{"id":4962,"date":"2023-09-18T17:50:37","date_gmt":"2023-09-18T17:50:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/novels.zerosilver.com\/wordpress\/?p=4962"},"modified":"2023-11-09T14:41:25","modified_gmt":"2023-11-09T14:41:25","slug":"tips-for-finding-clean-fiction-part-2-know-where-to-fish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/novels.zerosilver.com\/wordpress\/tips-for-finding-clean-fiction-part-2-know-where-to-fish\/","title":{"rendered":"Tips for Finding Clean Fiction Part 2: Know Where to Fish"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In this series of blog posts, I give strategies for finding \u201cclean reads\u201d that go beyond relying on curated book lists. Please see \u201cPart 1: The Toxic Sea<\/a>\u201d for the introductory post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a young married woman in the early 1980s, I was frustrated with the books I was reading. The ones with depth contained profanity, graphic sex and violence, and immoral themes, and the ones that didn\u2019t were so lacking in substance that I always came away from them feeling as if I had wasted my time. I remember saying to my husband in exasperation, \u201cThere is nothing to read!\u201d He laughed at me and replied, \u201cHow can you say that? You haven\u2019t read anything yet!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was right. I had not yet learned to \u201cfish.\u201d Not only that, but I had refused to search for wholesome fiction in the very place that would provide one of the best harvests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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The Classics.<\/strong> Imagine my surprise when I began reading classic fiction and learned that these books aren\u2019t as difficult as I had believed they were. If you can read the scriptures, you can read the classics. English speakers who regularly study the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible\u2014which was originally published in 1611\u2014will have little trouble understanding English written in the nineteenth century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This category contains the best religious fiction you will ever read and is probably where you\u2019ll be most likely to find complex adult fiction that\u2019s clean, particularly if you look for books that were written before the twentieth century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you aren\u2019t used to reading the classics, it helps to start with the ones people actually read. To get a few ideas, see the blog post I wrote on this topic entitled \u201cReading the Classics for Fun<\/a>.\u201d You can also find popular classics on Project Gutenberg\u2019s \u201cFrequently Downloaded<\/a>\u201d list.  I was a member of a group for fifteen years that read the classics. To access the list of the books we read and links to more lists, see my \u201cGreat Books Group<\/a>\u201d page.<\/p>\n\n\n

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In my search for the classics, I also found clean fiction I liked in a related category: Old Popular Books.<\/strong> These are books that were written many decades ago, when society\u2019s standards were stricter than they are now. These books missed becoming classics and have been forgotten by popular culture, but many of them can be found in libraries and used bookstores. Some of them are being reissued as ebooks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The best way to learn about these books is from people who\u2019ve read them. Many years ago, I asked for book recommendations from the women in my church congregation, which turned into the list, \u201cClean Reads for Adults, Teens, and Children<\/a>.\u201d I compiled this list in 1998 and haven\u2019t added to it, which means that there\u2019s nothing on it that was published after that year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another way to find old pop is to pay attention to the credits when you watch classic movies. Many of these films are adaptations of books that were popular at the time they were made. Another way to find these titles is by perusing bestseller lists from long ago, such as these: \u201cGoodreads: Best Books of the Decade<\/a>\u201d and \u201cThe Books of the Century<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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I\u2019ve had the best luck finding clean books by trying those published before 1960, although it\u2019s important to understand that the date of publication is a gauge\u2014not a guarantee. Does that mean that every book published for adults by a mainstream press in the last sixty years contains unwholesome elements? Of course not. But the harvest becomes smaller the further you get into the twentieth century and beyond. If you want to find wholesome contemporary books, you\u2019ll have greater success if you understand modern fictional genres and their expectations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u201cClean\u201d Categories.<\/strong> If you\u2019re looking for contemporary fiction without profanity, graphic sex and violence, and immoral themes, you\u2019re more likely to find it if you do searches on these categories: Clean and wholesome romance, sweet romance, gentle reads, cozy mysteries, fiction for children and teens, inspirational fiction, and Christian fiction. While not everything you\u2019ll find in these categories will be pristine, these books will usually be cleaner than their counterparts in other categories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As you do searches in the \u201cclean\u201d categories, you\u2019ll find a lot of titles published by companies that are affiliated with religious organizations. I\u2019ll tell you about two of these publishing arenas.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Christian Fiction.<\/strong> Searches on the term \u201cChristian Fiction\u201d will bring up books published by companies affiliated with the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA), formerly known as the Christian Booksellers Association (CBA). This is a huge market that\u2019s been around for decades. To find titles that have been singled out for excellence, check out The Christy Awards<\/a>. For an enormous list of Christian ebooks and audiobooks that may be available for purchase by your local library, see Overdrive\u2019s Christian Fiction<\/a> page. Clicking on the \u201cFilter\u201d option for this page will give you a list of Christian authors and publishing companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A sub-genre of Christian fiction<\/strong> serving members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints<\/a> has also been around for decades. I wrote about the relationship of this sub-genre to the larger arena of Christian fiction in \u201cIs Fiction Marketed to Latter-Day Saints \u2018Christian Fiction\u2019?<\/a>\u201d Some titles in this sub-genre are meant for members of the Church, and others, such as those published by Deseret Book under the Shadow Mountain<\/a> imprint, are distributed to the mainstream market. <\/p>\n\n\n

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For a list of fiction by members of the Church singled out for excellence, see the Whitney Awards<\/a>. A book doesn\u2019t have to contain religious content or themes, or contain overt references to the Church, to receive a Whitney Award. Many of them are published to a general audience and are meant to be of interest to a wide range of readers. There\u2019s no guarantee that books from this source are free from foul elements, but I\u2019ve found some good reads on this website. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You may think that reading a book that comes from a religious tradition different from your own will be uncomfortable, and it can be, but you may be surprised to find some very good books this way. For my own approach to this issue, please see the blog post I wrote entitled \u201cWhat About Doctrinal Differences?<\/a>\u201d You may have already read books written from different religious perspectives and thought nothing of it. How many of these religious novels are you familiar with? <\/p>\n\n\n\n