4 Books for 40

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What about some book published 40 years ago? There's some classics in this list.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/popular_by_date/1984

Add a copy of 1984 by George Orwell.

I don’t know if this list will help OP, but it inspired me to look up my own birth year (you can use the link PP provided and select the year of your choice). It was fascinating to see books I’ve loved, books that I’ve always heard of as classics, and a lot of unknown books that sound fabulous and I wonder why they’ve faded into obscurity.

I found several books I want to add to my reading list. I encourage others to explore this resource by looking up their own birth year or other significant years. I think it would also be interesting to use for historical comparisons, maybe looking at the lists of an interval (ex. every 10 years) and selecting books on that basis to see how cultures change across time and how those changes are reflected in literature.

Anyway, thanks PP for posting this link. I think I’ll have a lot of fun with it, and maybe others will too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You know your friend best, and if you think she likes those genres, by all means proceed with your plan. However, the only genre you’ve indicated she’s interested in is psychological thriller. Has she been expressing a general dissatisfaction with her life and the desite to make changes? Unless you have additional information, I think the other genres are at best unnecessary and likely to be perceived as somewhat patronizing.

If you gave me that selection, I’d probably roll my eyes and stick the first three books on a shelf or donate them somewhere. It would come across to me as: “Happy Birthday! You need some help finding yourself so you can change your life, adopt my beliefs, and your life will be so much better. Even if you didn’t know there was a problem, trust me, you’re a mess.”

I’m an avid reader, but don’t like people to pick out books for me. Generally, I’ve already read them or I’m not interested. If you want to give her four books, why don’t you at least give her four books in the genre she’s indicated she likes. Even better, give her a psychological thriller and a $40 gift certificate so she can pick her own books.

Unless there’s some reason you think she wants to change her life and is trying to figure out how, you giving her those books out of the blue seems more about you than her. If her life really is a mess and as her friend, you want her to have life-changing self help and religious books, by all means give them to her, but not for her birthday. Her birthday should be about what she wants, not what you want for her.

+1
A psychological thriller plus a book-of-the-month-club subscription