Interact: Discussions: How Do You Choose What You'll Read Next?

I have just read the Mitford's letters and they have an unusual way of choosing their books, Jessica says...

“1) Get a supply of books you have always meant to read, but never had time, such as Plutarch’s Lives, War & Peace, Bacon’s Essays etc. You’ll find your attention unaccountably wandering – you seem to have read the same paragraph several times and still can’t quite get its import. Put the books on a chair to be read some time later. 2) Next, fetch up some novels that you know one ought to have read in childhood but never did – Hardy, Conrad, the lesser-known works of Dickens. Same, alas, as in 1) above. 3) Find some books that you know you like, as you have read them before – Catch 22? Catcher In The Rye? Pride & Prejudice? (You’ll have to fill in the titles of your own favourites). This is far more easy going, far more pleasurable. 4) Try some collections of short stories, the shorter the better. Also, Grimm’s Fairy Tales – that sort of thing. That way the constant interruptions – meals, pills, baths etc – don’t specifically matter. 5) Above all – lay in a huge supply of mags, the more trivial the better, and leaf through them languidly while waiting for your cup of tea. That, anyway, is what I usually do.”

How do you choose what you read next?

Simon Savidge

Currently reading: Oscar Wilde and...
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love browsing in the bookstore.

occasionally i'll listen to a recommendation but only if i really trust th person's taste. Really, really.

Go to the library, straight to the "new" section, where the books are still shiny with no nasty stains.

i am a sucker for good publicity too. if i read or hear about a book in a paid advert I will remember it.

Avital Dines

Currently reading: Confessions of a...
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I often find that the book I am reading prompts the next e.g. just now, "my year off" points readers towards "An anthropolist on mars" among other books (some of which I've already read). With fiction books it's more likely to be, if you like the author, blurb for their other books on or in the one you've just read. In sum: I like to get into a network of related books rather than read isolated efforts.

Richard Gibson

Currently reading: A Leg to Stand on
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Oooh, I have two bookshelves full of books waiting to be read and STILL I buy new ones! I read review pages in papers and magazines, listen to the Radio 4 Book of the Week and belong to a book club (though I rarely buy from it, it does let me know about new publications). 

However, it is rare that I can pass a book shop without, at the very least, popping in and browsing the shelves and it is even rarer that I don't buy something.  I also follow particular authors.  Like some, I also read books that are mentioned in other books.  In this way, I have been introduced to the likes of Mrs Braddon and Mrs Radcliffe.

I think I might be addicted but have no plans to seek help for it!  In fact, having recently re-joined the Folio Society, I am now buying really posh books!!!
A day without reading is a day wasted in my humble opinion!
 
 

Kate Faulkner

Currently reading: Disraeli: A...
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I too was introduced to Mrs Radcliffe via Northanger Abbey, Ms Austen! I quite like to to follow trails from one book to another.

I also like recommendations from friends but it can back fire - The Historian springs to mind!

Della Pascoe

Currently reading: The Last of the...
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Now I enjoyed The Historian - even got it on audio book!  Mind you, not as good as Dracula for scaring you half to death on a cold winter night!

Kate Faulkner

Currently reading: Disraeli: A...
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See, there had to be someone who liked "The Historian"!

Usually I go through the tbr piles and choose the book I feel most guilty about not reading.

Buffy Squirrel

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You see I have The Historian and Northanger Abbey (I cannot believe I have still not read it) so this has now sent my 'to read' pile into chaos, but a nice one. Lol!

Simon Savidge

Currently reading: Oscar Wilde and...
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