Oh my, I certainly "get" being someone who knows a little bit about a lot of things. I suppose there is one subject that I'm "very knowledgeable" on, but I haven't done much with it in a long time.
I was a voracious reader until I was 13; by then, I had thoroughly and completely read anything that I might be interested in the kids' and teens' sections (I was NOT interested in teen romance!) but I struggled to find a reading "niche" after that. Coupled with family issues and a crushing school work load, I stopped reading a whole lot for a long time. When I did read, I dabbled mostly in fantasy and classics, though I did a bit of a Stephen King kick as well.
One of my high school teachers suggested that I read "Helter Skelter", which I really liked, but I never got too deeply into true crime either. I started reading more again with working for Barnes and Noble (an amazing job!) and then working in Germany. I was starting to read more non-fiction, but when I worked at B&N, I did read some new fiction as well. Somewhere in here I started reading Harry Potter. In Germany, I did more of the mix, but a fair amount of Christian history books, history, and I came across John Granger and "Looking for God in Harry Potter" and I got into his "classes" he was holding through Barnes & Noble. Granger is a Classicist, (so is Rowling) and he really pointed out a wealth of literature that he saw influencing Harry Potter, and so I ended up reading some of those mentioned. Besides this, I did some dabbling with Russian literature (Dostoyevsky, etc.) as well as some quasi-classic stuff, even some of which I ended up hating (looking over at you, "Jude the Obscure").
As I got into my one "expert" subject, I stumbled upon a kind of obscure genre of fiction called "Renouveau Catholique" - Catholic renaissance or renewal. Most people kind of consider it a French thing, though there were a good number of German authors who could be also classified as such, and Sigrid Undset's "Kristin Lavransdatter" which won a Nobel Prize for Literature is often classified as such, though she's from Norway. (I have heard wonderful things about Kristin Lavransatter, but it's been sitting on my shelf, unread, for a decade because it's ridiculously massive!) In one way, it's similar to more modern Christian fiction in that Christianity is definitely a part of the storyline, but in some ways, it's much more culturally woven in, I guess. I loved "Diary of a Country Priest" by Georges Romanos, for example, and it's a powerful book not so much because of a "triumph of Christianity" in the end, but because it captures a good bit of the struggle to remain Christian in hard times... In this book, the priest has dedicated himself to God, and it seems like at every corner, there's failure to contend with, despite his best efforts.
Unfortunately, I have read very little in the last decade... The kids and the craziness have taken their toll... I'm trying to change that. I got the book from the last contest and I've got a book from the library, and another book I started, so... I am trying to start with that!
That is quite a variety of literature and non-fiction! Fascinating! I don't know if some of that would interest me but so many of them sound interesting!
Oh my, I certainly "get" being someone who knows a little bit about a lot of things. I suppose there is one subject that I'm "very knowledgeable" on, but I haven't done much with it in a long time.
I was a voracious reader until I was 13; by then, I had thoroughly and completely read anything that I might be interested in the kids' and teens' sections (I was NOT interested in teen romance!) but I struggled to find a reading "niche" after that. Coupled with family issues and a crushing school work load, I stopped reading a whole lot for a long time. When I did read, I dabbled mostly in fantasy and classics, though I did a bit of a Stephen King kick as well.
One of my high school teachers suggested that I read "Helter Skelter", which I really liked, but I never got too deeply into true crime either. I started reading more again with working for Barnes and Noble (an amazing job!) and then working in Germany. I was starting to read more non-fiction, but when I worked at B&N, I did read some new fiction as well. Somewhere in here I started reading Harry Potter. In Germany, I did more of the mix, but a fair amount of Christian history books, history, and I came across John Granger and "Looking for God in Harry Potter" and I got into his "classes" he was holding through Barnes & Noble. Granger is a Classicist, (so is Rowling) and he really pointed out a wealth of literature that he saw influencing Harry Potter, and so I ended up reading some of those mentioned. Besides this, I did some dabbling with Russian literature (Dostoyevsky, etc.) as well as some quasi-classic stuff, even some of which I ended up hating (looking over at you, "Jude the Obscure").
As I got into my one "expert" subject, I stumbled upon a kind of obscure genre of fiction called "Renouveau Catholique" - Catholic renaissance or renewal. Most people kind of consider it a French thing, though there were a good number of German authors who could be also classified as such, and Sigrid Undset's "Kristin Lavransdatter" which won a Nobel Prize for Literature is often classified as such, though she's from Norway. (I have heard wonderful things about Kristin Lavransatter, but it's been sitting on my shelf, unread, for a decade because it's ridiculously massive!) In one way, it's similar to more modern Christian fiction in that Christianity is definitely a part of the storyline, but in some ways, it's much more culturally woven in, I guess. I loved "Diary of a Country Priest" by Georges Romanos, for example, and it's a powerful book not so much because of a "triumph of Christianity" in the end, but because it captures a good bit of the struggle to remain Christian in hard times... In this book, the priest has dedicated himself to God, and it seems like at every corner, there's failure to contend with, despite his best efforts.
Unfortunately, I have read very little in the last decade... The kids and the craziness have taken their toll... I'm trying to change that. I got the book from the last contest and I've got a book from the library, and another book I started, so... I am trying to start with that!
That is quite a variety of literature and non-fiction! Fascinating! I don't know if some of that would interest me but so many of them sound interesting!