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Five reasons I stopped reading

Library

Today is book-hunting day! That wasn’t a thing until today, but now it is.

Book-hunting day means I go to Amazon and search for fantasy books with key words like “chosen one” or “elemental magic” (just, because). When a book entices me, I’ll start reading the preview until I either decide it sucks (ahem, I mean, decide it’s not for me) or buy it.

Of course, I’ll give you a commentary as I go. It’s mean to make fun of people in public, so I won’t name names and I’ll disguise some of the details. (I’ll use * to indicate the detail has been changed.)

Shall we head into the jungle?

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Things that died beside my bed

Cat in a suitcase — You left what beside the bed?

I can never stop things accumulating beside my bed. Tubes of lip balm, hair ties, and half-read books have a habit of piling up.

Going through them is a geological exploration. The deeper you get, the longer ago the sediment (or book) was deposited.

It seems like time to clear out the book pile, and I thought I’d document what I found.

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What does your bookshelf say about you?

My first guest post has barged its way out into the world. Did I mention I’m stupidly excited?

If you want to learn how to analyse a person by snooping around their bookshelves, why don’t you stroll over to L.M. Durand’s blog and check it out? Or you could run.

Before you go, why not sign up to one of my email lists so you never miss a post.

How to find good books on Amazon

Books

Buying a book the old-fashioned way

I remember the days before Amazon, when finding a good book to read was easy. You’d go into the local bookshop, head straight to the fantasy shelf (or the shelf of your favourite genre), and run your fingers over all those beautiful spines.

You’d spot one with appealing colours, which was thick enough to be a good, solid read, and which had sequels sitting next to it in the shelf, so if you enjoyed it you’d instantly know what to read next.

It would have a title like “The Dragon’s Apprentice” or “The Warlord’s Dragon” so you knew it was about exciting things – like dragons. (No, I don’t know if either of those is a real book.)

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