How do you find the books you read? It's an interesting question. No right or wrong answers, though I suspect some answers are more interesting than others. You certainly won't see me trying to stop you from sharing your stories, either--say, in the comments section of this post.
The guy I've read the most by this year, I latched on to some years back when I was looking at the shelves in a bookstore to see who I'd be shelved next to were I to have released a book of my own by then. (It's a nerdy dreamer's game.) There was a fat little book right there called Frog by Stephen Dixon. Not the first of his I've read, but the first time I'd ever heard of him. Later picked up Interstate from another bookstore out of pure curiosity.
Several of my favorite writers have been random bookstore grabs, actually--Mark Z. Danielewski for one, Jennifer Egan for another, Jeff Noon for a third. Neal Stephenson, too, I think. Little tiny silent lightning strikes.
7 comments:
I find the books I read all over the place, lit magazines, lit blogs, recommendations from professors and friends, but my favorite way is to browse in the bookstore.
Mostly lit blogs, lit reviews, lit magazines. I stumble across some things in bookstores, but most of the great stuff I've found in recent times has been because of word-of-mouth online.
Litblogs, litjournals, a lot from the only friend who shares my reading tastes, and from allusions or references made in other novels. Murakami led me to Borges and Thomas Mann, Andre Dubus to Hemingway, stuff like that.
I see them on shelves at bookstores, see reviews at Salon.com and Time magazine. Then read the descriptions in Quarterly Paperback Book club newsletters/website. Often I'll go to Amazon.com to see what the fuss is. NPR also intrigues me with some of their reviews. I'll get interested in some titles when authors show on the Daily Show or C-Span Book TV.
Word of mouth over LJ works too.
I sit cross-legged under a tree. Then I hum the national anthem with my eyes closed.
When I open them and remove my pants, I usually find a slip of paper in my undies with three or four suggestions.
I'm currently reading Madame Bovary.
Good question! I read the NY Times Book Review and find a lot of books that way. I also read reviews in other publications and I get word-of-mouth recommendations from friends.
it's a fascination that has led me thru literature like a thread thru the maze, like jung to steiner to goethe to paracelsus to alchemy to the illiad, some kinda of madness leads me on!
mostly i just do that or find some stuff laying around the studio or in a box from a publisher at the office or on the shelf in the toilette and appropriATE them all up. after a thorough digestion i make sure to pass them on or give them to the library thru the slot as a little surprise gift for the poor, downtrodden shelvers.
when feeling especially larky, i'll buy something at the two locally owned shops in town, like the new Fagle translation in hardback...yummm!
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