Thursday, January 10, 2008

Writer's Block: How do you choose which books to read?

Being gone for nearly a month meant I had to pack entertainment for myself to get me through those hours sitting in the airport, on the plane, traveling in the UK, filling time when I needed to escape. I always take the usual puzzle books and a notepad for writing tidbits down, but on top of that, I took books. Print. E-books. Children books that I'd share with my kids. It wasn't until I was unpacking that I looked at the titles of the print books I'd taken:

1. Fear: An Anthology by Whiskey Creek Authors
2. Blood Magic by Matthew Cook
3. Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris
4. Many Bloody Returns by assorted authors
5. A Mortal Glamour by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

Based on these, my reading looks really dark, lol. I mean, I do read a lot of darker material. I love horror, suspense, true crime. But I read other stuff, too, including romance and fantasy, so I don't think this is a fair sampling of my taste. Of course, factor in the sugary quality of the holidays and maybe it's not a surprise that I selected darker stories in order to escape from it. ;)

I bought each of those for different reasons.

I've had Fear for a year now. I bought it at Epicon last year when it was an EPPIE finalist, and have only finally gotten around to reading it.

Blood Magic
is there because I both wanted to support Juno authors and because it's exactly the kind of thing I pick up when I browse the bookstore shelves.

Dead Until Dark
is the first Sookie Stackhouse. I had the wonderful luck to meet Ms. Harris at RT last year, and she was so funny and delightful in person that I thought I'd finally get around to trying her books.

Many Bloody Returns
is an anthology containing one of my autobuy authors, Jim Butcher. I love his Dresden series to death; there was no way I was missing out on this one.

A Mortal Glamour is another Juno title, but have you seen that cover? It's gorgeous, and I've always heard excellent things about this author. This seemed like a wonderful way to introduce myself to her.

What's the last book you picked up to read? Why did you pick it?

2 comments:

Cathy M said...

I actually just got back from Barnes and Noble with Plum Lucky by Janet Evanovich. B&N had an amazing coupon for this title and I auto-buy all the Stephanie Plum books anyway, so it was definitely worth a trip out. I can always count on this series for a great laugh, romance and action. Three of my favorite things...

Charlaine Harris, Sookie Stackhouse series makes my auto-buy list too.

Vivien Dean said...

I have friends who devour the Plum books like candy, but that's another series I haven't had the time to get around and try yet.

So many books...so little time!