Reader

[coalescent]

Gwenda Bond asks, "So. What kind of reader are you?" Various people have answered.

I am:

A greedy reader. I want to have read everything, all of it. Not just the sf, actually all of it. Just most of the time, I want to read the sf first--although saying that, I've barely read any sf for the past month (and I haven't read a new genre sf novel yet this year, although of course that allows for me to have read old genre sf novels, new non-genre sf novels, and new genre short fiction, all of which I've done).

A planning reader, like Jonathan. There is always a pile of things waiting to be read. At the moment it's an actual literal pile--remember how I asked for suggestions of things to read back in January? I've read, er, two of them. But I haven't forgotten--in times past it's sometimes been more theoretical. But it's always there.

A contextualising reader. This is a more recent development, and one of the reasons I'm reading more non-sf. It's still the sf I want to write about, but increasingly I don't feel qualified to do that unless I know the non-sf context as well as the sf context. When I know neither, as in the case of River of Gods (not read Stand on Zanzibar; not read Midnight's Children, although I've tried), and have to discuss a book entirely in its own terms, I get distinctly uncomfortable. It's why I am at the moment reading, for instance, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe; Dan suggested it might make some interesting comparisons with Air.

A stubborn reader, and a forgiving reader. It's very, very rare that I don't finish a book, because in most cases there's something I like about it and in the rest I just don't want to admit defeat, dammit. Pride and Prejudice and, as mentioned, Midnight's Children have both defeated me, but I can't think of much else. This ties in with the planning reader, though--I will resist starting a big project, like The Baroque Cycle or ilium/Olympos, until I know I have a clear run at completing it. Which can mean that I never start.

An evangelical reader. I love recommending books. I love recommending many things, actually, but the buzz when someone reads a book at least in part because I talked about it is pretty cool (two today for River of Gods). Heck, it's a large part of why I ever started writing reviews of anything in the first place. I lend books easily; I'm not a collector. I may wince when I see that the binding on my hardback of River of Gods is falling to pieces, but I'd rather know that it's been read by eight (I think) people who like it than have a pristine copy sitting on my shelf wrapped in plastic.

So, that's me. What kind of a reader are you?

Comments

[brisingamen.livejournal.com]

At the risk of embarrassing you, you're also a passionate reader (not quite the same, I think, as an evangelical reader); I find it very energising to encounter people like you, not least because I have been ...

a jaded reader. Not tired of reading, per se, but for a while it became an effort to read anything. I'm not sure why other than that reading for work sometimes makes it hard to read for oneself as well.

And at present I'm a frustrated reader because I have reading lists I must pay attention to and a finite amount of time available. I have been fortunate this year to read things I have thoroughly enjoyed, but they were chosen for me. I am living for a week tomorrow, when I can choose my own reading again for a while. Clarke shortlist, here I come, etc.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

I do have occasional periods of being slightly jaded. I go from novels to shorts, or the other way, or abandon writing and watch lots of tv for a month, or something. I haven't quite reached the point of having a non-fiction month yet, but I'm sure it's only a matter of time. Mixing it up occasionally is good, I think. But yeah, passionate is probably fairly accurate; for whatever reason, this stuff matters to me. :)

[brisingamen.livejournal.com]

Meant to say, I'm going to be interested, in the light of your comment about Pride and Prejudice to see what you make of Persuasion. Nothing wrong with P&P but it does seem to be the one where everyone starts and it's not necessarily the best way in to Austen's work. I read P&P as a teenager and frankly could not see the point of it. (I still don't see Austen as a romantic writer, more as a sharp social observer and satirist – and like Dave Langford, I stand in awe of her wonderfully acerbic turn of phrase.) I returned to Austen about three years ago, as course work, funnily enough, and became sufficiently addicted to sit down and read the lot, one after another, and to write an essay on Jane Austen and her use of gendered space (though if I ever become a Janeite, just shoot me, please). Persuasion is the one I know least well but the one that fascinates me most; much darker, I think, than some of the others.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Meant to say, I'm going to be interested, in the light of your comment about Pride and Prejudice to see what you make of Persuasion.

That makes two of us, then. :)

Persuasion is the one I know least well but the one that fascinates me most; much darker, I think, than some of the others.

Sounds good so far. The reason I picked it is that the characters in The Jane Austen Book Club made it sound the most interesting; I don't think I've ever taken the recommendation of a fictional person before.

Sidenote

[applez.livejournal.com]

You really should read Things Fall Apart, a damn fine example of cultural dislocation...partially echoed by the rapid changes of agricultural politics in one short story in Evolution, incidentally. Would not recommend subsequent Achebe books as necessary, though are quite good follow-up novels.

As for delving into human motives and failings, I recommend the admittedly painful-to-enter Heart of Darkness. Which, with some socio-pol books like Exterminate All the Brutes plays an interesting harmony with themes explored in books like Forever War and Ender's Game.

Re: Sidenote

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

You really should read Things Fall Apart,

Thanks to the kind loan of cellardoor28 I am reading it right now. Well, not right now, but YKWIM. Up to about p30.

As for delving into human motives and failings, I recommend the admittedly painful-to-enter Heart of Darkness.

Read it last year. :) It made me think, but I don't know how much I actually liked it. One for a re-read at some point, I suspect.

I am...

[applez.livejournal.com]

...or rather, have become a parasitic reader.

I used to be a dedicated avaricious all-consuming obsessive reader that had to complete every last dull episode in the utterly industrial pulp of Forgotten Realms* or Dragonlance* shyte ... which evolved into Piers Anthony* shyte ... which shifted into Herbert and Heinlein not-as-shyte. I was very loyal to my genres, and had very little interest in Stephen King horror-fic, even as I loved the RPG tie-ins in other equally-shyte novelisations. I suppose this means I came to proper sci-fi fairly late, perhaps due to abortive attempts at reading Foundation at far too young an age.

But, as I stated, I've moved on ... but simply haven't the time I had before to invest in such novels. So I quite knowingly and willingly pick off the best titles others recommend (namely OUSFGi recommendations) to make best use of my time. That said, my reading goes in fits and starts...months may pass when I read nothing at all, other months I manage to read a bit on the bus, or before going to sleep, other months I can do nothing but read.

Thankfully Larissa's been great recently - helping me keep the TV off, and the pages turning when the sun shines through the windows.

*In case you couldn't guess, I did go through a clearing of the bookshelves recently, and sent a whole lot of that crap into boxes to moulder in the basement. I'll get it on to a charity booksale at some point. OUSFG want some crap? ;-) Nice plastic covers on some of them, yes, yes. :-)

---

Incidentally, would gratefully accept recommendations for online Big Print and Audiobook retaillers - am generally appalled at the lack of good sci-fi titles out there, even HHGttG for Slartibartfast's Sake! ;-)

Re: I am...

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

I used to be a dedicated avaricious all-consuming obsessive reader that had to complete every last dull episode in the utterly industrial pulp of Forgotten Realms* or Dragonlance* shyte

Oh, that was early-and-to-an-extent-mid-teens-me through and through! It's amazing how many people went through a Dragonlance phase--even Ian McDonald confessed to it.

Can't help with large print or audiobooks, I'm afraid.

[kalorlo.livejournal.com]

For the last few years, I've been a fickle reader. I haven't read very much at all, and things that I have been reading often got interrupted by something or other and left malingering. I haven't been to the library in years - we used to go as a family every three weeks and get out a chunk of books each. Then we grew up and I never got round to going on my own. University took up lots of my time. I'm also a hoarding reader - I buy books and have them in piles until I eventually shelve them, but don't actually get round to reading them... And they're ones that I *know* are good and that I'll like.

I used to read voraciously, but my reading of books seems to have morphed into reading of the internet. I'll read chunks of fiction online now and then, and it's nice when it gets delivered freshly-written to my friends list, though if it vanishes off the bottom before I read it, chances are I won't even if I keep reminding myself to do so. The things I'm currently wanting to read are things I've read before, not my piles of new books. It's odd.

(I'm going to try and read Persuasion, though. Because I like P&P and it's easier for me to get myself to do something if it involves some vague obligation to other people).

[pikelet.livejournal.com]

I am intermittent.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

I blame Wales.

[tinimaus.livejournal.com]

And therefore hard to diagnose...

[white_hart]

I'm a struggling reader. I find it so difficult to find the time and calmness of mind required to sink into a book. As a once-voracious reader, I find it incredibly frustrating to watch the list of books I want to read grow and grow, while the list of books I have read inches up at a snail's pace. I'm not sure I ever really recovered the knack of reading for pleasure after doing my degree, and I find so many other things more relaxing these days - knitting, cooking, walking. But I don't want to turn into someone who doesn't read, so I persevere, and occasionally find a gem of a book that I actually do enjoy, which does make it worth while.

[applez.livejournal.com]

I have to say, finding the 'reading for pleasure' vein was difficult, but a period of unemployment seriously helped me. :-)

[astromachy.livejournal.com]

A stubborn reader, and a forgiving reader. It's very, very rare that I don't finish a book, because in most cases there's something I like about it and in the rest I just don't want to admit defeat, dammit.

Yep, same here. I truly regretted this the time I decided to pick the uncut Moby Dick for a reading project at school...

[veggiesu.livejournal.com]

In brief, as it's late and I'm tired (again):
I'm an eclectic reader: OK, I have my preferred authors and genres, but I'll give pretty much anything save Barbara Cartland a go. i won't guarantee to enjoy it, but I rarely rule out books or genres or authors on principle.
I'm a stubborn reader: like you, I rarely fail to finish a book I start, although sometimes I have to put it to one side and return to it months later. Somehow it just feels *wrong* to give up on a book.
I'm a fast reader: OK, apart from Perdido Street Station :-p And I'm not the fastest reader, by a long shot - but I read Shogun in less than a week (a few hours per day; I was at college back then), and I read about a dozen - fifteen books in a fortnight last time I was on holiday, which is about normal for me.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

I'm a fast reader

I'm a jealous reader. /pred

[dev-iant.livejournal.com]

I'm an eclectic reader

I think I'd call you an open-minded reader, rather than eclectic (although that may be the case as well). I like to think of myself as an open-minded reader, but slow is probably more to the point.

[communicator.livejournal.com]

I think to know what sort of reader you are, one has to be somewhat self-conscious about one's reading. You have to think about what other poeple do, and compare yourself. Am I slower? Am I broader? All of us read much, more more than average. Do we compare ourselves with that average, or with each other, or with the wide community of readers, genre and literary and mass market?

[communicator.livejournal.com]

Anyway, despite that, I've answered the quesiton on my blog. I think I'm lazy, strong, prickly, casual, passionate and hypnotised.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Do we compare ourselves with that average

No. The average read The Da Vinci Code and liked it, remember. ;-)

I think (as you say in your post) that you have to pick qualities that are not dependent on comparison. I think most of mine are--it doesn't matter whether someone plans more than me, or is less stubborn than me, or is even greedier than me. I can still be all of those things.

[despotliz.livejournal.com]

I am a paperback reader. I don't like hardbacks, because they're too big and unwieldy and they don't fit in my monkey bag properly, and when they get bashed about I don't like it. A lot of my paperbacks are floppy and dog eared and beach-stained and I love them.

I'm an impressionable reader, and if you give me a book and tell me it's good I will read it. Eventually.

I'm a fast reader - a three-hour bus journey was just enough time to read a mid-sized novel.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

I don't like hardbacks

Tsk!

I'm an impressionable reader, and if you give me a book and tell me it's good I will read it.

I'm not sure how easily led I am. I like having things recommended to me, and I definitely make plans to read some books just to 'keep up' with 'Them', but most of the time it seems that books in those two categories are, if not left by the wayside entirely, slow to reach the top of the pile. I have things I've borrowed from Geneva for over a year, for instance.

[chance88088.livejournal.com]

*want cute monkey bag*

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

I don't like hardbacks,

So rightheaded.