I'm fairly certain Dickens wrote to actively expose people to the horrors of child labor, which was perfectly legal at the time. As with most things, take it with a grain of salt. While I've no doubt people were that terrible, you have to remember that you're only seeing where the camera is pointing. While maybe not every situation was that bad, some were.

Use the bungee in an L shape. Attach it to the top in the back, run it around a rod or pulley at the bottom in the back, then attach it to whatever you need it to pull. It'll be slightly tense from the start that way.

Rule 1. Discussion is the Goal

This post had nothing to do with writing itself and everything to do with the wrapper that the work comes in. This was not a bad place for this discussion.

Having been here for years, you are one of the most overzealous mods I have ever seen when it comes to what you consider "book related". Perhaps rule 1 should be a footnote somewhere, because it certainly isn't your primary directive.

Warning: This work contains inconvenient and uncomfortable situations, much like life. While it may be an escape from your problems it is not an escape from all problems, as that would make for a terribly boring story.

Yeah, he beat me to it. Haplo!

You don't have to finish a book you don't want to finish.

But you didn't read the book if you didn't read the book.

I may have to start doing this and piece together my own list. I hate having to read so much about a book before I start, though.

I can assure you I have read a LOT of the older easy reads like Conan. I spent years picking over discounted yellowed paperbacks. And anything that hits public domain goes straight on my ereader.

>L. E. Modesitt Jr

Somehow I've not read anything by him yet, despite being very familiar with the name. I thought I'd for sure read SOMETHING by him but I can't even find a short story that I might have read. I'll have to look.

I do like his books, and they do sort of fit the mold...but I've read so many already and what I haven't is already on my list.

>Susanna Clarke

One of the things I'm specifically looking to avoid is historical fiction. I'll update the post, I though I had that in there.

I will probably have to resort to using the recommendations thread. I am currently checking literary fantasy, but as the prime example right out of the gate is LotR I don't know.

Ursula LeGuin has come up in my searching, but I haven't delved deeper yet. On the surface I got the feeling it wasn't quite what I was looking for, but I will check some other works.

Robin Hobb did the Assassin books, right? I am a fan, but not what I'm looking for at the moment. My immediate reading list has some Nietzsche and Russian literature, and I'd like to break some of it up with some fantasy/sci fi that follows the same vein. I'm specifically looking for a fantastical setting, but characters that are just normal people solving normal problems.

So much of what I'm finding is just a reskin of traditional stories. The characters are more down-to-earth but the problems they're facing are still large and dramatic.

The Japanese stuff is exactly why I'm looking more deeply into it. I know that style of story is bigger there than here...but at the same time I'm not looking to read about young adults with crushes and my only exposure thus far is anime and manga. I honestly don't know how I'd feel reading translated books, and I'd rather not get into short stories and the like. Part of the fantastical setting I'm looking for requires giving enough space to set it up.

I specifically do not want slice of life in mundane settings that could just be the real world.

I would love to find some more pessimistic stories that remind us that people are only special specifically because we're not all special. I don't even need to have a happy ending.

I will be looking into the "cozy fantasy" suggested, but I suspect it's all going to be very, very feel-good.

What got me on this track in the first place was thinking "What if there was a book from X crazy fantasy/sci fi setting, only the main character of the book was just some random person from that universe who doesn't accomplish great feats?

Yeah, Wayfarers came up a lot. I will be checking it out.

Thank you for this.

Ooo, thank you!

>cozy fantasy

Possibly. Legends and Lattes did come up at the top of the other list and I may end up reading it. And that list on Goodreads also lists the Enchanted Forest Chronicles, which I absolutely loved when I was younger. I will give it a look when I have time.

I don't like the real-world setting constraint. I like some of those books (I read Noor recently and it was really good as a sci-fi version of magical realism) but I'd like to have more fantastical settings just without the ever-present hero of legend.