So Many Books So Little Time

I wish I were a faster reader. Unfortunately not only am I a slow reader, but since I like to learn as I read I often pause to reread a line or scene, or to think about a character action and wonder why it’s working for me, why it was included in the story at all, or what the author is trying to do. That slows me down even more.

But reading is one of the things I love to do, especially between projects.

At the moment I have my “car book” which stays in my car for those times I’m picking someone up and have to wait or if I arrive too early at an appointment and have a few minutes to kill. I always have something with me to read. The book in the car for the time being is Jane Eyre. I love the details, the emotion Bronte evokes. There’s definitely a reason this is a classic!

I also have my bedside book, because even though I’m usually exhausted at the end of the day (coming earlier as I’m getting older!) I like to read a little before going to sleep.

I also have my Kindle, which I love. When my daughter hasn’t commandeered it for her own use, I usually have a whole different book on that which I read while I’m waiting for my son’s bus from either the porch on nice days or from a front window inside. (Because of his disability, the bus comes right to the driveway.) I also use the Kindle to go through the final draft of whatever book I’m writing, since I can send it to my Kindle account. It’s a great resource because my manuscripts have a whole different “feel” depending on the venue. On the computer screen they feel one way, on paper another, in bound book form yet another. Reading my final drafts on the Kindle is the closest “feel” to the bound book.

So what am I reading at the moment, besides Jane Eyre? I’ve just finished an old Jodi Picoult book, and I started but ended up only skimming through an Iris Murdoch book (great writing, but the characters just weren’t likable enough for me). I’ve just begun a really fun book by an English author called If You Could See Me Now by Cecelia Ahern. Between Picoult’s Finding Faith and this one, I seem to be in an Imaginary Friend season of books—although these books have nothing else in common. Last week I finished Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen (really sharp, tight writing). This is one I almost put down a couple of times. As a Christian, I sometimes have a hard time reading secular books because the content can be downright ugly or the language offensive. There have definitely been times I just couldn’t finish a book, no matter how compelling the writing, if elements in the book are too graphic. But I did finish this one because the writing is just so clear and concise I knew I could learn from this author. And it was worth it because I loved the ending.

I think it’s important to read things that are considered excellent in our society. Sometimes the writing isn’t so great, but the storyline makes up for it. Sometimes the writing is spectacular but the plot is weak. Or the plot is strong and the characters weak. It’s rare when all of it works, as it did with something like Peace Like a River, but it does happen. Usually, though, an author has an area in which they’re really strong. It’s my job as an author-reader to identify the strongest elements and see what I can learn.

But, since I am a slow reader and my time always seems to be limited, I’m one of those readers who won’t finish a book if it isn’t entertaining me or teaching me something. My sister is the kind of reader who will stick with something. She’s reading one right now, well over a hundred pages into it, and she says it’s one of the most boring books she’s read in a long time. I’d have given up on it long before that, but she tells me she’s waiting for it to “get good.”

Whew. Think about that a moment. It would be nice to have such loyal readers, trusting an author so much that they’ll give us that kind of time and patience. But this makes me want to go back over my manuscript yet again and make sure I’m not going to make my readers wait for the good parts.

So it’s back to work for me…