I am a picky eater…a very picky eater. The list of things I do not like is at least as long as the one I do like.
And so it is with my choice of books. I have a rather small list of authors that I like and enjoy reading. Some of them have numerous series of books and I like only a portion of them.
I grew up watching the original “Star Trek” and enjoy reading those stories; not as much the others. Alistair MacLean has long been one of my favourite authors; so are Clive Cussler, Jack Higgins, Tom Clancy, Daniel Silva, W.E.B. Griffin, and James Rollins.
I love a good spy novel like James Bond, counterespionage books, and the Indiana Jones searching for artifacts and such type books.
My Kindle is filled with numerous books, some of which I have read but many I have not. Once I finish a book, it is always a big decision as to which book I will read next.
According to my Kindle app, I have read for 874 days in a row (139 weeks) and I have no plans to stop. Reading is a daily event like eating and sleeping. I have read 50 books for each of the past two years – most of them around 400 or more pages.
I just started tackling “Paradise Lost” – a task I’m not sure about and am beginning to wonder why; but there are some on my list that I would like to read sooner than later, like more of the James Rollins Sigma series, “The Egyptian Book of the Dead”, a few more “Star Trek” books, and some books on music.
The James Rollins Sigma books are heavy with science and medical technology, so once I read one of them I have to find something very lightweight before I head back into the heavy stuff.
Whenever I find a book that might be interesting, I go to the one star reviews. If I am already interested, I don’t need to have someone tell me why the book is so good. One of the biggest complaints I see are that the book jumps around too much – multiple locations – or that the author spends time describing the surroundings. It really makes me wonder what kind of things these people read; it sounds awfully boring to me. That is the one great thing about Alistair MacLean is that he can spend pages describing an area and only a single line when it comes to a violent act – “a rose formed on his forehead” tells you everything you need to know without any gratuitous descriptions. One of my favourites is instead of a string of profanity he says, “he cursed for five minutes and never said the same word twice” or “he carried on a dialogue that was unprintable”.
A majority of my reading is fiction but I still can learn a great deal. James Rollins teaches me science, Daniel Silva teaches me about art, W.E.B. Griffin’s Presidential series is based around an Army officer and “his merry band”, Clive Cussler’s stories of Dirk Pitt, and Juan Cabrillo are based on the sea. Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan series is based on the workings around the government, and “Star Trek” is just fun lightweight reading. There are, of course, others that spark my interest for one reason or another; but my list of books awaiting me is long…and then there are the books that I have to re-read every so often. I must read “The Da Vinci Code” again soon.