What Do You Read?

Recently I had a reader reach out to me to tell me how much she enjoyed my blog posts. She also had a suggestion for a future blog post, should I consider it. She said she was really interested in what I, personally, like to read. I had to giggle at this, because I’m kind of an odd person. But I liked her idea! So I whole heartedly agreed to write a blog about what kind of books I like and what I normally read.

Since publishing my book The Gathering Room I have found myself in a lot more conversations with people about books and authors then I’ve ever been in before. Frequently I am asked if I have read such and such a book by so and so the author. I always have to shake my head no. Oh but certainly you must have read this and that? Nope, never heard of it. I have seen the dismay and sometimes even disappointment on people’s faces when I can’t relate to some currently best selling author that they know every detail about and I’ve never heard of. Sometimes I have to admit I feel like I’m not part of the “in” crowd.

A perfect example of this is Colleen Hoover. When my book came out last fall I had no idea who Colleen Hoover was, never heard of her. And yet Colleen Hoover’s name is mentioned to me again and again when people talk to me about my book. Apparently we have a similar writing style. So I did an internet search and found out that she is like the current best selling author in the country. She’s a pretty big deal I guess. I’m sorry I did not know who she is. She’s obviously successful so I like being compared to her! But you can imagine my great surprise just last week when I was scrolling through my reviews on GoodReads (yes I do that!) and I spotted this.

This is a screenshot of a reader who shares the books they have read, on the website GoodReads. I don’t know who this reader is, and honestly a year after the release of my book anyone close to me or any member of my family has already read my book. So this reader is a perfect stranger giving an honest assessment of my book, 5 stars! Thank you very much! But if you notice the book this reader read just before mine was a Colleen Hoover book. In fact it’s her New York Times Best Selling novel This Starts With Us, the one I believe they are turning into a movie. This reader gave Colleen’s book only 3 stars. Just as I had no idea who Colleen Hoover was, I can pretty much guarantee that she has no idea who I am!! But, at least according to this reader, my book was the better of the two. I’ll take it! It’s one thing to have people tell you that your writing style is similar to someone else who is hugely successful, it’s another to see a comparison like this. Made my day!

So if I don’t know who the most popular authors in the country are, if I can’t rattle off the titles of the best selling books of the year, then what exactly am I reading? Well the rest of this blog might surprise you!

My number one favorite reading material of all time, and it’s something I read daily, are

That’s right, the Obituaries. I read the obituaries from the Bangor Daily News online, every single morning. And then on Thursdays my husband brings home The Townline Newspaper and I read those immediately. Call me morbid but I just find reading about people’s lives absolutely fascinating! I have read the obituaries for as long as I can remember. No seriously, my whole childhood the newspaper was delivered and the only thing I ever read in it, day after day, was the obituaries, Dear Abby and the comics. So I guess with an interest background like that its’ no wonder I wrote a best selling novel about a ghost huh?

But lots of people read the obituaries every day, that’s why they are printed in the newspaper! So I’m probably not that eccentric. But along this line is my second favorite choice in reading material.

The Maine Genealogist is a quarterly publication put out by The Maine Genealogical Society and is eagerly awaited here at my house. I will literally spend hours reading the abstracts of wills from the 1800’s. Because nothing fascinates me more then reading how people lived, then reading about what they left behind and who they left it to! Honestly I’m really not this morbid in person!

I think it’s safe to say that I enjoy reading anything about people that are dead.

Maybe the reason I don’t know to many current best selling fiction authors is because I don’t generally read fiction. It’s not that I don’t enjoy fiction, I have, at certain times in my life, but if I’m going to sit and actually read I want to learn something so I tend to read non fiction more then anything else. The photo at the top of this blog is just a small section of my bookshelves at home that are crammed with all kinds of non fiction, history related books. I love the history of our country and the Civil War era. You get to far past 1870- ish and close to our own times and I lose all interest, that’s too modern for me. The older the better! This is my current read.

This isn’t exactly a light read. It’s full of detailed descriptions of the life of the Celts and their movements across Europe and into the British Isles going way back to 1700BC. It’s written in a pretty scholarly way but I still find it enjoyable, because, well….everyone is a dead I guess.

I think what I find interesting about this book currently is that it makes me feel connected to the people who built the Bleasdale Circle in England that I visited back in April. Although my next book will feature the Circle in it, I am not writing in a setting as ancient as Celts. But still I’m finding disappearing into the Celtic moment in history comforting and fascinating right now.

As for fiction I have read it in the past, and I suppose it shouldn’t shock any of you that I enjoy historical fiction. Some of my favorites, that still sit on my bookshelf more then 20 years after I read them are

Anything by John Jakes. It’s been decades since I opened these books but they are some of my all time favorites in historical fiction. They hold a special place of honor on my bookshelf and have been packed up and moved from house to house several times since I last read them. Will I ever read them again? I hope so and I hope I find them just as good as I remember them being.

Oldies but Goodies also include these from Dan Brown. I actually read these when they were newly released. A not so very common occurrence for me. See I don’t buy books like other people do. I don’t walk into Barnes & Noble and head for the “New Release” table. So to have actually read the Da Vinci Code when it was fresh off the presses was a bit of a stretch for me.

My usual way of acquiring books is not to find them at a bookstore. Nope, the most common way for me to acquire a book is to walk into Goodwill and find out what color tag is 50% off that day. Let’s say it’s blue. I then walk to the book section and scan the shelves for blue tags. If I spot one I will pull that book from the shelf and see if it interests me. The majority of the time I buy used books only when they are 50% off! I also buy books at yard sales. The Kennebec Valley Historical Society has a wonderful used book sale during the summer months and I will buy bag loads of books there. The book on the Celts that I’m reading now I got at a library that was giving books away free! We won’t tell Craig how many books I brought home!

Because I’m buying used books the majority of the time it means I’m reading books that are years, sometimes even decades old. Which is the explanation of why, although I’m reading every day, I had no idea who Colleen Hoover was! Maybe I’ll read her books in 2043! This was the case with Outlander by Diana Gabaldon.

I first became aware of Outlander, as a used book, twenty years after it’s original publication! I then quickly read all of the books in the series and was right there as the author’s world began to explode with the Starz TV series and all things Outlander! It was thrilling at first, but as I tend to be more solitary than a follower of the masses, I lost interest in the whole thing once it caught on with everyone else. I’ve held on to these books for two reasons. One they are very good stories and very well written. But the most important reason I’m devoted to Diana Gabaldon is because when I sat down to write The Gathering Room I told myself that I wanted to write a story like Outlander. Not the Scottish, time traveling story but the way Diana writes, keeping you glued to the story page after page. I wanted to write something that a reader couldn’t put down and then was sad to see end because they wanted more! I wanted to write that kind of story because that is what Diana had done for me. I love it when readers tell me they couldn’t put my book down or they can hardly wait for me to finish my next book. Those are the times I think I have come close to the level of excellence Diana Gabaldon set.

Also new to me, but probably very familiar to everyone else is Ken Follett.

I found one of Ken’s books at a used book sale and in reading the back of the book realized it was part of a series. I spent a good hour pouring through all the bins in that barn trying to locate the rest of the books in that series! I haven’t read them yet, mainly because they are to close in time period to the prequel I’m currently writing. I don’t want my mind to be mixed up with someone else’s story when I’m trying to write my own! So I look forward to reading these when I’m done writing!

If I had to pick my favorite book of all time it would be this one. I first read Martha Ballard’s diary years ago. And I’ve returned to it over and over. It literally transports me to the banks of the Kennebec River during the late 1700’s and early 1800’s. For me this book is the perfect example of why we should write and exactly why I write, as I have kept a daily journal all of my life. Martha kept a diary with no other intent then to record her daily actions. Yet those humble pages turned into one of the most valuable pieces of historical documentation on the lives of women during that time period. I love this book.

So there you have it. I’m a morbidly cheap book buyer that prefers non fiction to fiction. When I do read fiction it’s historical fiction. I don’t read romances, trade paperbacks, or a thing I just became aware of, a “cozy”. I don’t read the current best sellers, instead preferring to find them decades later and enjoy them all by myself without all of the hoopla. I guess you can say I’m definitely not with the “in” crowd and I’m obviously very late to the party on most of these! But I like it that way. I have been inspired by some great authors and have written a book that is currently being compared to other great authors. So I’m happy with how things have turned out.

So now the question is, what do you like to read? Drop a comment on one of my social media platforms and let me know!