Book recommendations

[Lisnaholic]

@jadis or anyone else who knows: I've never read a book by Angela Carter and I should change that, which one should I pick first?

^ If my experience of reading one of her novels* is anything to go by, the first thing to do is dial back your expectations.
    (* I can't remember which, but judging from the list on Wiki, I  bet I chose Heroes And Villains because of the title.)

I was picking a book for someone else, whose English is pretty limited. Ended up deciding against the whole thing for now, cause if I give her the book then there will be some anxiety on her part to meet my expectations and she's gonna feel shit about herself every time she doesn't understand something. Instead I'm encouraging her to watch the true crime garbage she loves watching anyway with English subtitles and rewatch episodes she enjoyed several times so that more words and phrases stick in her head. Repetition repetition repetition! After she does that for a while she can probably mvoe up to true crime podcasts...

So few of my students read books for pleasure in their own language that I don't recommend books to them, but you're right: countless hours of listening practice is essential, so I recommend they explore tv progs and songs in English. These days, though, I'm careful to only make specific recs if I am asked to, as I don't want to come across as superior or patronising. After all, Spanish, and Lat America, has its own cultural heritage - much of it translated to English.

In fact some of my best students have acquired their English skills from computer games, or engaging with "gringoes" through Discord. Perhaps you should be looking for computer games based around Existentialism, jadis  

EDIT:
"So few of my students read books for pleasure in their own language..." Actually that's not entirely true, but they have different aspirations in reading compared to the kind of thing that motivates me. It's as if reading is an adjunct to their social nature: they read well-known books that they can talk about with many people, so they don't venture much off the cultural mainstream: Lord Of The Rings, Game Of Thrones, Gabriel García Márquez - those are the names that come up spontaneously in any discussion of books.

[jadis]

@jadis or anyone else who knows: I've never read a book by Angela Carter and I should change that, which one should I pick first?

I'd start with short stories (Rushdie, a fan, friend and disciple, thought she was at her best in short fiction and I humbly concur). Her most celebrated book by far is The Bloody Chamber, a very very clever and skillful feminist reworking of a few traditional European fairy tales.

My personal favorite is Black Venus, a collection of short stories cum essays mostly about historical women like Baudelaire's Caribbean muse Jean Duval or Lizzie Borden (of the "Lizzie Borden took an axe, And gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done, She gave her father forty-one" rhyme fame). I find she's at her very best when the line between fiction and cultural criticism is blurred. The one about Lizzie Borden really is amazing. Also it has Peter and the Wolf, which might be my favorite piece of short fiction by her. Very moving.