What I Like To Read

It’s a natural question to ask a book reviewer. Every time I’m asked, I wish I had a more compact answer ready. The most important thing, though, is the fact that I am open to reading, and reviewing, outside of my typical, default reading habits. Although I have tendencies, I enjoy the challenge of reading outside of them, and trying to articulate my sense of what I’ve read.

I like well-written prose with a strong sense of history or place. That’s true of anything- fiction, nonfiction, mystery. I focus on characters. I prefer characters who have redeeming qualities (or a reason to be elegantly, mythically villainous.)

I am very fond of travel writing and food writing, especially with rich detail and humor.  (My funny bone is skewed towards language-rich wordplay and puns, and also British and Irish humor.)

I like using fiction and literary nonfiction to explore unfamiliar knowledge bases. Kathy Reichs is a current favorite mystery writer, as is Aaron Elkins. People keep telling me to check out Patricia Cornwell, but I haven’t yet.

I like some genre fiction, science fiction and fantasy, but I can be picky about it. It needs to be strongly character-driven, and believably humanistic. (Though that’s a strange adjective when you might be dealing with interstellar creatures.) I like speculative fiction as a clever mirror held up to larger questions about our own society. I have read a fair amount of Orson Scott Card, some Heinlein, and I keep meaning to read both Bradbury and Asimov.

I have tremendous respect for Young Adult books. There’s a lot of innovative, clear, concise writing with strong, believable characters, both in mainstream and speculative fiction aspects of the genre. I think Diane Duane’s Young Wizard series is a more interesting vision of wizardry than the Harry Potter books, because it posits wizardry in a more real-world setting.