I read a lot. In fact, it’s my major recreation. Most writers do. It’s not that we’re looking for ideas. Writers simply enjoy the dance and frolic of the printed word. And there’s something primitive in all of us, harking back to ancestral times sitting around the fire listening to a storyteller.
Did you know there’s a Storytelling evening at Basecamp this Friday night? https://www.facebook.com/groups/124002567726461/
Reading also welcomes you into a world that you will never experience, whether it’s Amish romances, the mind of an anthropology scholar, or the secret thoughts of a 15-year-old Syrian refugee.
Choosing the books I read is a hit and miss process. I wonder if yours is the same.
I buy a lot of books and also choose books from the library in Frazier Park. I also choose books to read from the bookshelves in the clubhouse’s recreation room. People—and I love them—give me books. Still, it seems as though I’m always scrounging for something to read. When I near the end of one book, my mind is skittering around, reaching for the next one.
I read myself to sleep at night and over the decades have become much more choosy about where my mind has been before I enter into the world of sleep and dreams. The last thing I’d pick up is a Stephen King or a Scandinavian mystery writer.
I buy books on Amazon and Google and, like everybody else, I look for bargains, sales, and eBooks. I love my Android tablet on which I read eBooks. You know about searching for “kindle books free”, don’t you? Or “kindle romance free.”
You don’t have to read book reviews or depend on friends giving you books to find stories you like.
I also choose books from reading Facebook posts. I spend way too much time alone, and Facebook is a somewhat real community for me. Facebook is not just for reading your Friends bitch and moan about road rage incidents, the latest village scandals, and which restaurant dished them up a lousy meal last weekend.
My Facebook friends are the people in my village, old pals in Santa Monica, and other writers I’ve become acquainted with over time. My writer friends—and others—post about their new books and the books of their friends. Scanning through these posts is the way I spend my Facebook time and often spend my money.
There’s a Facebook group for every type, or genre, of fiction that you can imagine, from paranormal World War II romance, to admirers of pulp fiction of the 40s, to dystopian Christian animal novels. Type in search words in the Search bar at the top and go exploring for a Facebook group where people post about the kind of books you like.
Mostly I read fiction, and lots and lots of crime fiction at that. But I do challenge myself to read The Atlantic cover to cover and the occasional nonfiction book of big ideas. I’m enjoying Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind right now. This one’s going to take a while but I may no longer be able to deceive myself that humankind is better than it is.
How do you choose the books you read? Is it hit or miss too?