[KatG]

Hmmm, I don't know, are we allowed to say, isn't it sacrilege? :)

I don't so much take a break from sf/f as read other stuff along with the genres (and Juzz -- is horror really outside the loop? But the Barker book sounds good.)

So along with fantasy and sf I've managed to read, I've read outside the tri-genres:

Lindsay Davis -- Marcus Didius Falco mystery series (humorous Dashiell Hammett set in ancient Rome, great fun)

Pete Dexter -- Train, a thriller. Mixed feelings about the plot which was very different from what I expected, but excellent writing.

Jennifer Crusie -- Faking It, very amusing, romantic caper story

Bill Fitzhugh -- Pest Control, very funny about an idealistic exterminator who gets mistaken for a professional assassin. I'm definitely reading Fitzhugh's other novels.

Ann Patchett -- Bel Canto, dreamy-style South American hostage situation, a little hard to buy story-wise, but sort of in the magic realist style without the magic realism

Luke Whisnant -- Watching TV with the Red Chinese, really good novel set in the 1980's about a guy's friendship with Chinese university students.

Kate Atkinson -- Emotionally Weird -- a British writer, very quirky, about a young woman coming to terms with her mom, includes fantasy elements

Jonathan Safran Foer -- Everything Is Illuminated, technically non-genre fantasy, some of the "historic" parts are a bit much but the modern day part of the plot about a young American trying to find the woman who saved his grandfather, is well done (and being turned into a movie, apparantly.)

Gish Jen -- Mona in the Promised Land -- set in the seventies, about an Asian girl becoming Jewish

Mardi McConnochie -- Coldwater -- an Australian writer reimagining the Bronte sisters as the daughters of an 19th century Australian prison warden.

Non-fiction:

Karen Armstrong -- A History of God
Frank W. Abagnale -- Catch Me if You Can

Those were the ones that I read that I liked, anyway.

[magze]

I read a lot of historical novels, horror,thrillers in fact anything I can get my hands on

[BeardofPants]

It happened for me too, I am reading Jane Austen now until I'll get tired of perfect Victorian girls and go back to fantasy :)

*LMAO* I'm doing the same thing! :cool:

(yes, that comment is about two years old... man, I feel like such a newbie)

[Jacquin]

*(yes, that comment is about two years old... man, I feel like such a newbie)

That's cos you are! :p

I've been having a bit of an Andy McNab session recently. The guy is a surprisingly good author. He doesn't exactly stun you with glorious prose but he tells a good, enjoyable tale and you know he knows his stuff...

[BeardofPants]

Can it, oz, or I'll moderate you into oblivion.... Oh damn, can't even threaten you with that....*mope*

Seriously though... I've worked my way through several classics.... Mostly Austen at the moment (P&P, Emma, Northanger Abbey), but I'm also reading Beowulf, bits of Histories of Middle-Earth 12, Pygmalion, and I got seven Pillars of Wisdom, Persuasion, Bram Stoker's Dracula.....

*BoP is happy when she's got lots of good stuff to read* :D

[Jacquin]

Can it, oz, or I'll moderate you into oblivion.... Oh damn, can't even threaten you with that....*mope*

Seriously though... I've worked my way through several classics.... Mostly Austen at the moment (P&P, Emma, Northanger Abbey), but I'm also reading Beowulf, bits of Histories of Middle-Earth 12, Pygmalion, and I got seven Pillars of Wisdom, Persuasion, Bram Stoker's Dracula.....

*BoP is happy when she's got lots of good stuff to read* :D

MWAHAHAHAHAHA...

Have you tried Chaucer?

[BeardofPants]

You better not be laughin' at me, penguin boy, or I'll be floodin' yer inbox. :mad:

Nope, haven't tried Chaucer... .I do want to read Canterbury Tales sometime though. *eyes lengthy reading list* Might hafta wait a few months though.... :rolleyes:

[Buddha]

Personally, I never tire of SF/F. What I have a problem is that I never have enough of it too read, so I read almost any other genre I can get my hands (everything but romance and Grisham) Though I prefer horror after SFF, spy novels after horror, and anything else after that.

[Cymric]

When I get off of fantasy I tend to read alot of history or political books.
Just recently I have read
The things the carried by Tim Obrien
The Lexus and the Olive tree by Thomas L. Freidman
Seven Daughters of Eve by Brian Skyes
What if vol2? by various authors ( may be considered fiction since the authors write alternative histories )

[Archren]

I read very much according to mood, and sometimes I admit that my mood goes away from SF/F. In those cases I tend to read non-fiction instead, particularly biographies and small cultural studies. Also histories.