imagination I've seen when it comes to writing--he's one hell of a writer. reading the Cosmicomics book, it feels totally like being slapped across a flat board with cupcakes--truly strange. he's also the one who had written the legendary metafiction book - If on a winter's night a traveler. I should get by and finish reading all of his works sometime.

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I recognized most of the names, but I haven't really read any of them. the closest thing I could relate to American Transcendental thingy, if I recall correctly, was from a short read of essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

I also read some of the classics, though to say most of them doesn't really stick with me. I still enjoy 'A Christmas Carol' by Dickens, and 'Adventures of Tom Sawyer' by Mark Twain though.

Same here! Well written speeches and essays must be understandable as well. Indeed my 'contributions' to this forum are poking fun at overly verbose sentences and stories. If I were to write seriously, I'd expect to use words that are simple to understand. If I want to flaunt my vocabulary, I would use difficult words that only make sense in the context of the sentence.

ED: I would like to ask the OP in style would he write in? What would he like to write about?

In all honesty, I'm not for the time being, I'm too exposed to the masterpieces of giants to consider myself a worthy writer as of yet. Once I'm better read, then perhaps I can find my own style, but I need more of a background in the literary tradition of the only language I understand, because if you haven't the knowledge to speak another language, you must know your own all the better.

Ahh... That's a shame. I take it that you would like to write seriously or even professionally? As for me, I write to entertain myself (usually and all too often at the expense of others)