Confessions of an Omnivorous Reader

I love to read. My favorite genres include mystery, suspense, thriller, romance, science fiction, and adventure. I read memoirs and history, newspapers, magazines, and if nothing else is handy, the cereal box. This addiction began at age four when my five-year-old brother started reading to me. I saw blotches of black lines and squiggles under the pictures. He ran his finger along the blotches, transforming them into sounds, words, sentences, and stories. I wanted that magic, that superpower.

In time, my brothers and I discovered that most magical of places—the public library! Unleashed in the children’s section, we read and read until mother dragged us out with armloads of loaners. Such riches! We could travel in time and space on adventures and learn about places far from home. Though mother probably brought us to the library so she could study in peace for her eventual law degree, she did us a huge favor. She kept us away from late afternoons of mind-numbing television.

By high school, my brothers and I launched into a competition to read the set of 100 classics in paperback that Mom had purchased. Baby brother, not to be outdone, read the Encyclopedia Britannica set as well. We teased him that only a geek reads reference books, but truth be told, I kept a dictionary by my bed to scour it for new words like syzygy and conflagration to drop into conversation. With reading comes a love for words. In my family, Scrabble is a blood sport.

In college, I studied 300 plays in depth. I had planned to work for a newspaper by day and write plays at night. Fortunately, that didn’t work out. I ended up writing for business, then for magazines, followed by a stint teaching report writing at a police academy, and then publishing my first novel. Throughout the decades, the joy of reading continued.

A website called Goodreads.com became the social media site for readers, so I set up a profile and started listing books I’d read. It would have been easier check off books from a list of classics and the most popular books in the last the thirty years than to name them from memory. Since joining the site, I have tried to rate and reviewing books as soon as I finish them. So many new authors, so many new books by my favorite authors, the to-be-read list is laughably long and considerably incomplete. May I live to read them all.

I read everything but erotica. The three erotica books I read were boring. Seriously, if Tom Clancy put a car chase in every scene, his stories would have been boring. If Stephen King put a killer clown in every story, well, forget suspense. Predictability turns me off.

I cannot imagine life without books. When someone says, “I don’t read” my first thought is “you poor thing.” No stirring of the imagination, no laughter, no seeing the world from a new perspective, no growth, no adventure, no new ideas, no passion…might as well take away color and music from the world. Do non-readers dream in gray?

When asked to name my favorite authors, I begin with Richard Adams, Aesop, Mitch Albom, Louisa May Alcott, Isabele Allende, Poul Anderson, Piers Anthony, Aristotle, Isaac Asimov, Margaret Atwood, Jane Austin, David Baldacci, J. M. Barrie, Dave Barry, L. Frank Baum, Samuel Beckett, Peter Benchley, Steve Berry, Maeve Binchy, William Peter Blatty, Judy Blume, Ben Bova, Ray Bradbury, Barbara Taylor Bradford, Charlotte Bronte, Geraldine Brooks, Dan Brown, Sandra Brown, Edna Buchanan, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Meg Cabot, Erskine Caldwell, Taylor Caldwell, Truman Capote, Orson Scott Card, Lewis Carroll, Willa Cather, Raymond Chandler, Anton Chekhov, Lee Child, Agatha Christie, Winston Churchill, Tom Clancy, Mary Higgins Clark, Arthur C. Clarke, Beverly Cleary, Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), Harlan Coben, Jackie Collins, William Congreve, Joseph Conrad, Robin Cook, James Fenimore Cooper, Patricia Cornwell, Michael Crichton, E. E. Cummings, and Clive Cussler. People stop me long before I reach the D surnames.

My husband begs me to buy books on Kindle to prevent book hoarding. I call it collecting. The books aren’t stacked two rows per shelf everywhere…yet. If I ever lose my vision, then I’ll switch to audio books. Call me a book addict. Call me a bookworm. Call me when there’s a book sale.

JONI M. FISHER

Joni M. Fisher is a journalist, an instrument-rated private pilot, and an active member of the Florida Writers Association, the Kiss of Death Chapter and the Tampa Area Romance Authors Chapter of RWA, and the Women's Fiction Writers Association. Books in her Compass Crimes Series have garnered attention in Publisher's Weekly and earned recognition in the 2017 National Indie Excellence Awards, the 2016 Royal Palm Literary Awards, the Indiana Golden Opportunity Contest, the Sheila Contest, and earned a Reader's Favorite 5-Star Review. 

Reading, Reading and More Reading!

My name is Shelley Munro, and I am an avid romance reader.

In fact my love of reading and books started me on the path to becoming an author. Like many romance readers, I’m fast and read a lot of books each year.

A few years ago, I decided to keep a record of the books I read each year, and from 2007 I’ve kept an Excel spread sheet of the titles I’ve read. It’s interesting to look back to see which books I’ve read and how my reading tastes have changed. For example in 2013 I read a lot of contemporary romances, I started listening to audio books and flirted with a few new genres such as New Adult. I read more e-books than print books these days, and my number of audio reads is increasing rapidly.

Reading challenges are a fun way of challenging yourself to read more, either in genres you love or in new genres. You’ll find lots of different challenges on the web at this time of the year. Last year I participated in the Goodreads’ Reading Challenge where I recorded 103 books for the year. My target was 100 books. This year I’ve signed up for the same target and have already read a book or two from my to-read mountain.

I’m always interested to learn how other readers operate.

Do you keep track of the books you read? If so, how do you do it? Have you or are you participating in the Goodreads Reading challenge or any other reading challenges?

Word of Mouth

First, I want to say—congratulations to all the talented writers who participated in the Round Robin “Her Fatal Valentine!” (dum, dum, dum… that title really needs a sound effect.)

A Round Robin is a kind of improvisation games for writers. Like most improv—when it works, it’s like magic! And when it doesn’t, it’s still darn funny. If you haven’t read it, you are in for a treat. Skip on down the blog to February 4^th.  I’ll wait…

Back already?

Don’t you love a good book recommendation?

There have been dire whispers about Barnes & Noble in the news again. In my local shopping center, what used to be the Borders has just re-opened as a (shudder) Sports Authority.

There are still several independent bookstores near me, thank goodness. But I’ve been thinking about how I used to find books in the old days. (Loitering in the Borders for hours.) Versus how I find things today, partly because I read a quote recently that said, “how we discover books is broken.”

I’m not sure if it’s broken—but it’s definitely gone old school.

Word of mouth seems to be the way I find new books. Recommendations from friends. Book sellers I trust. 

Groups with similar tastes can be helpful, unless they get very big. Goodreads was recently profiled in the NYT—let the marketing begin! That place is going to get even crazier in the next few months. Shelfari seems to be under the radar for now but I fear the coming boom. Smaller communities seem to be a more reliable source for me.

I first heard about “50 Shades” on one of my favorite author’s Facebook pages, back when it was still available online for free. She regularly asks her facebook fans to post “what are you reading?” A hundred people may respond. I’ll skim the answers for books I don’t recognize.

Another trick I have is to cast a wide net. I’m sure you’ve seen the best-of-lists that come of at the end of the year. Or the lists of award winners for mysteries, fiction, romance, science fiction. But I rarely grab the winners first. I search for all the nominees/also rans/next outs. Many of my favorite books are the ones that didn’t win—because they were a little too quirky, or the author too new to generate enough votes.

Now that I can’t sit in the Borders for hours, I need help. I need new ways to find books. (And don’t say: “Amazon Recommended for You.” Geez. Where do they come up with some of those? )

I’ve shared a couple of my favorite tricks. How do you all find new books to read?