Patricia Abbott (pattinase): Why Did You

Wednesday, November 04, 2015

Why Did You

decide to read the book you are reading now? In my case, it is the November book pick of my book group. What about you? What made you pick up the book you are reading (or just read).

21 comments:

George said...: It usually takes a review from a reviewer I trust to get a book in my hands.; 8:58 AM
Jeff Meyerson said...: Lee Child, MAKE ME. I've read the whole series. This is the latest.
Allen Eskens, THE GUISE OF ANOTHER. I liked his first book quite a bit so wanted to read this one and I thought it was even better than the first one.
Sarah Vowell, LAFAYETTE AND THE SOMEWHAT UNITED STATES. I'd read a few of her earlier books, plus it rang a bell as we visited Monticello on the way back from Bouchercon and heard about Lafayette's visit there in 1824.

Jeff M.; 9:02 AM
Benjamin Thomas said...: I am currently reading Ian Fleming's "On Her Majesty's Secret Service". I chose it because I have been reading all of the James Bond books at the rate of one per quarter. Since we're in the last quarter of the year, it was time to dive into Bond once again.

Ben Thomas; 9:24 AM
Rick Ollerman said...: I sometimes have to read a lot of books in order to write an essay or introduction for someone else's book. When I'm doing all that cramming, I come up with any number of titles I can't wait to get to as soon as I'm done. Then, when I am finished, all those thoughts seem to evaporate and I'm at my most lost when picking something to read just for myself. I seem to go through a checklist of series I'm reading, shorter books, longer books, and am generally unable to select something specific during this hangover period. Nothing seems right. I just went through this and settled on the sequel to Jason Matthews' "Red Sparrow," called "Palace of Treason."; 9:34 AM
Graham Powell said...: I somehow got interested in humorist Robert Benchley a couple of weeks ago, so I picked up a collection of his articles at the library. It's not MY TEN YEARS IN A QUANDRY, which was on my mother's bookshelf for my entire childhood but never inspired me to open it. Instead it's a sort of greatest hits, selected by his son Nathanial (also a writer, and father of Peter Benchley of JAWS fame).

How long ago did Robert Benchley live? His son Nathanial was born one hundred years ago.; 9:44 AM
pattinase (abbott) said...: In my new neighborhood, I have a neighbor who reads a crime fiction book almost every day. When she walks by our house, she usually recommends something. Yesterday it was WOMAN OF THE DEAD by Bernard Aichner, which we got at the library last night. I guess I pick most books that way--from recommendations online and in life.
That Benchley family! Robert was a member of the Alguonquin Round Table, right?Yes, Rick, often I make lists of book I am going to read and somehow writing them down makes me lose the desire to read them. I want the hunt!; 10:03 AM
Elgin Bleecker said...: Right now I am into F.O.B. MURDER by Dolores and Bert Hitchens, a book I learned about through posts by Bill Crider, Mystery File and others. A 1955 novel featuring a railroad detective intrigued me.; 10:03 AM
pattinase (abbott) said...: Been hearing about Dolores Hitchens for years. Got to hunt her down.; 10:04 AM
Charles Gramlich said...: I'd just watched the Dune miniseries from SYFY channel and it made me think of how great the book Dune was. I decided I wanted to read another big, sprawling SF book so I picked "footfall" by niven and Pournelle, an invasion earth story.; 10:07 AM
pattinase (abbott) said...: Read DUNE as a teenager but not since.; 10:40 AM
Jeff Meyerson said...: I do generally find out about books and authors I don't know about from blogs (this one, Bill Crider, George Kelley, Rick Robinson, James Reasoner, etc.) or from reviews in Deadly Pleasures (George Easter's magazine) or EQMM or the NYTBR. If something sounds interesting to me (a couple of recent books set in Brooklyn, for instance) I will check if the library has it. If not I'll check Amazon and a couple of other places. I won't buy a book I don't know, but if it is available on paperbackswap.com (generally something older, or at least not new) I will order it. If there is a free or cheap ebook edition I'd be more likely to take a chance on an unknown (especially on short story collections).

Once in a while I go on ABE and order half a dozen books from a favorite dealer, or if it is one thing I want I'll just order that.

That's why I have too many books waiting to be read.

Jeff M.; 10:45 AM
Dana King said...: I have abut 20 books backed up on the shelf waiting to be read. This one was on the top of the pile.; 11:49 AM
Rick Robinson said...: I'm reading In the Company of Sherlock Holmes: Stories Inspired by the Holmes Canon edited by Laurie King & Les Klinger. I choose it because it won the Anthony for Best Anthology or Collection. It turns out that "inspired by the Holmes canon" doesn't mean much in the way of the traditional Holmes-and-Watson sense. If anyone here would like the book (once read hardcover) email me and I'll send it.; 11:55 AM
Dan_Luft said...: Dolores Hitchens's SLEEP WITH SLANDER is one of my favorite PI novels. Although I don't think she wrote much in the hardboiled tradition.

I go through phases and right now I'm surprised to be going through an early space opera phase. I'm listening to A Princess of Mars audiobook while I'm reading Armageddon 2419 by Philip Francis Nowlan which I've heard was the inspiration for Buck Rogers.

Both were recommendations of a FB friend.; 12:53 PM
Graham Powell said...: A great source for Golden Age mystery suggestions is English writer Martin Edwards. I have read several of the books he has reviewed in FFB and generally been impressed.; 1:33 PM
Deb said...: I got two from the Friends of the Library: STEPHANIE by Winston Graham (author of MARNIE and the POLDARK novels) and WIDOW'S WEEDS by Ursula Curtiss. These were writers I've read before and, seeing they were 50 cents apiece, I bought them.; 1:44 PM
Gerard said...: I was moving the book from the New Books shelf to the stacks. I needed to grab it before I forgot about it.; 2:01 PM
Kent Morgan said...: I'm reading a crime novel from 2013 titled Bear Is Broken by Lachlan Smith. When I was in the library the other day returning a book, I looked at a bookshelf with new mystery fiction and saw a later book by Smith. While glancing at it, I saw that Bear Is Broken had won a Shamus Award for best first PI novel. As I used to collect the winners in hardcover, I got interested and sure enough Bear Is Broken was sitting on another shelf waiting for me. I'm three-quarters through it and so far so good. The story set in San Francsico revolves around a young lawyer trying for find out who shot his criminal lawyer brother.; 4:33 PM
pattinase (abbott) said...: Interesting the paths we take to a book. I have done the same thing if the current book is on short loan.
I remember John Hart. He won two Edgars in a row I think.; 5:23 PM
Jerry House said...: My current book is TWWENTY THOUSAND LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA. I had started reading it in high school and never finished for some reason lost in the mists of time. I saw it on the library shelf last week and decided it was high time I read it through to the end.; 5:39 PM
TracyK said...: I picked the book I am reading, The Red House Mystery, because it was published in 1922 and that is the year picked for a meme at the Past Offences blog, Crimes of the Century. I have wanted to read it for a while and I have three different editions, so it was the best choice for the year.

What an interesting group of books in the comments.; 12:53 AM