Reflections of Me : Reading Thoughts. On Reading.
I thought I'd take a bit to speak about some of my favorite books, past and present. Well, technically, all past, since I can't very well speak of any I haven't read ( hush up, back there, Self : you always want to complicate things, don't ya? ).
I should clarify : I am not doing book reviews. Always hated those, in school. Somehow, I always got decent grades on mine, was never sure why. I had no clue what I was doing. Reading, however, has been a important part of my life since before I entered kindergarten ( back in those good old days of the 50's ). I was lucky, I was taught to read while still quite young, and have always considered it the most important thing I ever learned. I have always felt it helped me to enjoy so many other things later in my life, because I was fortunate in another respect. In response to a very early question I asked when faced with a new thing to read ( ok, what is it about? ), I was told : read it, then you tell me. That seemingly simple little statement has followed me all these years, and to this day, I approach anything I read ( or even watch ) with the same attitude. After all, how often have we encouraged someone else to read something, watch something, listen to something because of what we got out of it, only to find the other person got something totally different?
It's what makes life, and living, so damn interesting. Okay, admittedly, also frustrating sometimes, but, hey, what do we want? Eggs with our beer? ( Sorry, today a quite obscure reference, but one I still use a lot ).
Over the years, I think I can safely say I have read thousands of books, journals, articles, essays, and reports. That is probably a conservative estimate. I have forgotten literally thousands more than I can recall. I always try to approach any new read with as open a mind as I can muster, though at my current age, I do need to use great caution with that. A open mind may be essential to understanding a multitude of theories, plots, and ideals, but -- leaving one's mind too open can cause leakage as well. Sometimes, you can leak valuable information. Care must be taken!
Of course, I have developed preferences when it comes to books. First, fiction over non-fiction, unless the subject -- or, the author -- is of particular interest to me already. Authors are at one and the same time the most important, and the most difficult to replace, now that I have reached an age where many of my favorite authors are no longer with us. This entails a search for new authors, and that can be very expensive and time consuming. A hint here : libraries. Absolute essential for those who love to read. So, some of my favorite authors, whom I have read, and read, and read again.
Stephen King, who is thankfully still with us, and whose range is fantastic. Of course, I prefer when he sticks to the supernatural, but his attention to character ( i.e., characters I can quickly and easily identify with ) constantly amazes me. Sometimes I almost wonder if he isn't me. A brother from another mother, so to speak. I still remember the first book of his I read : Carrie. I was hooked, and never looked back. I will always consider his novel The Stand as a modern literary masterpiece.
Others whose work I either follow, or have followed : Mark Twain. Oscar Wilde. Rex Stout (Nero Wolfe ). Agatha Christie ( Poirot, and Tommy & Tuppence ). Ian Fleming. Gregory McDonald ( Fletch, and Flynn series ). H. P. Lovecraft. Ray Bradbury. Lincoln Preston and Lee Child ( Agent Pendergast ). Dave Barry ( both syndicated column and books ). Stephen Hunter ( The Swagger novels ). Jonathan Howard ( Johannes Cabal, Necromancer series ). M.R.C. Kasasian ( Gower St. Detectives ). Arthur Conan Doyle ( of course, Sherlock Holmes ). Groucho Marx ( yes, he delivered humor in writing as well as he did in speaking ). Roger Kahn ( Boys of Summer and many other wonderful baseball books ). Andrej Sapkowski ( creator of Geralt, The Witcher ). W.P. Kinsella ( Shoeless Joe and other baseball classics ). Neil Gaiman ( his imagination seems to have no boundaries ). Dashiell Hammett ( The Thin Man, and Sam Spade and Continental Op stories ) . I have likely left out a few I haven't read in years.
Writing fiction is a craft. It is art. Many think you need higher education to be a writer. I disagree. Certainly, you need to understand sentence construction and grammar, punctuation, and be able to spell properly. But those are not hard and fast rules, either. You really cannot teach writing. Writers are storytellers, first and foremost. For me, that is the secret to good writing ; telling a good story. If you know someone who is a good storyteller, chances are, they'd make a fine writer of the same stories. Being a good storyteller is a gift. Not everyone has that gift. It is a creative talent. We all have one, though many of us never realize our personal ones. From those to whom it becomes a passion, we get unforgettable works. Where education comes into play is being able to discern which stories should be told. And which shouldn't.
For me, too, certain books stand out in my memory. Almost all I have read more than once. They are tales which had a profound impact on me, for one reason or another. Among those are : Steinbeck's 'Of Mice and Men'. Hemingway's 'For Whom the Bell Tolls'. Bram Stoker's 'Dracula'. Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein, or, the Modern Prometheus' of course. Ian Fleming's 'From Russia With Love'. Ring Lardner's 'You Know Me, Al'. W.P. Kinsella's 'Shoeless Joe' ( from which the film 'Field of Dreams' was later made ). Conan Doyle's 'The Hound of the Baskervilles' ( my first Holmes' story, thereafter I was hooked ). Stephen King's 'Pet Sematary' ( the very first supernatural tale that actually scared me, for personal reasons ). Shirley Jackson's 'The Haunting of Hill House'. Harper Lee's 'To Kill A Mockingbird'. Stephen King's 'The Stand'. Ray Bradbury's 'Something Wicked This Way Comes'. Stephen King's 'The Body' ( later made into the film 'Stand By Me' ). Anne Rice's 'Interview With The Vampire' (interestingly, this was the only one of Rice's vampire or werewolf novels that stood out for me. Sadly, for my tastes, she gets way too distracted with descriptive tendencies, not something which aids my interest in the story at all. I've read several of her books, but, in general, I skip around 150-200 pages in each due to this. Oh, and the film made from this? Eminently forgettable, save the performance of Kirsten Dunst as the child-turned-vampire. ). Walter Lord's 'A Time To Stand' ( historical fiction/non-fiction story of the defense and fall of The Alamo ). Stephen E. Ambrose's 'Band of Brothers' ( from which the HBO miniseries of the same name was made ).
Genres. I have my preferences there, also. Makes it difficult to find books that interest me, truthfully, as we seem to have created so many sub genres that it gets confusing as Hell. Generally, I group my interests as follows : the Supernatural ( this can include sci fi, fantasy, horror, fiction and non-fiction ) ; Mystery (covering a multitude of sub genres, but usually fiction ) ; True Crime ( again, covering a multitude of sub genres ) ; Biographical ( fiction or non-fiction ).
Books meeting that criteria will usually generate my interest. What can keep me coming back for more from the same authors are : Character Development. Are the characters interesting to me? Can I find one I can identify with? For that, they need a sense of humor, first and foremost ; humor is tantamount. Are they logical, fair, but damned good at lying if the need arises? Arrogant, or humble? Arrogance in a main character will kill my interest quickly--unless it is arrogance tempered with self-effacing humor. After all this comes, the story. Ye Olde Plot. The timeline ; don't be jumping around from era to era without some warning. My mind tends to wander ; keep me focused. The ending. These, especially in the last couple of decades, generally are unsatisfying at best. Too often left open-ended. Nothing stops me quicker than a ending that leaves me going 'huh? I just read 300 pages and all I got was a lousy 3 paragraphs describing a sunset?'.
That sort of ending is for short stories : my final genre, so to speak. Here, I am more discerning. Short story anthologies. First and foremost, they must be oriented in the supernatural. From that point, anything goes. Short stories may be the most difficult to write ; the reader must be 'hooked' quickly, within the first paragraph or even sentence. Not a easy thing to do. However, short story anthologies are perhaps the best way to discover new writers one might enjoy.
So, there we have it. My own personal love of reading. We all have our preferences, of those who read. I wish more people did. Those who don't really have no idea what they are missing, as there are entire worlds out there they just might enjoy, as well as becoming more able to comprehend the things we all do read now given our social media society. Reading can be a education in and of itself. The written word is deeper and richer than any film could ever be, yet can help also in enjoying the film reproduction of a written work. Plus, it does not matter if two people can read the same work and come away with a different comprehension of the work ; what a story might mean is indeed determined more by the reader than the author. While I have listed many of my own preferences, I am not recommending any of them to others, nor am I not recommending them.
Just as with me, it is up to you, the reader, to decide. So, thus endeth this somewhat drier-than-normal little essay of mine. If you have made it this far, I thank you for reading. Now, I am off to find another story that begins with my favorite beginning : 'I died.' And let the tale commence!
I should clarify : I am not doing book reviews. Always hated those, in school. Somehow, I always got decent grades on mine, was never sure why. I had no clue what I was doing. Reading, however, has been a important part of my life since before I entered kindergarten ( back in those good old days of the 50's ). I was lucky, I was taught to read while still quite young, and have always considered it the most important thing I ever learned. I have always felt it helped me to enjoy so many other things later in my life, because I was fortunate in another respect. In response to a very early question I asked when faced with a new thing to read ( ok, what is it about? ), I was told : read it, then you tell me. That seemingly simple little statement has followed me all these years, and to this day, I approach anything I read ( or even watch ) with the same attitude. After all, how often have we encouraged someone else to read something, watch something, listen to something because of what we got out of it, only to find the other person got something totally different?
It's what makes life, and living, so damn interesting. Okay, admittedly, also frustrating sometimes, but, hey, what do we want? Eggs with our beer? ( Sorry, today a quite obscure reference, but one I still use a lot ).
Over the years, I think I can safely say I have read thousands of books, journals, articles, essays, and reports. That is probably a conservative estimate. I have forgotten literally thousands more than I can recall. I always try to approach any new read with as open a mind as I can muster, though at my current age, I do need to use great caution with that. A open mind may be essential to understanding a multitude of theories, plots, and ideals, but -- leaving one's mind too open can cause leakage as well. Sometimes, you can leak valuable information. Care must be taken!
Of course, I have developed preferences when it comes to books. First, fiction over non-fiction, unless the subject -- or, the author -- is of particular interest to me already. Authors are at one and the same time the most important, and the most difficult to replace, now that I have reached an age where many of my favorite authors are no longer with us. This entails a search for new authors, and that can be very expensive and time consuming. A hint here : libraries. Absolute essential for those who love to read. So, some of my favorite authors, whom I have read, and read, and read again.
Stephen King, who is thankfully still with us, and whose range is fantastic. Of course, I prefer when he sticks to the supernatural, but his attention to character ( i.e., characters I can quickly and easily identify with ) constantly amazes me. Sometimes I almost wonder if he isn't me. A brother from another mother, so to speak. I still remember the first book of his I read : Carrie. I was hooked, and never looked back. I will always consider his novel The Stand as a modern literary masterpiece.
Others whose work I either follow, or have followed : Mark Twain. Oscar Wilde. Rex Stout (Nero Wolfe ). Agatha Christie ( Poirot, and Tommy & Tuppence ). Ian Fleming. Gregory McDonald ( Fletch, and Flynn series ). H. P. Lovecraft. Ray Bradbury. Lincoln Preston and Lee Child ( Agent Pendergast ). Dave Barry ( both syndicated column and books ). Stephen Hunter ( The Swagger novels ). Jonathan Howard ( Johannes Cabal, Necromancer series ). M.R.C. Kasasian ( Gower St. Detectives ). Arthur Conan Doyle ( of course, Sherlock Holmes ). Groucho Marx ( yes, he delivered humor in writing as well as he did in speaking ). Roger Kahn ( Boys of Summer and many other wonderful baseball books ). Andrej Sapkowski ( creator of Geralt, The Witcher ). W.P. Kinsella ( Shoeless Joe and other baseball classics ). Neil Gaiman ( his imagination seems to have no boundaries ). Dashiell Hammett ( The Thin Man, and Sam Spade and Continental Op stories ) . I have likely left out a few I haven't read in years.
Writing fiction is a craft. It is art. Many think you need higher education to be a writer. I disagree. Certainly, you need to understand sentence construction and grammar, punctuation, and be able to spell properly. But those are not hard and fast rules, either. You really cannot teach writing. Writers are storytellers, first and foremost. For me, that is the secret to good writing ; telling a good story. If you know someone who is a good storyteller, chances are, they'd make a fine writer of the same stories. Being a good storyteller is a gift. Not everyone has that gift. It is a creative talent. We all have one, though many of us never realize our personal ones. From those to whom it becomes a passion, we get unforgettable works. Where education comes into play is being able to discern which stories should be told. And which shouldn't.
For me, too, certain books stand out in my memory. Almost all I have read more than once. They are tales which had a profound impact on me, for one reason or another. Among those are : Steinbeck's 'Of Mice and Men'. Hemingway's 'For Whom the Bell Tolls'. Bram Stoker's 'Dracula'. Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein, or, the Modern Prometheus' of course. Ian Fleming's 'From Russia With Love'. Ring Lardner's 'You Know Me, Al'. W.P. Kinsella's 'Shoeless Joe' ( from which the film 'Field of Dreams' was later made ). Conan Doyle's 'The Hound of the Baskervilles' ( my first Holmes' story, thereafter I was hooked ). Stephen King's 'Pet Sematary' ( the very first supernatural tale that actually scared me, for personal reasons ). Shirley Jackson's 'The Haunting of Hill House'. Harper Lee's 'To Kill A Mockingbird'. Stephen King's 'The Stand'. Ray Bradbury's 'Something Wicked This Way Comes'. Stephen King's 'The Body' ( later made into the film 'Stand By Me' ). Anne Rice's 'Interview With The Vampire' (interestingly, this was the only one of Rice's vampire or werewolf novels that stood out for me. Sadly, for my tastes, she gets way too distracted with descriptive tendencies, not something which aids my interest in the story at all. I've read several of her books, but, in general, I skip around 150-200 pages in each due to this. Oh, and the film made from this? Eminently forgettable, save the performance of Kirsten Dunst as the child-turned-vampire. ). Walter Lord's 'A Time To Stand' ( historical fiction/non-fiction story of the defense and fall of The Alamo ). Stephen E. Ambrose's 'Band of Brothers' ( from which the HBO miniseries of the same name was made ).
Genres. I have my preferences there, also. Makes it difficult to find books that interest me, truthfully, as we seem to have created so many sub genres that it gets confusing as Hell. Generally, I group my interests as follows : the Supernatural ( this can include sci fi, fantasy, horror, fiction and non-fiction ) ; Mystery (covering a multitude of sub genres, but usually fiction ) ; True Crime ( again, covering a multitude of sub genres ) ; Biographical ( fiction or non-fiction ).
Books meeting that criteria will usually generate my interest. What can keep me coming back for more from the same authors are : Character Development. Are the characters interesting to me? Can I find one I can identify with? For that, they need a sense of humor, first and foremost ; humor is tantamount. Are they logical, fair, but damned good at lying if the need arises? Arrogant, or humble? Arrogance in a main character will kill my interest quickly--unless it is arrogance tempered with self-effacing humor. After all this comes, the story. Ye Olde Plot. The timeline ; don't be jumping around from era to era without some warning. My mind tends to wander ; keep me focused. The ending. These, especially in the last couple of decades, generally are unsatisfying at best. Too often left open-ended. Nothing stops me quicker than a ending that leaves me going 'huh? I just read 300 pages and all I got was a lousy 3 paragraphs describing a sunset?'.
That sort of ending is for short stories : my final genre, so to speak. Here, I am more discerning. Short story anthologies. First and foremost, they must be oriented in the supernatural. From that point, anything goes. Short stories may be the most difficult to write ; the reader must be 'hooked' quickly, within the first paragraph or even sentence. Not a easy thing to do. However, short story anthologies are perhaps the best way to discover new writers one might enjoy.
So, there we have it. My own personal love of reading. We all have our preferences, of those who read. I wish more people did. Those who don't really have no idea what they are missing, as there are entire worlds out there they just might enjoy, as well as becoming more able to comprehend the things we all do read now given our social media society. Reading can be a education in and of itself. The written word is deeper and richer than any film could ever be, yet can help also in enjoying the film reproduction of a written work. Plus, it does not matter if two people can read the same work and come away with a different comprehension of the work ; what a story might mean is indeed determined more by the reader than the author. While I have listed many of my own preferences, I am not recommending any of them to others, nor am I not recommending them.
Just as with me, it is up to you, the reader, to decide. So, thus endeth this somewhat drier-than-normal little essay of mine. If you have made it this far, I thank you for reading. Now, I am off to find another story that begins with my favorite beginning : 'I died.' And let the tale commence!
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