What influences your book buying/library loans? Is it the bestseller hype? Is is that you have read one book by and author and now the whole back catalogue has to be read? Do you go for the cover look, the blurb, the recommendations on the inside cover? Is it word of mouth or a review you've read?
I have to say all these things come into play with me. While I have my safe options (read a few by that author and now reading the rest) I like to experiment. The one thing I don't automatically read are the lines inside the book from book critics and other writers saying what a great book it is. I like to make up my own mind. After all their words wouldn't be there if they didn't like the book.
Quite often first novels make me feel desperate for my own writing. (Will I ever write something as good as this?) I do enjoy finding a new author, one I've never heard of, and reading their book. Sometimes that happens with book club - it's how I came across Kate Atkinson. The genres I read is much wider these days too. I grew up on Danielle Steele and Barbara Bradford Taylor, the odd Jackie Collins and Josephine Cox. It is only recently that I've started reading crime/thriller and some fantasy (Neil Gaimen). My toe is just in the door on that genre as with sci-fi. Normally other worlds don't do it for me, yet I adore sci-fi films (though I'm not a Star Wars fan, strangely). I also love books with humour, but that's also a more recent thing. The ridiculous appeals to me.
My reading habits are, like my life, constantly evolving. I read things now I would never have read years ago (classics). I enjoy exploring new subjects and learning about the writer's themselves, why they wrote that book, how they developed it, their ideas etc. Now and again I like to read a non-fiction book, usually something on history - how we lived, religions, pre-history and the Romans, sometimes a biography. What are you reading right now?
I have to say all these things come into play with me. While I have my safe options (read a few by that author and now reading the rest) I like to experiment. The one thing I don't automatically read are the lines inside the book from book critics and other writers saying what a great book it is. I like to make up my own mind. After all their words wouldn't be there if they didn't like the book.
Quite often first novels make me feel desperate for my own writing. (Will I ever write something as good as this?) I do enjoy finding a new author, one I've never heard of, and reading their book. Sometimes that happens with book club - it's how I came across Kate Atkinson. The genres I read is much wider these days too. I grew up on Danielle Steele and Barbara Bradford Taylor, the odd Jackie Collins and Josephine Cox. It is only recently that I've started reading crime/thriller and some fantasy (Neil Gaimen). My toe is just in the door on that genre as with sci-fi. Normally other worlds don't do it for me, yet I adore sci-fi films (though I'm not a Star Wars fan, strangely). I also love books with humour, but that's also a more recent thing. The ridiculous appeals to me.
My reading habits are, like my life, constantly evolving. I read things now I would never have read years ago (classics). I enjoy exploring new subjects and learning about the writer's themselves, why they wrote that book, how they developed it, their ideas etc. Now and again I like to read a non-fiction book, usually something on history - how we lived, religions, pre-history and the Romans, sometimes a biography. What are you reading right now?
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