Do you prefer books written in the third or first person?

I first encountered second person narrative as a first grader — and future tense, no less!

A little kid’s book titled You Will Go To The Moon.

(Hasn’t happened yet, BTW)

Bright Lights, Big City by Jay MacInerney (sp?) is in second person.

I prefer third, for both reading and writing. That little bit of distance helps me to “see” the book more clearly. One of my all-time favorite books, though, is Confessions of a Crap Artist by Philip K. Dick. That book has two first-person narrators, and two third-person narrators. Surprisingly, it never gets confusing, and it was far more effective a technique than if Dick had just written it all in third person.

I once wrote a piece of flash fiction that was in second person future tense. I’ve not sent it out to possible publishers yet, because I’m really iffy about the “experimental” POV/tense. Although, really, sometimes a story just has to be in a weird POV, sometimes it just fits.

All the narration in the Spider-Girl series is done in second person. It’s annoying as hell, and would make it unreadable if it wasn’t a comic.

I really dislike present tense. I’m not entirely sure why, I guess past tense is so much more familiar.

Patricia Cornwall’s Blow Fly lost me after a chapter or so because I found the present tense so irritating. Fortunately my gf finished it and told me I didn’t miss anything.

I think it depends on the book. I used to like 1st person a lot better, but there are some books where it just wouldn’t work, because you really have to get inside several characters’ heads.

And present tense is really, really annoying. I can’t even imagine a book in future tense.

First person is best for detective stories, as we get the facts as the character does.

Otherwise, third person.

Not to mention it makes that whole “She walked into my office looking as hot as a cup of coffee from the McDonald’s drive through” type narrative possible :wink:

I prefer third person, but I won’t put a book down just because it’s in first.