New Book Tactic
For many years, I just grabbed whatever book I saw at the library that looked interesting. I would buy books at bag sales based on what looked interesting. The end result was that I read a lot of crappy books.
Now I mostly only get books from the library, and then only ones that I have specifically requested because it ended up on my list via a personal recommendation, a good review or the like. The end result was that the percentage of crappy books that I read dropped dramatically. This process was helped when I resolved to read more classic books, with a slight assist from my more recent focus on really long classic books while traveling.
The quality of the books I read has gone up significantly, but that doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement. Like most literate people, I have a list of authors that I particularly enjoy. For a few of them, I want to read everything they wrote. For others, I don't know if I want to read everything but I definitely want to read more. Right now, my approach to those authors has been a somewhat haphazard "when I remember." Life is short, and the book list is long, so I thought I might help it along.
I have therefore accordingly made a list of these authors and put that list at the top of my slush pile file. Every time I put books on hold at the library (which pragmatically means every two weeks), I ate reserve one book from the top author on the list and then move that author to the bottom of the list. I have been using this approach for two months and thus far have had good success.
You're probably wondering which authors actually made this list. Here they are:
I Want to Read Everything
John Steinbeck
Stephen King
Bill Bryson
Cormac McCarthy
I Definitely Want to Read More
Studs Terkel
Lionel Shriver
Charles Dickens
Ernest Hemingway
James Ellroy
Haruki Murakami
Margaret Atwood
Kurt Vonnegut
Tom Robbins
I Have Already Read Everything, and I Definitely Want More
Jhumpa Lahiri
Lois McMaster Bujold
And of course there's also my Shakespeare resolution, but I own the complete works so I don't need to get him from the library.
The only thing particularly problematic about this list is the preponderance of white male authors. I'm in favor of the comparatively recent movement to read more authors who are not in that standard box, but thus far none of the ones I have tried have made it on to this "read it all / read a lot more" list. That leaves me with four woman (one Indian) and one Japanese man, and I've already read everything by Lahiri and Bujold. I'll make an extra effort to pull my other books out of the wider female/minority authors, but I keep doing poorly at this because I mostly add books to my list because the topic sounds interesting, and often don't even notice the author until I get it home from the library. It's something to work on.
Now I mostly only get books from the library, and then only ones that I have specifically requested because it ended up on my list via a personal recommendation, a good review or the like. The end result was that the percentage of crappy books that I read dropped dramatically. This process was helped when I resolved to read more classic books, with a slight assist from my more recent focus on really long classic books while traveling.
The quality of the books I read has gone up significantly, but that doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement. Like most literate people, I have a list of authors that I particularly enjoy. For a few of them, I want to read everything they wrote. For others, I don't know if I want to read everything but I definitely want to read more. Right now, my approach to those authors has been a somewhat haphazard "when I remember." Life is short, and the book list is long, so I thought I might help it along.
I have therefore accordingly made a list of these authors and put that list at the top of my slush pile file. Every time I put books on hold at the library (which pragmatically means every two weeks), I ate reserve one book from the top author on the list and then move that author to the bottom of the list. I have been using this approach for two months and thus far have had good success.
You're probably wondering which authors actually made this list. Here they are:
I Want to Read Everything
John Steinbeck
Stephen King
Bill Bryson
Cormac McCarthy
I Definitely Want to Read More
Studs Terkel
Lionel Shriver
Charles Dickens
Ernest Hemingway
James Ellroy
Haruki Murakami
Margaret Atwood
Kurt Vonnegut
Tom Robbins
I Have Already Read Everything, and I Definitely Want More
Jhumpa Lahiri
Lois McMaster Bujold
And of course there's also my Shakespeare resolution, but I own the complete works so I don't need to get him from the library.
The only thing particularly problematic about this list is the preponderance of white male authors. I'm in favor of the comparatively recent movement to read more authors who are not in that standard box, but thus far none of the ones I have tried have made it on to this "read it all / read a lot more" list. That leaves me with four woman (one Indian) and one Japanese man, and I've already read everything by Lahiri and Bujold. I'll make an extra effort to pull my other books out of the wider female/minority authors, but I keep doing poorly at this because I mostly add books to my list because the topic sounds interesting, and often don't even notice the author until I get it home from the library. It's something to work on.