At Booking Through Thursday , Deb asks:
Have your reading choices changed over the years? Or pretty much stayed the same? (And yes, from childhood to adulthood we usually read different things, but some people stick to basically the same kind of book their entire lives, so…)
In her response to today’s Booking Through Thursday question, gautami tripathy quotes Kafka: "I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us." My childhood choices were the opposite, perhaps because those years were difficult. I was drawn to order, comfort, justice, knowledgeability, and joy in my reading; books were cathartic, informative, and friendly.
Later, my family’s engagement in social, theological, and cultural issues, the love of travel, and my work in the (non-performing side of the) theatre world all contributed to a broadening of topics and genres. Reading the Brontës led to Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar's The Madwoman In The Attic, which in turn made me realise that male authors dominated my shelves and set me on a course to correct the imbalance. By then, I had come to appreciate Kafka’s exhortation, and valued books that challenged my ideas and pre-conceptions, showing me alternative philosophies.
I have been a literary omnivore since childhood: I would study the text on milk cartons at breakfast, thrill to the Alistair MacLeans and mysteries in my grandfather’s holiday cottage, peruse the encyclopaedias in my parents’ bookcases. In that sense, my reading choices have undergone few changes. A look at the stack on my desk right now reflects this: Boris Akunin (historical mystery), Sarah Challis (contemporary fiction), Gwyn Cready (time travel romance), Anne Perry (historical fiction), Natasha Solomons (contemporary literature), Anthony Trollope (literary classic), Takuji Ichikawa (a Japanese ghost story), and Brenda Jackson (category romance), as well as the non-fictional Lords Of The Central Marches (mediaeval history) and The Language of Baklava (food and cultural memoir).
How I find reading material, though, has been helped and enriched by the Internet. In the past, many of my choices were hit and miss, dependent on back blurbs, references in other books and newspapers, and recommendations from friends who did not necessarily share my tastes. Now, the great ease with which I can look up reviews and participate in discussions on various forums provides unending inspiration and interest. Of the books listed above, for example, Ichikawa's Be With You was suggested by Maili in a discussion about romances around the world, and Challis's Footprints In The Sand by Mog.
For years, a prolonged reading slump affected my ability to find enjoyment in novels. That battle caused me to scrutinize my choices and to conclude I had fallen into a trap of too many snobbish "shoulds". I had neglected to read for pure entertainment. Once I shed my self-imposed guilt and picked up a romance - a genre I had not deigned to glance at since my teens - the lust for fiction came flooding back.
Now I consciously try to fill the gaps in my reading. I have utterly neglected contemporary Nordic and Asian literature, for example, so if anyone has a favourite in those areas, I would be grateful to learn about it.
Please feel free to share your own Booking Through Thursday thoughts!
