Quote:
Originally Posted by DavidRM
Over the past few years, how I pick (or don't pick) what to read has evolved considerably. Before this, I used to spend too long in bookstores and library aisles trying to make sure that some genre book would be something I'd like. And I'd be wrong just about as often as I was right.
Now, the 2 most important criterion for what I read are:
1. Free is good.
2. The book cannot be actively trying to get away from me.
This has freed me considerably. Now I can go into the library fiction aisle (maybe a genre aisle, maybe not), grab 2 books at random and take them home. Odds are I'll like one of them--and no time wasted worrying about it. 
Because of this new approach, in the last 5-6 years I've read just about one of everything: classics of the 19th and 20th century literature, romance, sci-fi romance (which I didn't even know *existed* before I read one), police procedurals, true crime, crime, cozies, hard-boiled, hard sci-fi, epic fantasy, non-epic fantasy, YA, youth, horror, and more.
Oh, I also read books that I see mentioned in newspaper articles and blog posts that sound interesting (sometimes they even are), and generally will read anything a friend recommends (even if they later tell me that, no, they hadn't read The Devil Wears Prada, she just wanted to see if I would read it; I did).
I will read anything, pretty much. And I have. At random.
Anyone else do anything like this???
-David |
I wish we could get rid of the whole genre thing. I even hate the word. It's so limiting.
I never thought of going to the library and picking books at random. That's an idea...
But I do pick up books more or less by chance. A few times I went to the library looking for a specific author, didn't find them but ended up picking up another by an author that was close in alphabetical order to the one I was looking for. I also have a look at the librarian's recommendations (or the bookshop recommendations on the now rare occasions I visit a bookshop). And sometimes I read reviews in newspapers.
But I try never to pick up a book without reading a few lines at least from the content. I get angry reading a book I don't like, and angry is something I don't like getting (happens way too often already). So I try to take precautions, though it doesn't always work.