A Reader’s Dilemma

So many books; so little time. I could never read all the interesting books in the world, let alone those published in any given year. The question, then, is how to choose which books to read.

I am an eclectic reader, which makes it even tougher. I am not like one poster at a blog I read who claims to never read more than one book by an author—I’ll read someone’s entire oeuvre if it keeps my interest. But I am not a slave to reading only authors I know.

Just for fun here are my last ten reads and the reasons I picked them up.

#10 Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery. Jan and I traveled to the Canadian Maritimes early this summer and we stopped at Green Gables and walked the area. I had given the book to one of my granddaughters a few years back, but had never read it myself. Having walked the area, I was curious, so when we got home, I borrowed it. I found it a very good read, and was glad none of my children or grandchildren had quite the knack for getting into trouble that Anne had.

#9 206 Bones by Kathy Reich. Jan and I were in the airport and she needed a book to read. Neither of us had read Reich before, but I knew lots of people who enjoyed her books, so I suggested she get it. We had earlier on the trip spent several days in Montreal where Reich’s protagonist hangs out. We both found the book a very good read.

#8 The Culture of Contentment by John Kenneth Galbraith. This had been on my to- read list for more than a decade (maybe more than two decades). I found his observations to be just as relevant today as they were when he wrote them. I labeled it a very good read.

#7 Don’t Sabotage Your Submission by Chris Roerden. I find with “how to” books that each has its own emphasis, and I get the most out of them by reading several. Chris’s was the most recent self-editing book I’ve read, and I found it had a number of ideas I had not read elsewhere so, again, I had another very good read.

#6 Shockwave Rider by John Brunner. The novel I started writing a couple of weeks ago is set in the near future (80 or so years from now). I wanted to read some of the classics of dystopian fiction, and this book was on many lists. It was my first book by Brunner; I rated it as only fair.

#5.5 The Island Within by Richard Nelson. Jan and I have an agreement that works well for us. While we are at our Upper Peninsula camp, we revert to typical male/female work roles. It’s not that I’m not willing to do the cleaning—I don’t meet her standards. However, we’ve found something that works very well for us: she cleans up after the evening meal, and I read to her. We tend to like essays and nonfiction personal stories for these readings because they have natural stopping points. I had read this book several years ago and enjoyed reading it to Jan. Very good.

#5 Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. Also part of my pre-reading for futuristic novels and again a first book by the author. This one I found very enjoyable.

#4 The Burning Wire by Jeffrey Deaver. I’ve enjoyed all of Deaver’s Lincoln Rhyme books as well as his stand-alones. Jan found this at our library on one of our bi-weekly stops. This one I rated as excellent.

#3 Crimes by Moonlight edited by Charlaine Harris. I am not into vampires, were-creatures or generally things that go bump in the night. However, I had enjoyed short stories by several of the anthology’s authors and thought it might be time to expand my reading a bit. These are cracking good tales with just a touch of “woo-woo.” I rated it excellent, but I’m not rushing off to read all the latest vampire books.

#2 At Risk by Patricia Cornwall. I had read several books in Cornwell’s Dr. Kay Scarpetta series and for me they got to be the same old, same old and I had given up on her. Jan, who hadn’t read Cornwell when I did, picked it and a Scarpetta up at the same time she found the Deaver. She read it and thoroughly enjoyed it, so I read it. Glad I did; I rated it excellent.

#1 Bitter Medicine by Sara Paretsky. I’ve read most of Paretsky’s V I Warshawski’s novels, but somehow missed this one, so it was filling in a missing piece. As with most of Paretsky’s books, I found this one to be excellent.

My eleven books included one reread; one on my to-be- read list for years and years and years; several new authors; several repeat authors; and an anthology that stretched my usual genre.

How do you decide what to read?

~ Jim