hello!

lately, i've been thinking about making a personal literature curriculum for myself since i've noticed that my knowledge beyond basic analytic skills is lacking. especially since i come from a non-english speaking country where the main point of our english classes was to teach us the language rather than teach us any analysis or history, etc.

since this is a place full of avid readers, i thought this'll be my best bet to gather some sources and starting points for my personal syllabus. for the main part, the first act of this curriculum would be based on english literature. what is the best point to start for this? should i go with a particular uni's syllabus and tweak it? any and all tips are appreciated!

help me, oh my fellow nerds 💜

So far this year the books I’m reading just haven’t been hitting at ALL for me, DNFs, starting and then needing to pause etc because I am not enjoying or connecting. I am also reading much slower than normal for me and I realise that I may indeed be the problem 🥴😂

So, I’ve decided to take a step back for a month, minimum, from fantasy, focussing on some classics and non fiction, with a sprinkle of Lit Fic, and just try to reset my brain a little when it comes to the fantasy world. I do have a monthly buddy read with my friend which is usually a fantasy and which I will keep in, but other than that, I’m backing off for a little bit.

I have so many great series I want to get to (Brando, John Gwynne, Ryan Cahill, James Logan, Evan Winter, Tad Williams etc) that I want to go into them fully engaged and not burnt out, which is what I think is currently happening!

Have you ever found you just need to take a step back from a whole genre and refresh your brain chemistry? For the mood readers among us … tell me I’m not alone 😂

tl;dr : we’ve had a few posts on PB about the biggest/best genres from your country. Now I want to know which genres do you feel are underrepresented from your country/region? Do you have any examples of what you’d like to see more of?

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I’ve been at a writing convention this weekend. One of the panels featured Michael Robotham, an Australian crime writer who, despite achieving significant international success, is only publishing his first book set in Australia at book #20.

Not for lack of trying, this is a manuscript that has languished in the back of a drawer (on a floppy disk) since his 20s, but even as recently as ten years ago, his publisher told him, “You can set a novel anywhere in the world except Australia. No Australian crime novel has ever succeeded internationally.”

The good news is, publishers are fucking liars some very successful Australian crime fiction has hit the international market in those ten years, eg. Benjamin Stevenson and Liane Moriarty. (shoutout to @peregrine who got me to explain about AFL while reading Nine Perfect Strangers, which required me to ask my friend who has a football boyfriend because bold of you to assume I know about sports)

Learning about this surprised me in particular, since I’ve gone on record multiple times on PB that I think crime is the ultimate Australian genre (it’s the perfect setting!), but as a fantasy writer this story was sounding very familiar. It’s a genre Australians love to write but never set locally. I know Jay Kristoff, C.S. Pacat and Amie Kaufman are big on here, and I popped the biggest bottles at the Byron Bay mention in Don’t Let the Forest In by C.G. Drews 🍾🎉 — but in terms of fantasy set in Australia? I think there’s a bit in YA and MG, but not a lot for adult fiction.

I know I and many other Aussie spec fic authors feel pressure to appeal to broader markets. There are a limited number of agents, a limited number of publishers, and a limited number of readers in Australia, and in an industry as competitive as fiction, where a bad debut could kill your career, it feels necessary to hedge your bets a bit more with your subject matter. Historically, Australia has not really been seen as a serious setting. We have a reputation of the crocodile dundee variety, and that is a difficult image to shake if you want people to care about your hardcore fantasy series.

I fear this pressure will only get worse with the likes of Booktok. If readers are getting their recommendations from a primarily American reader base instead of local brick-and-mortar stores that will more likely carry Australian books, then there’s even more of a pressure to appeal to those international markets.

SO. All of this is to say, I’m going to be putting my money where my mouth is, and try to read more Australian authors, and specifically Australian spec fic authors. Perhaps if I’m annoying enough about it I can become an Australian spec fic influencer and together we can make some urban fantasy set in Brisbane become the next… uh… Fourth Wing? (I don’t know what the kids are reading these days)

Anyway. Since America is everyone’s problem I’d like to hear from others the kind of stories and genres from their region that they want to see more of. What books would you like to be more widely read?

tl;dr 2: Bluey is a psyop to get your kids into Australian media so in like 15 years the Australian fantasy subgenre will be bigger than romantasy. You heard it here first.

Today's random question

What is something about books or reading that you think is misunderstood? This can be a genre, reading as a hobby, how books are discussed, it can be anything.

For me, it's the idea that reading romance is all about the smut, especially queer. For a lot of the romance I read, I skim or skip the smut entirely (it makes me uncomfortable). The reason I read mm romance? The differences in the way men have to be written. I like my romance driven by emotion; I've found the genre that serves that for me.

Before you come at me, I know this isn’t exactly the best place to ask this but I really don’t know where else to. I know that a lot of readers are also writers/authors. I’ve been wanting to actually get back into writing for a while now but I don’t want to use Google Docs. I’ve seen too many posts saying that they use the data to train ai so I’d rather be safe than sorry. So if there’s any writers reading this: what website/app do you use? (Preferably only free sites/apps)

Edit: Thank you so much for all the suggestions 🙏

‘China. This country is gorging itself on imports from the Orient. They can’t get enough of China’s porcelain, lacquered cabinets, and silks. And tea. Heavens. Do you know how much tea gets exported from China to England every year? At least thirty million pounds’ worth. The British love tea so much that Parliament used to insist that the East India Company always keep a year’s worth of supply in stock in case of shortages. We spend millions and millions on tea from China every year, and we pay for it in silver.’

It’s honestly wild to realize how little is uniquely British beyond the accent, sorry to the British. This passage made me think about how even their so-called famous tea culture isn’t originally theirs. There’s no such thing as “British tea” in origin, it was built on imported Chinese tea and colonial trade systems. I genuinely never thought about it that way before. It’s similar to how many of the artifacts in British museums were acquired from other countries during colonial expansion. That’s crazy!

Hello! I have a sense that my reading tastes are shifting, and so I am looking specifically for books that feel timeless - no social media, no modern technology, nothing super contemporary. Classics are not my wheelhouse lol so looking for recs there but also looking for recs for novels written more recently that feel timeless. Thank you all!!

What are your go to literature pieces that you would recommend someone trying to get into classics?

hey everyone!!

so i've noticed a few things during discussions about characters in books, mainly on pagebound but also as well as in the wild and on social media. i have found that while it's very popular to like characters that are sort of "morally grey", especially in fantasy novels, there are a few guidelines they must follow. they have to be at least a little likeable, and a lot of that mainly revolves around their behaviour. how "bad" they are, how far their actions go to harm others.

for example: many characters who are written as "evil" but have a turning point sometime in a book or series don't commit acts that we would consider too evil. they're always things you can come back from– insults, temporary harm, threats. and even with pure villains, when audiences like them, they're still more likely to simply have killed someone rather than be a serial torturer, or violent to groups of people, or partake in some huge betrayal.

obviously i don't think any of those options should be things that make a character likeable, but it got me thinking: is there a point we draw a line? what actions are deemed "acceptable" for an antagonist or villain to do where they can still be redeemed or liked by a general audience, and what is too far? i would have thought murder to be across the line, because that's one of the worst things you can do in real life, but in books it seems to be much different.

do you guys have any thoughts? what are your personal lines for when you find a character irredeemable?