As a reader, what do you look for?

I'd ask this on the book chamber but I'm sure everybody's familiar with how slow the traffic is over there.


As a reader, what do you look for, particularly when new books come out? Or maybe rather, what do you NOT look for? Or are you like me and can't hardly find anything?


I don't consider myself to be a very picky reader, not like I used to be, but all the same whenever new fiction is out, I can spend a whole year not reading any of it because none of it appeals to me. What's coming out? Twilight knockoffs, Da Vinci Code knockoffs, romance novels (bleck!), and how about all these novels about a woman who has to get her life back after all the years of abuse and rape she spent at the hands of her father or her husband or some sadist criminal? And the women who lived on the streets and were homeless and had no families and all that good stuff?

Or how many new books have been coming out about a man who lost his family or just either his wife or his child to some criminal or some disaster, and now somebody's hunting him and bringing up the past? And why do so many books make a woman's biggest trauma and secret that she can't have kids? What about women that don't want kids? What, she can be a private eye, running down the mob but she HAS to have motherly hormones in her that want a child too? Kind of like all these books for young girls coming out that she just HAS to HAVE a boyfriend, some boy HAS to like her, he just HAS to otherwise her life is over, of course that one is nothing new, they've been doing that one for decades but we've had women's lib and the sexual revolution and over 30 years of its aftermath, they can't change that? Exactly HOW many books you see about a teenaged boy who just HAS to have a girl fall for him or his life's over? And he's always worried about how he looks, if he has a date for Friday night, if he can lose a few pounds to look good, hmmmm? Noooo, they don't do that, then why do all the girls?

And if it's not that one, it's something BIG, something SPECTACULAR, something coming back to 9/11 or the war in Iraq or Afghanistan or terrorists or something of that sort...we haven't had enough of that in our every day real lives for the last 9 and a half years? I mean we REALLY haven't had enough reminders of what the hell our country's been put through in the last decade? REALLY? We have to make that our 'entertainment' now too?


So with all that in mind I'm sure people can understand why I rarely read anything new that's coming out, in the stores and at the library, that's about all they get in unless some bestselling author like James Patterson or puts out yet ANOTHER number in their ongoing series that nobody cares about.

How about everyone else?

I am not a big fiction reader. When I seek one out it is usually because it was recommended. I am not the type to rush to a newly released book. And I buy very few books that are not used.

If I see a book review in a magazine I write it down and get it later at the library.

A good story. Basically it just has to be interesting enough for me to read it.

I usually stick to authors I've become familiar with over the years or by someone's recommendation.

I look for a story that just draws me in.

I like what I call "vintage fiction" - I don't go for today's books. But what I look for is irony, controversy, absurdity and anything that draws me in. Also, like Mr. Smithee, I tend to gravitate towards authors I've been familiar with over the years.

I like biographies and autobiographies, for the most part. When it comes to fiction, something really needs to pique my interest in the story beforehand. Most of the books I read in the past decade came as a result of being online and happening a review (usually by accident.)

I get whatever I can find at the library--I blow through books so fast that it's not worth it for me to spend money on buying them when I can get it for free. I also get a lot of my music at the library, too. Whatever I'm looking for--books, CD's--I request online from the library webpage and if they don't have it, it gets shipped in from some other library on the network.

I tend to stick to certain authors or subjects like historical and biographies. I also love stories about WWII--that fascinates me for some reason. I also read many books about the Holocaust and first hand accounts of it's survivors, but only when I'm in a dark period in my own life, which has happened from time to time. It's sickening reading about the horrors under Nazi rule, but it also keeps things in perspective for me; whenever I've felt that my own life is in a ditch and sucks, reading one of those accounts reminds me that no matter how bad my life seems at the time, there is always someone else who's life has sucked, more.

I look for fiction with slightly OTT stories but have relatable characters.