What books are being read by your spouse/kids/friends? Do you discuss books with them? Is their much overlap? Phil and I have very little overlap but I usually know what books he will like if I read a review. We also tend to like the same books as a couple we know so we can pass books and recommendations back and forth. Do your real life friends read similarly to you or just your online pals?
P.S. Asked my son this question at dinner and Josh chose MIDDLESEX and THE MARRIAGE PLOT (Eugenides), and the STEVE JOBS biography as his three most recent reads.
24 comments:
My wife probably reads 2 books a month at most, whereas I'll read on average 10 or so. I have read everything she has for the past 3 or 4 years, just to promote some learned discourse in the household. I've taken to reading my 18 year son's reads, but as he is active socially, there aren't too many there.
There's some overlap in our tastes, but I can tolerate her picks if not actively enjoy them, but not the reverse. She has chucked the towel in on no end of my books.
Her favourites would be Linwood Barclay, Tess Gerritsen, Harlan Coben.....none of which would figure on my A-team
Yes, we discuss books. What else? There are mystery books and others I will recommend to Jackie that I think she'll enjoy. Oddly, we each read different vampire series. She reads some mysteries (she is reading the last Faye Kellerman Decker book now) and a lot of paranormal/romantic suspense - I'd say her favorites are J.D. Robb/Nora Roberts, Christine Feehan, Sherrilyn Kenyon, and J. R. Ward. Also likes Suzanne Brockmann, Iris Johansen. She likes humor (Shelly Laurenston), does not like kinky stuff. Mysteries - Julia Spencer-Fleming, Michael Palmer, P. J. Tracy, J. A. Jance (Ali Reynolds series).
Jeff M.
Very, very little overlap with my wife. I used to be more in tune with my kids reading by reading aloud to them. My 10-year-old is not as interested in having us read aloud to him but I still read to the 7-year-old. But, the 7-year-old prefers us to read Garfield comics. I hate reading comics out loud and tell him to bring a novel.
Since most of my friends are from DAPA-EM and are mystery fans we do read a lot of the same books. My most read authors (still alive and writing) are Bill Pronzini, Bill Crider, Marcia Muller, Lawrence Block, Elmore Leonard, Max Allan Collins, Peter Robinson, Margaret Maron.
Jackie has not read any of them, though I've recommended a couple (Crider and Maron).
Jeff M.
Love the garden shots! MORE, PLEASE.
Barbara and I share only a few authors: Louise Penny, William Kent Krueger, John Harvey, Pronzini, Colin Dexter. She reads (but I do not) John Connelly, Jeffrey Deaver, James Patterson, Val McDermid (Tony Hill books), Lee Child (though I mean to try a Reacher novel one of these days), others. She likes thriller/serial killer/dark stuff and that's not for me.
I read, but she does not - Christie, Allingham, Halliday, Prather, Stout, MacDonald, Erle Stanley Gardner, Hammett, Chandler, Hillerman, old hard boiled, cozies. Plus I read some non-fiction and a lot of SF-F while she reads no SF-F and little if any general fiction or non-fiction. We do sometimes discuss what we read, but only in the briefest way, because she says I analyze while she just enjoys.
It's funny how we can read in the same larger area but not specifically. Phil likes spy stories-I don't. I like procedurals-he only likes ones where politics feature in (Nesbo, Glynn). Neither of us like serial killers but he will not read them.
Josh is our most eclectic reader. I always recognize a book he will like. Megan loves true crime as does Phil.
Gerard, I read to my kids every night while they did dishes. It was a way of getting them to read fantasy, which neither chose on their own. Or books like WHEN HITLER STOLE PINK RABBIT.
A couple of my real life friends read like I do. Not many. I know a lot more who do online.
Funny how it's worked out like that. Sharing more with someone in a place like Abita Springs, Buffalo, NY, Brooklyn, NY, Portland, Or, or Milwaukee. Toronto, Baltimore, upstate PA than anyone you know face to face.
My wife is a Latin teacher, and mostly reads books about Rome. I mostly read mysteries. I suppose we could compromise on Steven Saylor, but mostly we don't.
Rick, you might do what Jackie did and read the last (not current) Lee Child, because it is a prequel and can be read to set up the whole series. Then if you like it, go back to the beginning.
Jeff M.
Steven Saylor (no relation) does some good work.
I'm with Charles on this one. Far more commonality online than in real life reading choices, at least where it comes to crime fiction. But to a certain extent in other areas as well.
Mainly I'm commenting, though, to second Phil's enjoyment of the James Church Korea novels. I haven't read Orphan Master's Son partly out of a sort of protective feeling I have about Church. Adam Johnson seems to have gotten so much more attention than Church has with his North Korea fiction.
North Korea has suddenly become a popular destination. Even though no one has been there.
Have never read Saylor, Graham. Should give him a try although historicals don't usually work for me. Maybe because I majored in history.
Steven Saylor's (no relation) books are all history. I'm fairly certain Saylor (no relation) has a master's in ancient history from UT-Austin and Saylor's (no relation) ROMA SUB ROSA series are all based off real events.
I listened to ROMA, a history of Rome, and enjoyed it quite a bit.
Hilary Mantel, BRING UP THE BODIES; Val McDermid, THE DISTANT ECHO. We don't read the same books but watch crime and cop films/TV series together.
She has more of a stomach for violence and weirdness. I bailed out of THE FALL (No. Ireland TV) and she watched it to the end.
Although we frequently discuss what we're reading, my husband and I do have somewhat different tastes so we rarely recommend books to each other. He also listens to lots of audiobooks (primarily because he has a long commute) which I don't. So discussion, yes; recommendation, no. One of my oldest and dearest friends recommends books to me all the time and I return the favor.
And let me take the opportunity to recommend Liane Moriarty's The Husband's Secret--a Kate Atkinson-esque novel about what happens when a woman reads something she shouldn't have read. The best book I've read so far this year.
Deb
Kitty usually reads much faster than I but has slowed down considerably since her knee operations last December. She does not like much of what I read, especially the older books. She used to be into some of the paranormal romances but many of those have veered too much on the kinky side. She will read some J. R. Ward, depending on the series. She really likes Tess Gerritsen and Lisa Gardner and has talked me into reading some of their recent books (good, but I prefer my standard fare). She's a big history buff and reads a number of popular history books and we'll talk about those quite a bit, although, as I said, her reading has dropped off quite a bit. We make up for it by watching a lot of documentaries on the various cable channels.
We tend to have lively,snarky discussions about truly badly written (and/or badly edited) books we are reading. Dan Brown, beware!
Oh, and a friend RAVED about a book titled WIFE 22 on Facebook, saying it was the funniest thing she ever read and still can't stop laughing. Then a lot of her friends chimed in agreeing that this was a great and funny book. Kitty just read it without a single guffaw, let alone a chuckle -- a very disappointing novel. I've managed three pages so far and will force myself to read at least fifty pages before giving up. All recommendations do are remind us that there are "different strokes for different folks."
Karen Joy Fowler's We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves is also a wonderful book--although there's a lot of on-line chatter about a big "reveal" midway through, which is actually no reveal at all if you look carefully at the cover (at least of the edition I read).
Deb
Almost no one I know reads what I do. That's why I have to take to the interwebs.
On reserve, Deb. Thanks!
I do have real,life friends that bread some of what I read.
I read We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves in galley form so it was indeed a big reveal. I think it's a great book and at such probably works whether you know something about it beforehand or not.
If it was intended to be a big reveal, I think the cover of the copy I read (a yellow cover with a black silhouette of a tree, if I recall correctly) was an unfortunate choice. I don't think the book suffered, at least to me. I thoroughly enjoyed it even though I "assumed" (based on that cover) I knew who Fern was. Still, it must have been a surprise to read it without that "clue." Perhaps like seeing Vertigo for the first time.
Deb
Post a Comment