I was awake reading Sunday night / Monday morning until 1 a.m. and last night until midnight in a desperate attempt to finish a novel, Doomsday Book by Connie Willis. It was quite good and I highly recommend to anyone interested in the history of the black plague. It reminds me of another good book I read about the same time period, Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks.
I love to read, but often forget what books I have read. So I finally started to make a list and to even rate the books on a scale from 1-5 (poor to great). I have grown fond of amazon.com and buying the used books from there. I suppose I could go to the library, but I cannot seem to find the time or make the time. And I like to browse. If I had Son with me, then I am not going to be browsing, I am going to be following him from one bookcase to another, trying to avert disaster.
I think I need to make a list of books I have in my to be read pile, as well. I have a terrible habit of picking up a new book while at Target or while browsing online on amazon. Someone will mention a book and it will sound good, I look it up, amazon suggests something similar, I find myself wanting to buy that as well.
I don't limit myself to good fiction or good nonfiction. I like a good, fast, pulpy read now and then. Not along the lines of shopaholic or anything like that. I think I read enough of that crap when I was in my early 20's to last a lifetime. But I do like a story - any story - that is well told. To that end, I have found a few authors I like for this. Phillipa Gregory is one. She writes historical fiction, with plenty of gossip and sexual shenanigans. Suzanne Strempek Shea is another.
For really "good" fiction, I like a wide variety of topics and authors - John Irving, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Virginia Woolfe, Amy Tan, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Jane Austen, Ayn Rand, Jonathan Safran Foer, Ian McEwan, Wally Lamb - to name a few.
Sometimes I like to think I am a reading snob. But the truth is that I have read a lot of crap in my life and I find that it had a time and place for it and sometimes it fulfills a need and sometimes it leaves a void. Good fiction always feels a void, often one the reader didn't know existed.
I love to read, but often forget what books I have read. So I finally started to make a list and to even rate the books on a scale from 1-5 (poor to great). I have grown fond of amazon.com and buying the used books from there. I suppose I could go to the library, but I cannot seem to find the time or make the time. And I like to browse. If I had Son with me, then I am not going to be browsing, I am going to be following him from one bookcase to another, trying to avert disaster.
I think I need to make a list of books I have in my to be read pile, as well. I have a terrible habit of picking up a new book while at Target or while browsing online on amazon. Someone will mention a book and it will sound good, I look it up, amazon suggests something similar, I find myself wanting to buy that as well.
I don't limit myself to good fiction or good nonfiction. I like a good, fast, pulpy read now and then. Not along the lines of shopaholic or anything like that. I think I read enough of that crap when I was in my early 20's to last a lifetime. But I do like a story - any story - that is well told. To that end, I have found a few authors I like for this. Phillipa Gregory is one. She writes historical fiction, with plenty of gossip and sexual shenanigans. Suzanne Strempek Shea is another.
For really "good" fiction, I like a wide variety of topics and authors - John Irving, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Virginia Woolfe, Amy Tan, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Jane Austen, Ayn Rand, Jonathan Safran Foer, Ian McEwan, Wally Lamb - to name a few.
Sometimes I like to think I am a reading snob. But the truth is that I have read a lot of crap in my life and I find that it had a time and place for it and sometimes it fulfills a need and sometimes it leaves a void. Good fiction always feels a void, often one the reader didn't know existed.
1 Comments:
I'm so impressed by how much you read. Rock on with your bad self.
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