Seth's comments (member since Sep 23, 2007)

Seth's comments from the Book Buying Addicts Anonymous group.

Dorothy L. Sayers: Her Life And Soul, by Barbara Reynolds

Vanderdeken's Children -- Christopher Bulis

10 Important Events In The Early Life Of This Reader:

Approx. 7 Years Old: Reading my first comic book, that would be whatever issue of Marvel Tales reprinted Amazing Spider-Man #86 (Spidey fights Electro in a TV studio). Comics were very cool intro to the following: the cliffhanger ending; how to tell a story in about 20 pages; how the hero can defeat a villain using brains and brawn.

Approx. 7 Years Old: Reading Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea, by Jules Verne. Took me about two weeks. Beginning of preference for SF, though it was the undersea adventure angle that hooked me. Not long after, I read Undersea Fleet, by Frederik Pohl and Jack Williamson. Soon, I was reading Time For The Stars by Robert A. Heinlein. (It's interesting to note that, while I was cruising the SF section for adults, I was, as a very young boy, picking SF novels that are often classified as "juveniles"; With hindsight, I know that the covers of these books influenced my decision to examine and buy these books; it was more likely that I would buy Time For The Stars, rather than Stranger In A Strange Land, because when you're a kind, a large dinosaur threatening a young man, is more exciting than a blurb indicating that Stranger In A Strange Land is a "classic"

Approx. 7 Years Old: My Grade 2 Teacher reading books to us, like Tales Of A Fourth Grade Nothing, by Judy Blume. Technically, that would be my first exposure to humourous fiction in the novel format, the writing that I most enjoy doing.

Approx. 11 Years Old: Making the leap from Hardy Boy Books to Agatha Christie novels, starting with quite a choice...And Then There Were None. Early realization on my part that I am a 'plot' man. Complex plots with, lots of surprises, are the preference, instead of in-depth character pieces. And even the wildest plots are allowed, if they are entertaining. I was evolving into a genre reader, with a preference for escapist fiction.

Approx. 16 Years old. Reading with more of an adult mind. Starting--only just, mind you--to pick books based on their reputations. Fiddling around with my own writing (writing humourous short stories and collecting them as something called General Swinfin; I had meant to write serious, autobiographical stuff about a young boy's living through his parents' violent divorce...but the humourous subplots were distracting me. I dropped the tragic elements and focused only on the humourous content, turning subplots into the main focus. But I found myself wondering "Who gets famous writing this kind of goofy stuff?".

Definitely 16 Years Old: Read my first P. G. Wodehouse novel, called Quick Service (acting on the recommendation of my 7th Grade Teacher, Mrs. Loogman, when she saw me reading After The Funeral, by Agatha Christie, though I waited about five years til I took her up on her advice!) It was weird not selecting a Mystery or an SF book; there was some prevalent notion that this P. G. Wodehouse was literature. Decided, soon afterwards, to read all Wodehouse books, AND keep writing silly stories, even if they never got published.

Definitely 16 Years Old: Read Orbitsville, by Bob Shaw. Very affected by the message of what initially reads as trad SF (ie. You earn Paradise). Not long after, picked up the reader's guidebook called Science Fiction: The Hundred Best Books, by David Pringle, because he had selected Orbitsville as one of the 100. Had such a great time reading the novels listed (while knowing I was becoming a more discriminating reader by forcing myself to read important titles in the genre), that I of course bought H. R. F. Keating's book Crime & Mystery: The 100 Best Books when it came out. Started reading all the recommendations.

By 1990: Tough decision...do I buy Modern Fantasy: The Hundred Best Novels (as well as a rival volume by different editors, called Fantasy: The 100 Best Books!) and/or Horror: The 100 Best Books, when they inevitably show up on bookshelves? ("But I don't read Horror much--though I loved The Stand!--and I certainly don't read much Fantasy! Am I really going to commit to these hundreds of books...?") Yes, I give in and buy them. I become a regular reader of Horror, Fantasy, SF, and Mystery, in all their subgenres.

Soon after: "What the heck. I better be a sport and read more highbrow lit, too. Hmmm, Moby Dick, how hard could it be..." (Later showed up on one of those 100 Best Fantasy lists..."Oh good, I got through that already. And yah, The Confidence-Man is better; thanks 100 Best Horror List."--"Don't mention it" says the 100 Best Horror List (haunted, apparently, what can I say)).

NOW: reading The Glass Hammer, by K. W. Jeter. Not bad. Not on any list, but slightly important as mid-80's cyberpunk, when the subgenre was blossoming. Out-of-print, so hard to resist, when spotted in a Used bookstore. Of Jeter's other SF works, Dr. Adder seems superior, and it's one of Jeter's horror efforts, Soul Eater that I really liked ("Thanks 100 Best Horror List!"--"Uh, that wasn't me, that was the Modern Fantasy List. Keep it together, Seth."). And so it goes.

Orlando, by Virginia Woolf.
The Monk, by Matthew Lewis.

God Of The Rodeo: The Quest For Redemption In Louisiana's Angola Prison -- Daniel Bergner

If Death Ever Slept -- Rex Stout

I think the type of behaviour you indulge in is fairly typical of those of us who have a lot of books at home, but at the same time have every intent of reading them all. It's the mark of a true book lover, whether or not it is classifiable as "compulsive". Once you own a large amount of unread books, many of them wildly different, it becomes a challenge merely deciding what gets read when. Like me, you seem to have certain authors represented by more than one title--and like me, you would prefer not to read multiple books by one author in a cluster.

My tactic is to come up with some kind of pattern that--whatever it is--I follow until it becomes boring. So, I usually made sure to have each book represent a different genre than the one before it, and also, to make a point of not returning to one author too soon. If I have more than one book by an author lying around unread, I try to read one before I suddenly have three or four by that author. I do have a stable of favourites that I return to, and I also constantly try new authors.

Soooooo, a "chunk" of six books read by me used to look like this: one SF book, one mystery, one fantasy book, one thriller, one horror, one odd pick such as a Western or a 19th century literature pick, and maybe one more of the above genres--like another mystery or SF pick (because they attract me the most). Within that bunch, I have to occasionally work in a short-story collection (I vastly prefer novels), or a nonfiction book (I vastly prefer fiction); and within that bunch I rotate favourite authors, authors who deserve another look, and authors that are completely new to me.

Lately, I've been a little less random. In October, I suddenly decide to read all horror. This bug bites me every year. And then, I try to make November a month for just one genre (SF this year). As we go into December, I'm changing again; my interest in spy films and spy graphic novels is spilling into my novel reading. I want to read one thriller--preferably with some kind of espionage plot, though I'm gonna keep that a flexible rule--every second pick, with anything-else (literature, horror, sf, nonfiction, etc.) in between. I'm just really into action and spy-games right now; I think of doing this for a year, but, you know what?...two months from now I'll probably be getting bored and change the pattern again.

Living Room -- Allan Weiss

Confederates In The Attic: Dispatches From The Unfinished Civil War -- Tony Horwitz

By the way, William Ashbless is from The Anubis Gates, by Tim Powers (just so that doesn't get skipped, before someone comes up with Dr Elwin Ransom).

Lori, up here in Toronto, you are known about the city as the "crazy girl who has her nose buried in a book", so it's probably happening in your town too.

Love it!--But make her carry even more books! Can we have her kind of buried under them, after she's collapsed, with just the shoes sticking out? Or that picture will do.

Child Of God -- Cormac McCarthy

Lord Grandrith

Altered Carbon -- Richard Morgan

Captain Lorq von Ray

...she had groped around in her coat pocket for her latest success, a Choc-Up Muscles Bar ("It Gives You A Sudden Burst Of Strength, and Tastes Great! (Warning: Sugar and Steroid Content Not Suitable For Children)"), eaten it at a desperate gulp, paused only momentarily to savor the flavor, and used her sudden burst of strength to rip out the manhole cover (currently residing under a bus wheel). Moments later, she proceeded down a rather precariously-fastened maintenance ladder, and dropped with a feminine yet currently-abnornally muscular flair, mixed with a klutzy misstep and splash, into the sewers. And, as it turns out, that is how she met the man who would change her life: Artie Fenculo, mob enforcer and low-level gunsel, currently down in the sewers to dump a body, not realizing that the instructions were to perform said task at 3 am, not 3 pm (he just assumed his Boss wanted a to make a big midday statement), while at the same time, Malva Susan did not realize that, though her Choc-Up Muscles Bar did enhance muscle capability, she had had a little help in manhole-cover ripping from Artie's crowbar, five minutes previously.

(CURRENT AUTHOR'S NOTE: I've decided not to keep repeating the earlier text, as per tactics being used in this game on another thread by cleverer people with a keen ability to anticipate the oncoming word-limit. So maybe we'll just continue from the point left dangling...?)

Mirror Dance -- Lois McMaster Bujold

Molasar

It was 3pm and the bus was late. It was always late. The reasons were many over the years, but today the bus was late due to the driver swerving to avoid a manhole--or, if you prefer political correctness, a personhole--left open by an arsehole--or, if you prefer anatomical correctness, a peabrain. In any case, the driver, named Eugene, underwent two simultaneous knee-jerk reactions: he veered the bus violently to the left to avoid the hole in the road, and he wanted to knee the jerk in the testicles who had left the cover off the gaping abyss.

Catch-22 -- Joseph Heller

okay, I need the title of any book featuring:
Chris Cwej

Exactly right on Fevvers. Meanwhile...Elaine Risley, from Cat's Eye, by Margaret Atwood.

Vance Garamond

Kafka On The Shore -- Haruki Murakami

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