Books
The genres I like are: reference, humour, horror, sf. I don't like
everything in those genres, of course.
Humour
Tom Sharpe, Terry Pratchett, P.J. O'Rourke, Douglas Adams, Dave Barry,
P.G. Wodehouse, and Dilbert all make
me laugh on a regular basis. I even used to maintain the FAQs for the Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams newsgroups.
Horror
Ok, so I'm opinionated. I only like some of Stephen King's stuff -
liked "Different Seasons", hated almost every other short-story
collection. Like the Gunslinger series, hate most of his recent
wannabe-artsy stuff. Having an opinion on Stephen King's books is
compulsory, I hear.
I also like Dan Simmons a lot (he lives in Colorado too), and Thomas
Harris (Silence of the Lambs author). Not much else though, and I
definitely don't like Dean R. Koontz. Bloody knock-off artist,
that's all he is.
sf
Having proofread and sub-edited "Phlogiston", the premiere NZ sf
magazine, I'm fully aware of the difference between "science fiction",
"scifi" and "sf". "Science Fiction" is its old name, "scifi" is what
other people call it, and "sf" is what we call it to avoid the stigma
of "scifi".
I have read widely but not deeply. This means I know Heinlein,
Zelazney, Simak, Lem, Asimov, and most of the other big names, but the
chances are that I haven't read all their stuff. I think Asimov and
Heinlein are the only authors I've specifically sought out a lot of,
and then I only came to feel dissatisfied with Heinlein. "Old men
bonking auburn haired daughters" is to Heinlein what "my dad died in
the war" is to Roger Waters.
Most fantasy leaves me cold. I too read about six "Xanth" books by
Peirs Anthony before realising that not only were they all the same,
they were all shit too. McCaffery does nothing for me. I'm a
barbarian, tough luck.
Reference
Nothing like cold clean facts to titillate the clinical obsessive side
of my personality. I love a good encyclopaedia, history book, etc.
My dream is to put some of these onto the web. I'm a great devotee of
Project Gutenberg.
Other
I am reading James Joyce's Ulysses, have read The Golden
Bough and enjoy reading Umberto Eco. I am not a
postmodernist, however - their pretentious twaddle gets right up my nose.
(my home page)