Writers Read

Before any of us were writers, we were readers, and in all likelihood we still are. Avid readers, in fact. But what kind of reader are you? And what do you read?

I've always been astounded at the rate at which my daughter reads, even when she was a young child, she could read a Harry Potter novel (even the really long later ones) from start to finish in a day. I never thought she would be able to retain anything reading at that rate, but then she and her father (also a very fast reader) would discuss the book in great detail (much to my chagrin because, as the slowest reader in the house, I was the last to get the new book and they would start to spoil it for me). My daughter still inhales books (whenever her busy college life allows) like they were peanut butter & jelly sandwiches. Delicious, sweet, easily and quickly consumed.

   Me, I savor my books like a fine pastry. I read slowly. Sometimes, I'll even pause and reread as I'm making my way through a book, just to enjoy a scene a second time (if I'm not in a rush to see what happened). I thoroughly enjoy the books I read and take my time over them. What I don't do (which I do with pastry, quite often) is pick them apart as I'm reading (peeling apart the layers of a croissant is fun, peeling apart the pieces of a novel, not so much).

But I know that a lot of writers do that. They can't help it. Once you know what should be there and all the layers that go into a fine novel, it's hard not to take it apart. But if you do that, it's much harder to actually enjoy the book, the story. You're no longer reading for pleasure, your pulling it apart and analyzing it. I refuse to do that when I'm reading for pleasure.

Yes, I'll go back to a well written book and do it later, but the first time I read a book, I simply lose myself in the story and read like a reader--except for the occasional pause to appreciate a particularly fine turn of phrase.

Now, as to what a writer reads… should you read the genre you write? I say yes. Sometimes, especially for a new writer, it’s hard to read what you’re writing and not copy the voice of the writer whose work you’re reading. When I first started writing, I would deliberately read Georgette Heyer in order to copy her voice. I wanted my books to sound just like hers. I learned. I learned to have confidence in my own voice in my own books.

Today I read anything and everything. I read books in the same genre as I write, and I try to read books outside of my genre—literary novels, historical novels, and mysteries as well as romance of all sorts (it’s one reason why I love judging the Rita—it forces me to read romances that I wouldn’t normally read). Biographies are loads of fun to read and really help me get a handle on characters—what makes a person interesting. And every now and then, I’ll even pick up a work of non-fiction in a topic which interests me, although I’ve never been a big reader of non-fiction outside of the classroom.

So what is it that you read? And how? Do you pick things apart as you read or are you able to turn off your inner editor and just get lost in a good book?