- Books. If your novel is about books? Or libraries? I WILL BUY IT.
- Postmodernism. I wrote about some problems with postmodernism in my review of The End of Mr. Y on Monday. I hold by those problems. I know it’s gimmicky, and pretty much imaginatively bankrupt by now. But I will still lap up anything that plays with textual form.
- Academia. OK, yes, I am still homesick for my university days, and I’m just drawn to the idea of living a life where all you have to do is read and write and think and theorise.
- Steampunk. This is a fairly new one – I’m on a bit of a steampunk kick at the moment, so anything that handles the aesthetic well works for me.
- Gothickry. I love big, sprawling, hypnotic novels full of melodrama; imperfect, raggedy around the edges, and all the more wonderful for that.
- Cats. I am moderately likely to read any book which prominently features cats. I live in rented accommodation; I have feline withdrawal.
- Faerieland/fairy tales. But, like, fairy tales with teeth. Fairy tales which aren’t just retold but reimagined; fairy tales which rage against the world that created them.
- Food. Especially chocolate. Or baking. Mmmmm.
- London. Or versions of London: New Crobuzon, Ankh-Morpork, Mandelion. Anything that features the city as a character, rambling and craggy and alive.
- Transient lifestyles. I’m fascinated by tales of people who live on spaceships (The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet); trains become homes (Railsea); long sea voyages. How do you adapt to the small space you have? What’s it like seeing a different place every time you wake up?
(The theme for this post was suggested by the Broke and the Bookish’s weekly meme Top Ten Tuesday.)
The English Student 