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 day 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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[–] Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I do exactly this, except I don't start at the first page but like 10-30 pages in. So that the writer has started to write normally.

[–] Carrolade@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day 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.

[–] whalebiologist@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago

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

[–] SlurpingPus@lemmy.world 2 points 21 hours 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.

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

Wow, good call. That paragraph was uniquely unpleasant.