I've been thinking lately of how I miss having the opportunity to read advanced copies of new books on the market. I read the now ubiquitous Hunger Games
as an advanced reader (the original ARC is still on my shelf) and even blogged about it once upon a time.
I still read books in advance of when they come out, but they are now always the books my company publishes. There is a sense of anxiousness about those readings; they are as much to catch unnoticed errors as they are to become familiar with the material.
At one time, I almost considered myself a sort of book consultant, offering a broad literary perspective for uncertain readers. Pointing the way toward as-yet-undiscovered works of fiction (or non-fiction) for those who have not learned the careful art of browsing. It was arrogant, I know, but I was a bookseller. As with so many things, it was always so much easier to choose for others than for myself, and I was often amazed at how many books my friends could read through in a month - or even a year - when I, the book aficionado, could barely make it through a small handful.
Last year was a barren year in my reading for pleasure. Apart from the works I published, I read three books - all young adult novels and all read within two months of each other. I was a certain kind of depressed. I was also stuck in a rut.
I have often wondered why literary fiction is one of the hardest categories of books to sell, assuming that it is my own category of choice. But I did not realize that it has been a very long time since I've read any real literary fiction. I want to write it someday, but I do not read it. And this is odd.
Here are some literary fiction works I would like to read someday soon, books I've been looking at and acknowledging somewhere in the back of my mind that they are "for me." Some old, some new . . . just a few:
The Magicians
City of Thieves
The Blind Assassin
Divisadero
Against the Day
as an advanced reader (the original ARC is still on my shelf) and even blogged about it once upon a time.I still read books in advance of when they come out, but they are now always the books my company publishes. There is a sense of anxiousness about those readings; they are as much to catch unnoticed errors as they are to become familiar with the material.
At one time, I almost considered myself a sort of book consultant, offering a broad literary perspective for uncertain readers. Pointing the way toward as-yet-undiscovered works of fiction (or non-fiction) for those who have not learned the careful art of browsing. It was arrogant, I know, but I was a bookseller. As with so many things, it was always so much easier to choose for others than for myself, and I was often amazed at how many books my friends could read through in a month - or even a year - when I, the book aficionado, could barely make it through a small handful.
Last year was a barren year in my reading for pleasure. Apart from the works I published, I read three books - all young adult novels and all read within two months of each other. I was a certain kind of depressed. I was also stuck in a rut.
I have often wondered why literary fiction is one of the hardest categories of books to sell, assuming that it is my own category of choice. But I did not realize that it has been a very long time since I've read any real literary fiction. I want to write it someday, but I do not read it. And this is odd.
Here are some literary fiction works I would like to read someday soon, books I've been looking at and acknowledging somewhere in the back of my mind that they are "for me." Some old, some new . . . just a few:
The Magicians
City of Thieves
The Blind Assassin
Divisadero
Against the Day
those days will come again...
ReplyDeleteYes, the Blind Assassin is one of my favorites!
ReplyDelete