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Originally a touchstone was a stone used to test other materials; you passed the item you were testing against the touchstone and examined the streak left behind.
Writer and critic Matthew Arnold in an essay called "The Study Of Poetry"* (1880) referred to short passages of poetry that he felt were exemplary and that other poetry could be compared to (for evaluative purposes) as "touchstones."
I'm interested in what you consider your personal touchstone reads in terms of romance and / or women's fiction (I'm not a genre sifter; you decided what's what). What do you compare other books too in terms of the books you really love?
These are personal choices; there's no right or wrong; it's what you find yourself turning to as touchstones, the books you find eminently re-readable.
I'll likely come back and post my own, but I want to think about a bit.
ETA:
* Yes, I'm warping Arnold's definition a bit; I don't care. It was warped in this way long before me.
Checkmate. Dorothy Dunnett; it's the last book in Dunnet's Lymond series, but all of the books are wonderful.
Perilous Gard. Elizabeth Marie Pope. Yes, I stole this from Marlys, but I was thinking of it as YA, and that was wrong of me.
Pride and Prejudice. Jane Austen. Hard for me to choose between this and Sense and Sensibility, but I think I'm sure.
The Ladies. Doris Grumbach.
Still thinking.
Writer and critic Matthew Arnold in an essay called "The Study Of Poetry"* (1880) referred to short passages of poetry that he felt were exemplary and that other poetry could be compared to (for evaluative purposes) as "touchstones."
I'm interested in what you consider your personal touchstone reads in terms of romance and / or women's fiction (I'm not a genre sifter; you decided what's what). What do you compare other books too in terms of the books you really love?
These are personal choices; there's no right or wrong; it's what you find yourself turning to as touchstones, the books you find eminently re-readable.
I'll likely come back and post my own, but I want to think about a bit.
ETA:
* Yes, I'm warping Arnold's definition a bit; I don't care. It was warped in this way long before me.
Checkmate. Dorothy Dunnett; it's the last book in Dunnet's Lymond series, but all of the books are wonderful.
Perilous Gard. Elizabeth Marie Pope. Yes, I stole this from Marlys, but I was thinking of it as YA, and that was wrong of me.
Pride and Prejudice. Jane Austen. Hard for me to choose between this and Sense and Sensibility, but I think I'm sure.
The Ladies. Doris Grumbach.
Still thinking.
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