Mission

Bibliophiliac is the space where one passionate, voracious reader reflects on books and the reading life. You will find reviews, analysis, links, and reflections on poetry and prose both in and out of the mainstream.

A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. Franz Kafka

Friday, April 15, 2011

Something Different

The Out of the Comfort Zone Blog Hop April 14-17

There's a new blog hop:  The Out of the Comfort Zone Blog Hop sponsored by Lucybird's Book Blog.

Check out this fledgling book blog hop, where you add your blog to the link, then visit the two blogs listed before you. Sounds pretty easy. You can always visit more than just those two.

What takes you out of your comfort zone? I picked up a book this morning when I was visiting the school library with my students. It's called If I Stay by Gayle Forman, and I had read zillions (possible hyperbole) of raves about this novel. But even though I teach English in a high school, and spend most of my waking hours with teenagers, I don't usually pick up books that are written specifically to appeal to the YA audience. So this book is, strangely, somewhat out of my comfort zone. I'm on page 161 right now, and I have certainly noticed that I can zip through a well-written YA novel more quickly that the books I usually read. I also notice that there's much I can learn about pacing and keeping the reader's interest: YA novelists are competing for the attention of readers who aren't necessarily committed to reading books. Teenagers have so many other interests competing for their time and attention, a novel has to really make a claim for their attention.

What is your comfort zone, and what have you read lately that took you out of the zone?

11 comments:

Lisa said...

I'm always game to read out of my comfort zone and what I've found, in doing that, is that my comfort zone has greatly expanded in the past few years. Just today in the mail I got a book for a book tour that is not something I would normally pick up and look at but which does sound really interesting and is written by an award-winning novelist. Gotta give that a chance!

bibliophiliac said...

I have a tendency to stick with a certain type of literary fiction--then I start to feel as though I'm stagnating and cast about for something different--not really knowing what it is I want!

Aisle B said...

Out of Comfort zone... anything dealing with numbers... just can't do it!

Also any too in depth books on buddhism... traumatized by childhood memories of sitting in lotus position at the local Tibetan Sunday teachings for kids... it's just wrong to expect a 10 year old to understand the concept of nirvana when all you want to do is go outside and bike all day! ;)

As the Crowe Flies and Reads said...

I'm glad you took a chance on If I Stay. When YA writing is done well, it's so immediate, so punch-you -in-the-gut for emotional and nostalgiac visits down memory lane that I frequently feel tired after reading one. Sadly, there's far more crap being published in YA than good stuff, same for any genre, I suppose.

Literary fiction is my mainstay for reading, but lately I've noticed I've begun a lot of blogposts with the phrase, "I don't usually read X, but I gave this one a try," so now I'm not sure if I even have a mainstay. Sometimes it's nice to be surprised, even blindsided, by something I wouldn't have otherwise noticed.

Loni said...

Non-fiction is out of my confort zone. Except for trashy romance novels, I'll read just about any type of fiction. To try my hand at more non-fiction, I recently picked up a copy of Ayaan Hirsi Ali's Infidel. I look forward to reading it soon.

Falaise said...

I actually started to write my blog because I thought I was getting stuck in my comfort zone and wanted to push myself to step out of it.

Anonymous said...

I tend to read contemport fiction, but have actually read a fair bit of Y.A recently, mainly due to others recommending it. Unfortunately I've not yet found anything that's blown me away, but maybe it's just a matter of time?

Thanks for joining in the hop :)

BookQuoter said...

Hey, if you like If I Stay, I might finally read it too.

Thanks for letting me aware of this other hop. I should check it out.

bibliophiliac said...

@PK-I never thought about what it would be like for little kids to sit meditation!I'm with you on anything with numbers (does not compute!)...

bibliophiliac said...

@As the Crow Flies-I had read so much about If I Stay, I just had to give it a try (and I'm glad I did)...
@Loni-I like non-fiction (in theory) but actually read very little of it. Literary fiction is definitely my *thing*, but I'd like to challenge myself to read more sf and fantasy...

bibliophiliac said...

@Falaise-reading blogs has definitely opened me up to wider choices in my reading (such as YA)...
@lucybird-thanks for stopping by!
@BookQuoter-If I Stay gets a thumbs up.