The Graveyard Game, Kage Baker
Dave Barry is Not Taking This Sitting Down!, Dave Barry
I'm a Stranger Here Myself, Bill Bryson
I am Jackie Chan!, Jackie Chan and numerous ghost writers
Wild Swans, Jung Chang
One Virgin Too Many, Lindsey Davis
The Charwoman's Shadow, Lord Dunsany
The King of Elfland's Daughter, Lord Dunsany
Face Down Upon An Herbal, Kathy Lynn Emerson
The Squire's Tale, Margaret Frazer
A Secret History, Mary Gentle
The Many Lives and Secret Sorrows of Josephine B., Sandra Gulland
A Curse of Silence, Laura Haney
Newton's Cannon, J. Gregory Keyes
A Calculus of Angels, J. Gregory Keyes
Empire of Unreason, J. Gregory Keyes
Armageddon Rag, George R. R. Martin
A Clash of Kings, George R. R. Martin
Fevre Dream, George R. R. Martin
The Ladies of Missalonghi, Colleen McCullough
Sailing to Byzantium, Robert Silverberg
Bagdad Sketchs, Freya Stark
Household Gods, Judith Tarr and Harry Turtledove
People of the Pharoahs, Hilary Wilson
Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny

Along with these books which I actually finished and in most cases totally loved, I also soldiered through about half of a Will McCarthy novel, Bloom, which I finally gave up on, and tackled four or five chapters of a book about the Marquis de Sade which I actually threw away -- I didn't know it was possible to be boring with such a subject. I also reread all four Harry Potter books and Colleen McCullough's Caesar's Women but I went through those while on vacation when I could spend an entire day reading, and occasionally did. I guess I could also include the textbooks I've had to read for my two classes as they definitely took up some free reading time, but I won't. The above list represents the way I spend my train time and lunch hours, and the occasional Saturday afternoon.

The point is I consume books. Some of those novels were 700 pages long. I'm not a speed reader, but I do read fast. The secret to my success (if one can call it that) is to skip unimportant words like articles. I tend to seek out the kernel of each paragraph and leave out the filler material. Sometimes this means I miss the carefully crafted ensemble, the exquisite beauty of the perfectly chosen word. I know quite well I'm doing the equivalent of gobbling my food. But that's how I like to read: fast, voracious, taking it all in with a rush of excitement at how wonderful the story is. And it had better keep my attention or out it goes. It doesn't bother me at all to leave a book half read.

Luckily for me that memory problem I mentioned a couple of entries ago stands me in good stead. I can reread a novel years later and enjoy it all over again. I recognise parts of the book, sure, but I'll have forgotten some of the intricacies of the plot, or I'll be going much more slowly and reading the bits I left out last time and thus get a new insight into what's going on. This is why I keep virtually all my books. If I liked them the first time, I'll like them the second and third time. Thus I tend to buy books instead of borrowing them from the library.

Thirteen of the 25 are sf or fantasy, three are essays (two travel, one humor, though Bill Bryson is both a travel essayist and incredibly humorous), one is straight history, three are biographies, four are mysteries, and one is mainstream fiction. I'd say that's a pretty typical spread although any given month I'm just as likely to read more history than biographies. And reading mainstream fiction is unusual at any time. I just don't like contemporary fiction much unless it's genre fiction like mysteries or science fiction. My experience with the fiction bookshelves is everything is about something bad that happens to someone. They have a terrible childhood which leads to tragic and violent events, or they are mistreated in a relationship and we have to get dragged through the whole degrading thing, or someone has a quirky or offbeat life which is out of step with society and they gradually come to terms with compromise but not before the author introduces abortion, incest, or appalling drug usage as a major plot arc. I don't want to read about other people having a miserable life, I really don't. If I were interested in that kind of thing I could go down to the local homeless shelter, or sit in a bar and listen, or just ride the bus. No thanks. I need pleasant escapism, not a brutal, depressing story about losers.

I'm guessing you already knew that about me. Maybe the surprise is that I ever select anything from the bookshelves at all. I'm picky, but there's lots of great stuff to read. I'm sure I'll have to read some of the brutal, depressing stuff for a literature class or two along the way as I pursue my degree, but for the most part I hope to avoid it. I can promise you right now I will never voluntarily read Dostoevsky again, or John Irving, or Arundhati Roy. I'm not claiming those authors aren't good writers. I'm simply saying I don't like those authors, and they represent a type of literature I find depressing and unpalatable.

A good writer, or rather a good writer that I am sure to like, makes me think and laugh. I can go for one without the other, but my very favorite authors provoke both responses. That's another reason to keep my books. I love knowing I can count on a book to give me what I need most.

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