Shelved

I love to read, but if I'm going to spend the time doing it, I want to read things that are worthwhile. So while personal taste is the deciding factor, I rely a lot on other people's opinions when I pick out books to read. This might be recommendations from friends or family whose reading tastes I trust, or just the "knowability" of a book - if it seems like a book that everyone's read, I might consider it (depending on the book of course - sometimes that fact that everyone's reading it is a big turnoff). I like Amazon for the customer reviews - they give me a good sense of the strengths and weaknesses of a book, and I've used these reviews to make decisions to read books I didn't think I wanted to read (like The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan, one of the best nonfiction books I've ever read), and sometimes not to read.

Within the last few months I've also tried my hand a little at reviewing. I've written and posted some short blurbs in the customer reviews at Amazon, and a couple longer reviews. Recently I've stumbled across a couple book blogs from everyday people who happen to be avid readers, chronicling every book they read. It's probably impossible to find someone whose tastes match your own perfectly, but I've found a blog or two whose writers' tastes are close enough to mine that I can trust their reviews. And I just enjoy reading people's opinions of books.

Half the fun of reading is sharing your thoughts about what you've read with people who have read the same thing, thought about reading the same thing, or are simply looking for a good book to read. Most of the time I miss out on that half of the fun. This also means I'm not particularly articulate about why I like (or dislike) certain books. Last year a friend was looking at my bookshelf and saw that I'd read Wicked. "What did you think of that?" he asked.

"I liked it," I said. "There were some parts I didn't like as much, and the story jumped around a bit, but I thought it was really interesting."

"Yeah," he said thoughtfully, and then launched into a surprisingly insightful analysis. "Didn't you think it was interesting how he did such-and-such?" he would say, and I would nod but have nothing to add. I don't mean to give the impression that this was a highly intellectual conversation - it wasn't. But he had picked up on things that I hadn't picked up on myself, and had more language for describing what he liked the book. Suddenly my "I liked it" seemed awfully insufficient.

It's not that there's anything wrong with just reading a book and liking it. But I like the idea of being able to talk about why I liked it, and that's one of the reasons I began writing reviews. I haven't written many, and I wouldn't even call them reviews so much as writeups of my personal experience with the book. But I'm finding that I like pausing at the end of a read and trying to put into words what worked for me and what didn't. So in a fit of inspiration last night, I began a new blog to share my thoughts about the books I've read. I've already posted a review of the last book I finished, as well as two reviews that I wrote earlier. My intention is to write at least something about each book that I finish, even if it's just a few sentences, and I'd like to go back and review some of the books I've already read this year...but we'll see how far my time and ambition take me with that. In the meantime, take a look, and feel free to share your thoughts if you feel so inclined.