Tag: amreading

Reading For Writing

~ Meg ~ 87 Comments

I’m not one for making resolutions. However, I don’t avoid them if they seem like worthy goals. In that spirit, I have been taking on the Goodreads reading challenge each year. Personally, I think writers ought to be avid readers, as well. Reading is what inspired me to try writing so why on earth would I give it up?

Nevertheless, the more involved I’ve become in writing and blogging, the less time I’ve devoted to my books. Last year, I set the goal of reading 25 books for the Goodreads challenge: 2 per month (plus one). I am sorry to say, I fell short by 5 books. But with researching for my writing, I still did a lot of reading. At any rate, this year, I’ve lowered the bar to 20 books and I thought I’d share the ones I’ve chosen to read:

  1. A Line In the Sand – The Anglo-French Struggle For the Middle East, 1914-1918; James Barr
  2. Living – Henry Green
  3. Loving – Henry Green
  4. Party Going – Henry Green
  5. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
  6. Down and Out In Paris and London – George Orwell
  7. Storm Of Steel – Ernst Junger
  8. Devil’s Brood – Sharon Kay Penman
  9. The Man In the High Castle – Philip K. Dick
  10. The Mother Tongue – Bill Bryson
  11. The Gods of Guilt – Michael Connelly
  12. Princess Margaret: A Biography – Theo Aronson
  13. The Collected Poems of Ivor Gurney
  14. Blue Mars – Kim Stanley Robinson
  15. A Farewell To Arms – Ernest Hemingway
  16. Garden Of Lies – Eileen Goudge
  17. On Writing; A Memoir of the Craft – Stephen King
  18. W. B. Yeats and the Muses – Joseph Hassett (started, but not finished)
  19. The Crimes of Love – The Marquis de Sade (started but not finished)
  20. The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath (started but not finished)

If I manage that, I will clear the precariously stacked pile on my bedside table! Yes, I still read paper books. I consume books in three formats, actually: paper, e-book and audio-book. I also usually have several going at the same time. For example, I listen to an audiobook while exercising, read one non-fiction/biography and one fiction book all at once. As long as I keep the genres distinct, I can keep from getting them confused.

So, my writer friends, what are you reading this year?

Artwork: ‘Serenity’ – Sheree Valentine Daines