All the books I like tend to be written more than a few decades ago. Am I not reading enough current books or is this an issue that other people also have?
I don’t find a marked difference between books being written now vs. decades ago. If we go back before 1960, maybe. Certainly things have evolved though I am not a literary scholar and I couldn’t tell you what trends have occurred in books over those decades (except for the introduction of cyberpunk, for example). But I don’t see the changes as so dramatic that I can’t enjoy books written in the last few years as much as those written 50 years ago.
Any particular new-ish books that you specifically didn’t enjoy? How about older ones that you could point to as “they don’t make 'em like they used to”? What genres do you like?
OP: what type books do you read?
I mostly read mysteries and most are modern.
I have a theory that Joss Whedon ruined dialogue. He pioneered that snarky jokey pitter pat style of dialogue which every writer since (yes this is hyperbole) has copied which has made characters in the last few decades all sound the same. I noticed this first in the Star Trek novels I would read but you can see evidence of it in other mediums like movies an TV shows as well.
I heartily dislike the few books I’ve read by Don Delillo and Bret Ellis. Does that count?
Yes? No? I think things can go in cycles, but in short, there’s always been good stuff, pop stuff, and derivative stuff, just differing percentages at the time. I grew up as a child of the 80s and was a huge fan of sci-fi and fantasy. For years I re-read Tolkien every year or so, I loved my old copies of Dune, but I also enjoyed all the derivative Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms novels I read at the time.
I still have the same reading tastes, and still find some of the same trends. Two things I think have made the perception of quality change: endless sequels and e-publishing. The endless sequels/spinoffs has been a thing since at least the 80s, where an author has an idea good enough for a book or 3, but due to popularity they keep publishing further stories long after the best stuff has been mined out, whether because the fans demand it, or because they want the $$$.
As for e-publishing, you only have to go look at kindle unlimited to see that. I think for every 100-200 books there I saw during my free membership, I’d find 10 or so worth a single read and 1-2 that wore worth even 1 re-read. But there are still good books out there, it’s just harder to find them amidst all the fluff.
I tend to enjoy a lot of modern sci-fi/fantasy - works of N.K. Jemisen, Ann Leckie, Nnedi Okafor, Emily St. John Mandel. And other novelists like Colton Whitehead (who I guess did write an alt-history work, which happens to be his most famous) and Hillary Mantel.
I think there is a lot of good stuff that has come out recently.
I’m like the OP. I mostly read novels from before 1950 or so, many from the 19th or even 18th century. I think the only modern authors from which I’ve read more than one book in the last 15 years are John Irving, Henning Mankell, Stieg Larsson, Frederick Forsyth and John Le Carré. But this only applies to novels, I also read many non-fiction books, mostly about music, science and history, and for those I prefer contemporary books because of their up-to-date research.
It’s not a modern-vs-classic thing, but I definitely read far far less fiction and more non-fiction as I get older (I used to occasionally read modern sci-fi, but recently have been non-fiction only)
I am not familiar with him but a lot of films back in the 30s and 40s had some pretty glib dialogue. I don’t think this is anything new. Maybe it just comes and goes.
That’s where I am, too. I read like 90%+ in science-fiction/fantasy, and there’s some real garbage being written in the field–but there’s also some truly amazing stuff being done. In addition to that excellent list, there’s Jeff van der Meer running laps around Lovecraft in the “creepy weird horror” genre, and there’s Yoon Ha Lee proving that space opera and creepy-ass horror don’t need HR Giger’s involvement, and there’s Becky Chambers showing that you can write an entire book without a single asshole in it and have it be wonderful, and Djeli P. Clark doing Klan-as-Lovecraftian-terror, and so many more.
I read the classics some–I just finished my first Lois McMaster Bujold book on the recommendation of folks here (it was wonderful, btw), and I’m almost done reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy to my kid. But modern genre fiction is super exciting.
Depends on the genre. There are lots of new SF / fantasy books that I like, even though I’m kind of choosy about what I like within these genres. There are very few contemporary “literary fiction”-type books that I like, and the ones I do are mostly sorta-genre-fiction-ish, with recognizable elements of historical fiction or science fiction or whatever.
Mainly, I think fiction should have 1) characters that I like enough to root for; 2) a plot where Stuff Happens; and 3) an ending where Stuff Is Resolved, and preferably not in a completely bleak way although there can be some sad parts. Most contemporary fiction-with-literary-pretensions-and-no-defined-genre seems to fall down on one or another of these fronts.
The main problem I’ve run into over the past 20 years is the print has been getting steadily smaller and blurrier.
Non-fiction, if anything, seems to have gotten better in recent years, as well as more varied.
There’s a lot of crap mystery writing* by authors who don’t have a clue about creating engaging characters, engrossing plots or even basic sentence structure, but plenty of people buying the schlock, judging by sales figures and even reviews.
*part of my evidence for this is the number of series prolonged well past diminishing returns re quality, as well as series kept on life support by alternate authors.
I liked Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Replay, 1984, Fahrenheit 451, A Brave New World, everything by Vonnegut.
I tried reading some recent sci-fi and didn’t enjoy it as much. I read When Gravity Fails, We Are Legion (We Are Bob) and Dark Matter. Maybe I’m not reading the right books, but they weren’t as thoughtful as the older sci-fi that I read.
I also like books like The House of God or Catch 22. I don’t know if there is a modern satire as good as those two.
My favorite author is Steinbeck. I loved Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden.
I grew up reading science fiction. I read classics from before my time but I also read new works by new authors entering the field.
But a few months back I saw a list of Hugo and Nebula nominees for best novel for the last few years and I realized that not only had I not read any of these books, I didn’t even recognize the names of the authors.
I still read science fiction but I appear to have fallen out of the mainstream.
Same with me. I used to read fiction regularly, and read or watch drama, modern, ancient and everything in-between. As I’ve aged, and my literary ambitions (and, especially, aspirations) have waned, so too has my interest in modern art and society that’s contemporary.
History, science, sociology, anthropology (broadly speaking), and, also broadly, the state of the modern world, still hold my interest. I’m unlikely to read again, in the foreseeable future, biographies or critical studies of British prime ministers, American presidents, and also generals, admirals, explorers and men of science.
The Internet has changed the way I process everything, including medicine, the environment and public affairs. It’s changed my life, whether for better or worse I cannot say. I like it a lot, and it thrills and enchants me as to how I live, learn and spend my time, yet this is probably true for us all. It’s a different world that’s been evolving in the New Millennium over the past twenty years, and I’m coming to feel like a relic, probably like a Victorian born in the middle of the 19th century would have felt post-World War I.
I have a suggestion for people who have find themselves only reading older stuff. Join a book club (which will probably be a monthly one). Make sure it’s one in which the people in it read books from various periods. It should be one in which everyone in the club gets to pick the books to be read. I’ve been doing that for a long time. My selections for the books to be read tend to be older. Some of my suggestions have been from 1953, 1957, 1985, 1883, 1943, 1918, 1971, 1930, 1954, 1987, 1916, 1982, 1967, 1813, 1976, 2004, 2100 B.C., and 1962. Other people in the group tend to choose fairly recent books. Read everything that’s picked. You’ll find that there are good books from every period from ancient times to today. You should learn about both what was written in the past and what’s being written now (and you should be prepared to show other people in the club what books you think are great).
I don’t think modern books are getting worse. I used to get all my book recommendations from (a) the critical review hype machine and (b) my friend in Florida I think that the hype machine is not as good as it once was, and my friend died, so I’m left having to throw darts to find new books worth reading.
Not every older book is automatically good, but they’re at least more likely to have survived the test of time.
This, mostly. My take is that genre fiction always had an 85% dross content, and only the best survived.
I rarely like modern literature … since about the 1940’s. The 19th century was the apogee of the novel, sadly. I keep trying, but I do not read fiction for intricately crafted bleakness.