What Is Something You Learned About Yourself As A Reader This Year? (12/11/22)

[Marc]

What is something you learned about yourself as a reader during the 2022 calendar year? It can be anything: changes in habit, discovering you now like/dislike something, a positive/negative reaction to changes in your reading selections/habits, etc., etc.

[Joy D]

I discovered that I am very much enjoying speculative fiction. I had only read a few of these in the past, and I think I did not quite understand the term before now. Another area of interest I have developed this year is linguistics. I have read several books recently about past, current, or made-up languages - and also about communications between species.

As far as habits, I have continued to read a number of books at once, which I started the year before, and find it a much better method for keeping my interest.

I've tried to avoid genres I don't typically enjoy such as romance, horror, thrillers, and paranormal. I used to participate in more group readings of these types of books, but I usually disliked them, so I (mostly) quit joining in. I still do this occasionally, just to be friendly or participative, but much less than in the past. My tastes tend to be out of the mainstream, and I have just accepted this state of affairs.

[Lark]

I've become more interested in thinking about reading as a dialog, or maybe even as a single mind, thinking in words. The writer puts the words in my head. But it's only when I think (hear?) those words in my own head that the words have any meaning. Before then they're dead marks. So in a sense, all the meaning to be derived from any work of literature comes, not from the writer, but from the reader.

[Carol]

Real Estate by Deborah Levy is quite the interesting dialogue

[Robert]

Maybe it sounds a bit snobbish but this year cemented the fact that I do not like flavor of the month books: I DNF’d where the crawdads sing, midnight library, the humans and before the coffee gets cold. I always try to like them but then I just give up. This next year I’m going to be more selective.

I was also a judge for our local book awards ( called The National Book Prize but that could sound confusing) and I learnt that you have to stick with your gut feelings for a book and that did pay off.

[Franky]

I tried to make more of an effort this year tackling my own to read list of books, especially one's from years past, even at the expense of not engaging in as many of the book month reads in several of the groups. I just see all these books that and always say "I will get to these some day." This year I finally got to some of them.

[Whitney]

Robert wrote: "Maybe it sounds a bit snobbish but this year cemented the fact that I do not like flavor of the month books: I DNF’d where the crawdads sing, midnight library, the humans and before the coffee gets..."

I decided my rule on the flavor of the month books (unless it's a writer I already like) is to ignore them for a few years. If people are still talking about them, they are more likely to be worth a read.

That's cool that you're a book award judge! Where is this? Do you have a link?

[Marc]

Lark wrote: "I've become more interested in thinking about reading as a dialog, or maybe even as a single mind, thinking in words. The writer puts the words in my head. But it's only when I think (hear?) those ..."

I had a psychology professor who painted on the side and he was always talking about the the three-way dialogue between the artist, the canvas, and the viewer/audience, which sounds a lot like what you're describing, Lark. It's sort of magical to breathe life into someone else's words inside your head.

[Robert]

Whitney wrote: "Robert wrote: "Maybe it sounds a bit snobbish but this year cemented the fact that I do not like flavor of the month books: I DNF’d where the crawdads sing, midnight library, the humans and before ..."

My name is at the bottom - I judged Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, drama and translated literature - with two other judges. We had a longlist of 192 books and 8 months to whittle it down to 5 winners.

https://www.independent.com.mt/articl...

[Hugh]

The main thing I have discovered is that is a big mistake to get behind on reviewing, as the number of read but unreviewed books escalates very quickly, and for most books memory fades the more you read afterwards.

[Whitney]

Robert wrote: "My name is at the bottom - I judged Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, drama and translated literature - with two other judges. We had a longlist of 192 books and 8 months to whittle it down to 5 winners."

Whoa! Is there a strategy to get through that many books? Do you initially divvy them up, then everyone reads the top choices? (Sorry for the semi-highjack of the thread, I'll stop after this question.)

[Marc]

Hugh wrote: "The main thing I have discovered is that is a big mistake to get behind on reviewing, as the number of read but unreviewed books escalates very quickly, and for most books memory fades the more you..."

Hugh, I was going to say that one of the things I learned about myself as a reader is that it's best to just start writing a review as soon as possible after finishing a book---once I start, something always comes out, but I frequently put it off or think about it too much (there seems to be this pressure to either write a lot or write something I consider very "insightful" and it's best if I just ignore both of these impulses).

I tried reading a prize shortlist for the first time this year (the Booker; prior to the award): I learned that it IS actually exciting to be caught up in the discussion and predictions, but probably not something I would want to do too often as I felt like I was rushing through the books and I don't like having all of my reading that structured/ordered. What's funny, is that I didn't even make it through the shortlist entirely. I think I've only made it through a shortlist once and that was last year's Republic of Consciousness Prize (it was after the prize was awarded and only possible because I had happened to have read two of the books prior to their being shortlisted).

[Stacia]

I have become more tolerant/able to read ebooks vs. hard copies. This year's reading split about 50/50 between the two, which is pretty surprising to me because I used to hate reading ebooks. With the advent of covid, though, I started reading more ebooks, then discovered the treasures of Hoopla, & here I am....

Also, as I've focused more on reading books translated from a variety of languages (& places), I can tell that my views/preferences for story lines, narratives, etc. are also shifting. My gaze is widening & so is my understanding (I hope)....

[Tracy]

I learned that my tolerance for recently written WWII fiction is gone. I tried to read a book by a favorite author set during that time, and I finished, but barely.

I’ve been shying away from these books for a long time now, but could pick one up every so often, if I felt the subject matter was researched well, and the author was telling a new story.

Now, I think I’m done. With the rise of all the hate groups in the world, and the Holocaust deniers, I feel like purchasing books that may be romanticizing one of the most horrific times in World history is contributing to the problem.

If the book was written during the war, or by someone who was actually alive during that time, I’ll reconsider. Otherwise, nope.

[Lark]

Tracy, re:WWII fiction, I felt the change in quality as a shift in generations. In my life there have been books published by those who lived through it. But now their children and grandchildren are writing books of their own where we get a romantic lens on the period. A sentimentality. I agree there is something different about books written by the people who were there. Some I recommend that have only been published and/or retranslated lately:

The Oppermanns
Every Man Dies Alone
The Seventh Cross
Fatelessness

[Lark]

Stacia, the happened with me and ebooks this year, too. Even though I’m getting used to them and reading them more often I still think there is a cranky strike I hold against them when it comes to writing my reviews, though.

[Bretnie]

I've learned that reading at night (via ereader - learning to appreciate it more) doesn't solve my insomnia but it does make the insomnia less painful.

And I've learned that reading sci fi at 3 am when you can't sleep is an experience in itself. I think the spiders in Children of Time are forever cemented in my brain in a different way than if I'd read it fully awake...

[Tracy]

Lark wrote: "Tracy, re:WWII fiction, I felt the change in quality as a shift in generations. In my life there have been books published by those who lived through it. But now their children and grandchildren ar..."

Fatelessness broke my heart. Those are the books I will read- the ones by those who were alive at the time, and had something meaningful to tell the world- hopefully to keep the atrocities that happened everywhere from happening again.

[Robert]

Whitney wrote: "Robert wrote: "My name is at the bottom - I judged Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, drama and translated literature - with two other judges. We had a longlist of 192 books and 8 months to whittle it ..."

Luckily the other two judges had the same reading tastes as me so after we read all the books we met in a cafe for about 4 hours or so and listed the books we liked and we all had matching answers. That's how we got the shortlist.

then the second part of the process, the actual choosing of the winners, the national book council gave us marking sheets and we all wrote our reports and once again our winner list tallied so really it was an easy process. If you want to ask more just message :)

[Marc]

Robert, I think the heart of Whitney's question was how do you read 192 books in 8 months?!! And it sounds like all of you read all 192 books, yes? That's astounding. I mean, I know a few GR readers who read 200+ books per year, but most of them are either retired or some of them are reading a lot of children's books (because that's their field or they review them).

[Sonia]

I don't have the patience to read non fiction and am happy to get my information fixes from documentaries, podcasts or radio.

[Robert]

Marc wrote: "Robert, I think the heart of Whitney's question was how do you read 192 books in 8 months?!! And it sounds like all of you read all 192 books, yes? That's astounding. I mean, I know a few GR reader..."

Luckily working in a school means I do have more time. I dedicated my free hours to the two huge translations on the list : one was a new translation of the Old testament and the other was a big fancy illustrated version of the Inferno ( that took a month and a half and was the last book I read)

It's a matter of pacing plus I did review a handful previously so reading them a second time wasn't time consuming. Really novels - we had a ton of thin ones this year plays and poetry, if scheduled well do not take up much of your time. The majority of the books were short story collections which can be read in a day or so.

weirdly Maltese is a very easy language to read due to it's limitations (it also means the island will never get Infinite jest or Gravity's Rainbow as the language wouldn't be able to cope with it - although Thomas Pynchon reverts to old Maltese in the second half of V and it comes out badly) - and that helps.

[Nadine in California]

Sonia wrote: "I don't have the patience to read non fiction and am happy to get my information fixes from documentaries, podcasts or radio."

Sonia - I don't read much nonfiction either - much of it feels to me like it should have been a long-form journal article.