Just heard Tim Smit (the Eden Project social entrepreneur) talking about the 'gang rules' of his company, one of which is to read 2 books (also go to 1 concert, 1 play and 1 movie) outside your normal sphere of interest, every year. I thought this was a great philosophy. To be absolutely honest I"m struggling to read 2 books within my sphere of interest a year at the moment, but would like to start a list of books beyond my comfort zone anyway, to spur me on.
Bit tricky this as you don't know me, but my comfort zone includes:
literary fiction - I'm an Annie Proulx / AS Byatt / Martin Amis / Raymond Carver type, if that makes any sense
very little non-fiction, but I guess most of my interests are fairly 'soft' / 'feminine' / 'artistic'
I know nothing about:
most of the arts beyond literature!
architecture
business
history
religion
science
politics
philosophy
geography
sport
I never read:
crime
sci fi
fantasy
horror
romance
'genre' fiction in general
Can you recommend anything good, then, that might stretch me a bit?