I found a book entitled ‘How to be Amazing at Anything’. It had only a single page and was just one word long:

                        PRACTISE

(Arguably it could be practice or practise, take your pick, my original source on the Internet, Pinterest, had ‘c’ but I like the active verb better.)

I read an interesting article in Booknotes about how people choose what book to read in this digital age with all the information that's available online now.  There is a box summarising ‘a modern reader’s cloud of influences’ – clever. 

   It made me think about my own choices.  I still rely on ‘word of mouth’ from friends as I have always done - as do others it seems.  Often for me this comes in the form of letters from friends especially at Christmas.

   Online sources would be websites like NZ Booksellers and Guardian Books, sites outlining any novels shortlisted for  the NZ Post Book Awards, the Man Booker prize and other similar prizes like the Orange Prize (open to any woman publishing in English), and online blogs such as Beattie’s Book Blog. One of my favourite sources of books to read is a regular e-newsletter from independent booksellers Page and Blackmore (Nelson), that tells what the staff are currently reading with a brief review of each book. Sometimes these are books that they have received as advance copies.  If I hear a book review or author interview on Radio New Zealand National I can go online to get the full title/author and publisher details. Receiving e-newsletters from Writers and Readers festivals is another good source of literary information like the Auckland Writers Festival regular emails. I might not be able to attend but I can read the books.

   Once I have decided on a book I usually order it online from the library’s catalogue. Sometimes I am informed by the computer that there is a waiting time of 55 days!  Who knows why? Maybe it hasn’t been purchased or processed yet. I put it on ‘hold’ anyway. I’m still waiting to read The Lighthouse by Alison Moore (Booker shortlist).

   Printed sources for me are book reviews in the Listener and several newspapers, (often just given a cursory glance), and advertising flyers produced by booksellers like Blenheim Bookworld. Congratulations to them by the way for winning ‘best window display’ as part of the Marlborough  Wine and Food Festival. They teamed up with Spy Valley wines, crime novels and all that.

   Audio sources like Radio NZ National are very important to me. I don’t always hear the book or author interview but I go regularly to their website and can hear the interview repeated, download it as a podcast or get the details of books reviewed. The BBC has a good book programme that encourages audience participation.

   I like to browse the book shelves in the library. Non-fiction is easier for me to select than fiction. Novels displayed as ‘returned today’ or ‘best sellers’ (seen in a Christchurch library), are not what I am looking for. I need to know that if a novel is to be on my bedside table it deserves to be there and will be a good read.  

      These days I buy poetry books, a small number of non-fiction reference books and seldom buy fiction unless it is by a New Zealand author and has been highly recommended. I ask myself if I won Lotto would I buy more books?  I’m not sure as my three bookcases are already full and my treasured non-fiction books are on the bottom shelf of the china cabinet to protect them from dust and sunlight. Perhaps e-books are the way to go from a storage point of view but I spend so much time on the computer looking at a screen I like words on a printed page and the feel of a book. When I lived in Papua New Guinea I took a suitcase full of novels and records back with me after I had been home ‘on leave’ as it wasn’t possible to buy books in Madang. I swapped the books with an Australian neighbour as we did our bread and baking recipes as it was difficult to buy bread or sweet treats either apart from packet biscuits and white bread occasionally when a boat came from Australia. The shops were busy that day after goods had been unloaded.

   It seems word of mouth is still top of the list according to the Booknotes article, friends and family recommending a book they have enjoyed reading, talking to the local librarian or bookseller and exchanging ideas at a book group.  This is followed by reading reviews both in print form and online, book award short lists (and winners), and authors discovered at Writers' Festivals. When my mother passed away I lost an important part of my literary network. She told me I had to read Lawrence Durrell’s The Alexandria Quartet and ‘anything’ by Doris Lessing. She worked at the public library for many years in Wellington so that was useful and my favourite aunt who passed away recently always had small side tables and chairs overflowing with library books as she too worked in a library, the Auckland Public Library, and like my mother and myself had a lifetime’s interest in reading books.

   Something that occurred to me when I was thinking about all this is when I decide what movies to go to, again apart from personal recommendations, I look at the lists as advertised in the newspaper like the Marlborough Express, the Press and the Sunday Star Times then I either read the actual film reviews in a newspaper or other printed sources or go onto the Internet to decide if I want to drive 25 kms to watch it on the big screen, wait for the DVD, or avoid it completely. I thought it could be quite helpful to have a list of books advertised somewhere each day that people could refer to, new books recently published and constantly being updated as with the movie advertisements. I’m still thinking about how this might be achieved perhaps the book publishers and bookshops could get together and agree on such a daily list. Maybe Facebook and Twitter could tell us what’s ‘trending’ in the way of books in terms of our previous reading record. I don’t mean just best sellers like John Grisham and Nora Roberts (though they would obviously feature), but including books that people like me want to read.  I guess as far as novels go it would be the book equivalent of  ‘art house’ films, the ones with subtitles, the kind of film you go to in an intimate movie theatre to watch, usually called ‘The Lounge’, or rent from a video shop after waiting several months for its public release.

    I'm thinking here about the comparison between the novel The Yellow Birds (one of my top choices for 2012), and any novel with the character Jack Reacher in it, also Pride and Prejudice compared with 50 Shades of Grey – similar themes don’t you think?

 

Reference:

Spring 2012 Booknotes, (p.8, 9).