Sunday, August 5, 2012

Say Anything {7}

What Books Would I Read if I Lived in a Different Decade?

One of my favorite types of books to read, are those that incorporate time travel. So this gets me to thinking,  if I was in a different decade, or even century, what books would I be reading?

I created this list using the ever-awesome listopia feature on Goodreads.

The 1980s

The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
     Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. She may leave the home of the Commander and his wife once a day to walk to food markets whose signs are now pictures instead of words because women are no longer allowed to read. She must lie on her back once a month and pray that the Commander makes her pregnant, because in an age of declining fertility, Offred and the other Handmaids are valued only if their ovaries are viable. Offred can remember the years before, when she lived and made love with her husband, Luke; when she played with and protected her daughter; when she had a job, money of her own, and access to knowledge. But all of that is gone now...
Funny, unexpected, horrifying, and altogether convincing, The Handmaid's Tale is at once scathing satire, dire warning, and tour de force.
The Joy Luck Club - Amy Tan
Four mothers, four daughters, four families whose histories shift with the four winds depending on who's "saying" the stories. In 1949 four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, begin meeting to eat dim sum, play mahjong, and talk. United in shared unspeakable loss and hope, they call themselves the Joy Luck Club. Rather than sink into tragedy, they choose to gather to raise their spirits and money. "To despair was to wish back for something already lost. Or to prolong what was already unbearable." Forty years later the stories and history continue.
With wit and sensitivity, Amy Tan examines the sometimes painful, often tender, and always deep connection between mothers and daughters. As each woman reveals her secrets, trying to unravel the truth about her life, the strings become more tangled, more entwined. Mothers boast or despair over daughters, and daughters roll their eyes even as they feel the inextricable tightening of their matriarchal ties. Tan is an astute storyteller, enticing readers to immerse themselves into these lives of complexity and mystery.
The Vampire Lestat (The Vampire Chronicles #2) - Anne Rice

Once an aristocrat in the heady days of pre-revolutionary France, now Lestat is a rockstar in the demonic, shimmering 1980s. He rushes through the centuries in search of others like him, seeking answers to the mystery of his terrifying exsitence. His story, the second volume in Anne Rice's best-selling Vampire Chronicles, is mesmerizing, passionate, and thrilling.

MY THOUGHTS

Since I was born in the 80s, I don't really have much that I read back then that didn't involve mostly pictures and just a few words per page in the way of, "See the cat. The cat is brown." lol. Unfortunately I'm not to sure on what YA was out at the time, so the 3 I chose are adult-fiction. So just looking through the top part of the page on Goodreads I pulled out the first three that really stood out. The Handmaiden's Tale would be awesome to read, as I adore dystopian and it makes me curious to see what the world that Atwood created is like. Each decade had its own problems, so would the dystopian of that time take on the problems of the 1980s world, rather than what we are accustomed too, today?

I chose The Joy Luck Club because it's such a good movie! So I have no doubts that the book is as good, or better!

The Vampire Lestat is really a given, lol. Vampires, check. Amazing author, check. So why have I not picked this one up? I actually think I own a few of the books of this series that I've picked up at random book sales...hmmm...

So what books would you choose from the 1980s?

Happy Reading,
Laura

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