Published on 12, July, 2020
Looking at other people's bookshelves is fascinating!
Do share a favourite book, or a book you would like to read one day.
Although I learned to read early, before I started school, I never really started reading books until my mid-20s. Then, when I scraped into uni at 28, I was force-fed them... and realised how much catching up I had to do! After that, for years I'd be reading all the time. I'd carry a book around with me like most people now carry phones. I'd read everywhere: on buses, in supermarket queues, in the loo (my favourite place!). For several years now, I haven't been able to read at all. But now it's starting to come back. I'm a slow reader. I know people who can read a whole novel in a few hours. But I like to savour the experience of reading, and take my time with a book. Even a short novel can take me a couple of weeks. Also, I can't sit for hours with a book. I need to take it in small bites! I'm fascinated by styles and effects that writers use, and will re-read passages over and over if they especially impress me. If I'm honest, too, I'm a big fan of style over content. If the story is flimsy, but the style grabs me, I'll read on. On the other hand, if the story looks really interesting but the style is bland... I can't carry on. I mainly read fiction, and short stories are my favourite form (Chekhov is the master!). Mainly American writers, too. I don't see much current British fiction that appeals. So much of it seems to be about the lives of the middle-classes, which doesn't interest me in the least! Favourite writers are Raymond Carver, Bukowski, John Steinbeck, John Cheever, Alice Munro. I like realism or naturalism. I'm not a fan of fantasy. I had to read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings at school and hated them! I also couldn't get on with Harry Potter. She's a hugely imaginative writer, but it's not my thing. I may try her Robert Braithwaite books sometime. I like a good thriller, and the hard-boiled stuff of writers like Raymond Chandler. I'm not widely-read, and have huge gaps in some of the stuff I think I really ought to have read. I find bookshops and libraries intimidating because of that! It's like being confronted with the mountain of my ignorance!
I don't have room for all my books in my tiny flat, so have boxes of them in the loft. I can't get rid of them. Here's a few of what I keep out, though...
I'm with you on Chekhov Tom. Until relatively recently I had a few years of being really into autobiography - Pepys, 32 years worth of Boswell's diaries and other writings, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, etc . I spent many happy hours boring the a**e off family members recounting events in the C17 and C18 (I'm sure I was the only happy one...). I found it impossible to go back to reading fiction of any length, which was very odd indeed as I've ploughed through an awful lot of fiction since an early age. But I do re-read Chekhov's stories now and again, also Barbara Pym and Anita Brookner.