And now for something completely different!
At the beginning of this year, we started a new feature called Old School Wednesdays. We came up with the idea towards the end of last year, when both of us were feeling not only exhausted from the never-ending inundation of new and shiny but also disappointed with the quality of these often over-hyped books. More and more we began to find relief and comfort by reaching to our TBR Mountain and reading older books. That was when we decided to turn this into a regular feature.
The thing is though, we completely underestimated both how much we’d love doing these post but also how popular they’d become. Every post has sparked conversation – the type that can only happen when people are sharing love for their favourites. As much as we like New and Shiny books, sometimes we feel that conversation in these posts don’t flow as easily – possibly because most people have yet to read New and Shiny.
Today we wanted to share with you some of the books we have lined up in our Old School Wednesdays (OSW) shelves, but also open the floor to your recommendations!
Ana’s OSW TBR:
Those are only physical copies. I also have quite a few on my virtual OSW TBR including:
Lord of the Two Lands by Judith Tarr
Cordelia’s Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold
City of Bones by Martha Wells
Fires of Nuala by Katherine Kimbriel
Thea’s OSW TBR:
(Apologies, there are some newer titles mixed in with the old!)
Like Ana, this is just the print, physical component of my OSW TBR – there are plenty more where these came from on my ebookshelf, including:
ALL the Vorkosigan books by Lois McMaster Bujold
Point of Honor by Madeline E. Robbins
Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton
Theodosia and the Serpents of Chaos by R.L. LaFevers
Dragon’s Keep by Janet Lee Carey
The Price of the Stars by Debra Doyle and James D. Macdonald
Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress
Birth of the Firebringer by Meredith Ann Pierce
Green Witch, Green Angel by Alice Hoffman
Aurelie by Heather Tomlinson
Bloody Jack by L.A. Meyer
And many, many more. (Yes, we have impulse control problems. DON’T JUDGE US!)
Your recommendations:
We now open the floor to you! See anything on our shelves that you think we should read next? Got any other burning recommendations? Please do share with us books that you’ve read, loved, and want to see reviewed here.
Your recommendations can be from ANY genre for adults, young adults or middle grade audiences. The only mandatory criteria: the book must be at least 5 years old.
And now…we open up the floor to you!
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I have to stop by and recommend War for the Oaks by Emma Bull. It’s an urban fantasy published in 1987. Though that’s the year I was born, I don’t remember it feeling dated when I read it a couple of years ago.
Liz – I’ve read a couple of Joan Bauer’s books and enjoyed them. Hope Was Here is on my list to read and has now moved up based on your recommendation. My library has the Benjamin January series except for the first one, which is on order. Guess someone (was it you?) brought the gap to their attention. Once it’s in, I’m going to start the series. Lots of other great recommendations.
N.K. – my usually great library (and linked ones) failed me on the Heather Gladney books. Though disappointing, it’s okay since I like hunting through used bookstores and my self-imposed ban on buying books is almost up. If you recommend a book, I have to pay attention.
Temeriare books. I read the first 3 right in a row a couple of years ago and then kind of lost steam and haven’t picked up the remaining books in the series. Question for the fans: Should I continue? Does the series remain strong or does it fizzle out?
Tamora Pierce’s Books – I love seeing the different series that are each person’s favorite. Looks like each one has its fans, which just goes to show that her writing speaks to each person directly and indivdually. Alana will always be first my heart, so Song of the Lioness quartet is my favorite.
Tamsin, Peter Beagle
I recommend every single book I have (except for textbooks lol) check them out: http://www.mixnode.com/profile.php?username=nariman
Eliza, I loved the first three Temeraire books…and then, for me, they just got wooden and formulaic, with no development — or that’s how it felt to me. Lawrence is still stiff and proper. Temeraire wants good things for Lawrence and also loves gold. Humans and dragons have a problematic working relationship. But nothing actually happens anymore. Any fresh take on the working relationship, or on the war, is really only raised for the purpose of setting up a convenient THRILLING conflict, and is forgotten by the end of the novel, and certainly by the beginning of the next novel.
Maybe someone else will have something more positive to say about them?
Wow, your TBRs have all kinds of awesome on them. for Ana, I’ll vote for THE PERILOUS GARD and THE TRICKSTERS and CITY OF BONES next. For Thea, POINT OF HONOR and FLORA SEGUNDA and the Vorkosigan books.
I second the rec for THE CHANGEOVER by Margaret Mahy. Also, maybe some Eva Ibbotson, if neither of you have read her? A Countess Below Stairs (1981), Journey to the River Sea (2001) are interesting ones.
One of my few all time favorite books is Gary Paulsen’s Winterdance, about the iditarod. Published in 1995. I understand he writes quite a lot of “contemporary literature for young readers”. This book is for all ages, simultaneously laugh-out-loud-choke-on-your-cookie funny, contemplative, and sad. A real treat. I would love to see a review of it by you two.
I’d really like to see you guys read some classic Sharon Shinn. I’m not talking about her angel books, but her Science Fiction. I loved Wrapt In Crystal and I think it would be a kick for you to read Heart of Gold because of the gender role-switching.
And anything by Mary Stewart. If you haven’t read Mary Stewart, you’ve been missing out!
@ Christina – I second War for the Oaks! It was written before urban fantasy became popular and it had a major influence on the genre. It has one of the best depictions of the fae out there. And the phouka! One of my favorite characters. Plus this book contains one of my all-time favorite quotes.
@ Eliza – Hope was Here is my favorite Joan Bauer, I hope you like it! My library has all of the Benjamin January books, so it wasn’t me.
They can be pretty hard to find though; I’ve never actually run across one of them in a bookstore.
I can’t believe I forgot this one, but you ought to try Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson. It was written in 1938 and is simply delightful. The movie version that came out a few years ago was good, but the book is still better. Our two main characters are total opposites — one is shy, reserved, plain, and practical, while the other is friendly, outgoing, gorgeous, and lives a madcap life. The two women meet and end up being just what the other needs in a friend.
I’d like to recommend (what we’d now call) contemporary YA by Norma Klein, written in the 1980s. I feel like I often heard you all’s complaints about current YA (the instalove, the lack of female friendships, the obsession with the love interest, the absence of parents or really crappy parents, etc.) and think “man, these guys should try some old school YA.”
Norma Klein’s books are just incredibly… real. They feature normal, flawed teens dealing with normal teen stuff (ranging from the lighter “where do I want to go to college?” to the heavier “I got my girlfriend pregnant and she’s getting an abortion, how should I support her?”). The friendships and family relationships are varied and nuanced and important, and while some of the romances end sadly and others end well, there’s none of the “we are soulmates bound to be together forever” that you see so often in YA now. My favorite is “Just Friends,” but I think you’d find any of them good food for thought- just read through some of the descriptions on goodreads!
Something by Andre Norton (I haven’t read enough to give a specific recommendation) just for how she’s shaped the Sci-fi/Fantasy fields.
Tamora Pierce – either the Song of the Lioness quartet, which was published first, or the Beka Cooper Trilogy, which is more complex, but more recently published
Elizabeth Moon, either the Deed of Paksenarrion or the Heris Serrano series (in this I’d specifically recommend Once a Hero, which is set in the same universe, and FYI something that comes with the main protagonist is how child rape shaped her personality)
Simon Green, for putting every cliché he can think of in a book, and showing how badly they fail when the subject of one just won’t play along (quick fun reads) either the Forest Kingdom/Hawk and Fisher series or the Deathstalker series
Although it looks like someone has read Anne McCaffrey, I’m not sure both of you have? Dragonsdawn (chronological start of the Dragonriders series) or Moreta Dragonlady of Pern, or To Ride Pegasus (start of the Talents/Rowan series) or if you want to go really old school Restoree published in 1967 (which is not a great book, but notable for it’s content when it was published)
If you’re going to review any of Mercedes Lackey’s Valdemar series, I’d recommend the Vows and Honor series, rather than the Arrows or the Last Herald Mage series (there are rapes in the last books of both series, which are not graphic or gratuitous, but probably not something that needs to be rehashed here)
Love Mercedes Lackey. The Last Herald Mage series is awesome, but there is a lot of drama/angst.
Anna: Please read Feed! I’d love to hear your thoughts on it.
Oh, sorry, I meant ‘Ana!’ The other is my sister’s name…
I have entered in all the recommendations on GoodReads under “Old School Wednesdays”
1. Series – listed only the first book unless a specific book was mentioned.
Not Listed:
2. General author recommendations not included (all books by X)
3. Some books I was unable to find on GoodReads but their search feature is very frustrating and inconsistent in its results. For example, if a book has an apostrophe in its title, the search requires at least 3 entries.
4. Books where only a title was given with no author, especially when there was more than one.
5. Unfortunately, I was only able to read some of the titles from the photos of Ana and Thea’s shelves, so not all of them made the list.
There are 282 books listed so far. I still have to sort them by category. Hope this helps everyone.
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