Reading Into The Dark

At least nine times a year, I start a book with zero knowledge about it. And it’s wonderful

We’re all readers here, right? How do you usually pick that next book to read? If we’re in a brick-and-mortar store, we look at the cover, we note the author, read that all-so-important description, and then maybe a few pages of chapter one. If we’re online, all of that is still present, but we get the added bonus of that preview. We can actually read the entire preview before we make that purchase decision. Oh, and then there are the reviews—from professionals as well as amateurs.

In every step of this process, we constantly build on what we think the book is going to be about, especially if you’ve got a good book description.

When’s the last time you started a book without any of that? Okay, you can throw in the author, title, and book cover because you actually have to pick it up or download it, but nothing else.

For me, three out of every four months, I get to do that.

I’m in a four-guy science fiction book club that has lasted now over twelve years. We take turns picking the book, we read it during the month, and then gather on the first Tuesday of the next month to discuss. It is at the meeting where we offer our grade and then the Picker gets to explain why he picked the book. When it’s my turn to assign a book, I’ve already gone through every step mentioned above.

Sometime in 2021 (or maybe 2020), I started going into the books picked by the other guys cold. Nearly every selection is on audio so the day the new book is picked, I download it (via Libby and my local library or Audible) and start playing. In this manner, I experience pure story. Sure, I’ve seen the cover and read the title and author, but that’s it.

I love it. With so much of our lives dictated by a myriad of decisions—including the books we read—it’s great to have that choice offload three out of every four months.

What I really love is when there’s a book by an author I don’t know. It happened with this month’s selection: Dead Silence by S. A. Barnes. Knew nothing about it and it is the book to beat for 2023. It’s a rare trick when a book’s spooky nature and a narrator’s excellent performance literally gives me chills and compels me to turn around on my nightly walks to make sure I’m alone.

I find having a book picked for me quite fun. It also happens every month with my cozy mystery subscription through Houston’s Murder by the Book. I do read those book descriptions because I think they are among the best, pun-filled descriptions out there.

With the monthly SF book and the cozy book already picked for me, it frees me up to make my own selection with more care. After all, even with audiobooks, there is only so many story hours in a month.

Note: since there are so many hours in a month to read or listen to stories, if the book is bad or isn’t capturing me, I pull the rip cord and stop. I do not feel compelled to finish. The other guys in the club used to question me and my response remained constant: Life’s too short to read bad books or books you don’t enjoy. Thus, when I give it a grade—officially an I for Incomplete—I’ll explain why the book failed me.

So, have you ever read a book without even reading the book description or reviews or anything? You should try it sometime. Get into a book club, but if that’s not an option, have a spouse or friend select your next book and just read.

Photo: Mo Eid via Pexels.com

Intentional Reading

Do you ever feel left out of a conversation?

It’s only mid-January and while the year is still brand-new, the old year still has a few remnants lingering. The biggest me for is the various Best Of lists still readily available. I read many of them—books, TV, movies, music—and made an interesting observation about the book ones: I read few of them and could not contribute to the conversation.

I’m an avid reader I have anywhere from 2-5 books going on all at once. Well, let me clarify: I’m re-reading Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Stoic in 2023 so I’m only reading a page a day, but it’s still active. I’m blazing through the audio of Dead Silence by S. A. Barnes (for my SF book club), I’ve started Vinyl Resting Place by Olivia Blacke (from Murder by the Book’s Cozy Mystery subscription service), I’m re-reading P.D. James’s Talking About Detective Fiction, and I’ve bought a copy of The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene. The Blacke book is new and the Barnes book is just shy of a year old and the rest are older.

I have always liked my rabbit-trail way of reading. I’m easily influenced, be it from podcasts, news interviews, Twitter, or recommendations by my fellow writers at Do Some Damage. But when it came to reviewing the Best Mysteries of the Year or the Best Non-Fiction of 2022 or just about any other book list from 2022, I found myself woefully behind.

And it’s not even close.

As such, I created a resolution specific to reading and it boils down to a single phrase: Read Intentionally.

What does that mean as a practical habit? Well, it means I’ll be more aware of books that are released throughout this year and make active decisions to read more new books in 2023 than I did in 2022. I still get to made judgement calls—I’m aware that Prince Harry published a book this week but I have zero interest in it.

On the fiction side of things, this week saw the publication of Jordan Harper’s Everybody Knows. I can’t tell you how many fellow writers read this book pre-publication last fall, but it seemed like it was everyone. The praise was universal. Throw in the blurbs you see on press releases and the book cover and you’ve got yourself a contender for a Best Of list in 2023 right out of the gate.

Harper’s book was the first can’t-miss book of the year, and I didn’t. I download the audiobook on release day and am looking forward to giving it a listen.

Later, as the year goes on and more books like Harper’s are released, I plan on keeping up. Then, come December 2023, I’ll have a list of favorite books that will include newly published ones. Why the emphasis on ‘newly published’? Because I still find myself drawn to older books and I don’t want to leave them behind.

Agatha Christie

For the past few years, in light of the success of the Rian Johnson films (Knives Out; Glass Onion) and the Kenneth Branagh adaptations of Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile, I’ve been curious about Agatha Christie. 2020 celebrated the century mark of her first book and the yearly reading challenges started. I didn’t do very well before but I intend to change that. I plan on reading—intentionally—the books on the Read Christie 2023. This year’s theme is “Methods and Motives.”

Good news: I’m one for one. Sad Cypress is January’s book and I’ve already listened to it. Even better, if you check out the website, they’ve listened ten of the twelve books on tap for the year. That way, you and I can stay abreast with the new challenge and read at least twelve Agatha Christie books. I’m particularly looking forward to February’s book, Partners in Crime, the second book in the Tommy and Tuppence series.

Oh, and you don’t have to read the books they suggest. They have a particular method of murder or a motive and you are free to pick any of her books. But as a Christie newbie, I’m just going with the flow.

Do You Re-Read Books?

The new Bruce Springsteen album, Only the Strong Survive, was released yesterday. It’s an album of soul and R&B covers, most of which I don’t know. The album is wonderful, brimming over with joy that’ll just make you smile, get up out of your chair, and dance.

This new record marks Springsteen’s third album since 2019’s Western Stars (fourth if you include the live, slightly tweaked versions of the Western Stars album) and I know this new one will be one I live with and listen to for months to come.

The idea that I’ll be listening to this album over and over got me to thinking about books. The average album more or less lasts around an hour. After sixty minutes, you’ve heard all the songs and then you’re ready to move on or listen again.

Books are a different animal. I’m not sure how fast you read, but my reading speed is just average. I’ve never actually timed myself reading a book. Judging by all the audiobooks I listen to via Audible or the Libby app that is tied to my local library, however, many books range from seven hours to ten. Lots of them land in the 8.5-hour range.

So, it certainly takes longer to read/listen to a book and you certainly have more “first time” with a brand-new book, but how often do you go back and re-read a book? For me, it’s pretty rare. Usually when I re-read a book, I’m studying how it was written, structured, and marking up the pages with annotations and post-it notes. I’ve done this with The Da Vinci Code and Naked Heat, the second Richard Castle book, but I can’t remember the last time I re-read a book just for fun.

What about you? Do you return to favorite books and re-read them?

Why Do You Not Read Non-Fiction?

At my science fiction book club meeting this week, I learned a surprising fact: the other three guys in the group rarely read non-fiction.

We’re all middle-aged Gen Xers and we’ve been doing this book club every month for about a dozen years. I followed up, asking them why they don’t read any non-fiction and then wondering how many non-club books they read.

To answer my own questions, 2022 has become the Year of the Memoir. Starting with Dave Grohl’s memoir in February and going on up to now with Matthew Perry’s book, I listened to about a half dozen memoirs. They’ve been a nice change of pace from my normal non-fiction selections which are mostly history written by historians. Most of them, including Grohl, Perry, Steve Martin, and Ron and Clint Howard have the audiobooks narrated by the people themselves so that’s an added bonus.

On the regular non-fiction side of things, three books stand out. The Nineties by Chuck Klosterman and Watergate: A New History by Garrett Graff got that history itch scratched while James Clear’s Atomic Habits served to give me a template to help my daily life.

Beyond the non-fiction, I’m almost always reading another non-club book. That’s where my mystery love is served. In fact, I’m following up my first Leslie Meier book (Back to School Murder) with another seasonal offering: Turkey Day Murder. Throw in magazines, short stories, and a ton of news items and I’m basically always reading something.

One of the guys mentioned he reads about 1.5 books a month with the club’s SF book always one of them. He just prefers fiction to non-fiction. Another literally has a stack of books on a bedside table but just doesn’t seem to get to them. His excuse: “too much streaming.” My wife is an avid reader herself—she probably read a book a week in 2021—but her pace slowed this year partly as a result of watching instructional YouTube videos on jewelry making and gemstones so she can improve in her jewelry-making business.

One huge reason why I get through so many books is that I’m an avid audiobook listener. I get to listen to a book while in traffic, dusting the house, or going to Trader Joe’s. That does lend itself to having more time to read other things when I’m actually holding my Kindle or a physical book in my hands.

And maybe that’s the key. Maybe it’s as simple as audiobooks filling in the gaps of time when we have to do other things—grocery shopping, driving to and from work, cleaning the house—and we can’t sit and read a book. Because sitting and reading a book is and has always been wonderful.

But these anecdotal facts got me to wondering: how much non-fiction do you read?

What is the Tapestry of Books?

It took only fifty years but I finally listened to Carole King’s Tapestry.

If you read about my regulated reading a few weeks ago, you’ll remember that I’m reading Never a Dull Moment by David Hepworth, his examination about rock music in 1971. As a fun project in 2021, I’m reading the book a chapter at a time, corresponding to a month of 1971. Thus, it’ll take me all year to read this book. Shrug. It’s fun.

Anyway, by reading Hepworth’s book, I have discovered Carole King’s 1971 album, Tapestry. It turns fifty this month, so it’s been fun to read all the retrospectives written about a new-to-me album. By the way, I ended up buying it last weekend after listening to it on YouTube for weeks.

One of those essays is by Bob Lefsetz, the man behind The Lefsetz Letter. He, too, is a new discovery from a few months back. I’ve quite enjoyed his deep dives in music and other things.  

Lefsetz starts his post about Tapestry with this observation:

"It was an album for everybody.

That doesn’t happen too often, but when it does, the music business takes a giant leap forward, everybody pays attention, everybody listens, music is talked about, it drives the culture.

Last example? Adele. Her album “21” sold ten times, literally TEN TIMES as much as everything else in the marketplace. It worked for hipsters and as well as casual listeners. It was an alchemy of songs and singing, of passion and precision. “21” was a statement by an artist, not just product to support a system.

Same deal with the Beatles. At first it was a teen phenomenon. Then came “Michelle” and “Yesterday.” No one could deny them as songs.”

Lefsetz goes on to describe the phenomenon of an album for everybody. It is the album owned by the casual listeners, the hipsters, the soccer moms, the dads, the teenagers, the middle-aged, and so on.

After I finished reading Lefsetz’s piece—while listening to Tapestry for the I-don’t-know-how-many-th time, my thoughts turned to books.

What is the Tapestry of Books?

What is the book or books everybody owns? We can leave aside the question of whether or not the books are actually read. What is the book read by casual readers, soccer moms, dads, teenagers, the middle-aged, and so on?

Almost a decade ago, I wrote a short post about going to estate sales and seeing the novels of Louis L’amour on the bookshelves. But I specifically pointed out that those books were on the shelves of proto-man caves. If we were only talking about men’s novels, I’d suggest Clive Cussler or Lee Child or Michael Connolly.

But I’m going broader. I would think few teenagers or soccer moms might read the exploits of Jack Reacher. What are the books that appeal to a broad reading audience?

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown instantly jumps to mind. It was everywhere in 2003 and it seemed like everyone had read it. I think James Patterson books land in quite a few home libraries, but I cannot think of a single volume of his that fits this criteria. Stephen King is another author who probably has at least one book in many, many homes, but what’s that one book? Nora Roberts is very popular, but I can’t think many guys read her books.

Another candidate is John Grisham’s The Firm. Maybe To Kill a Mockingbird?

So I’m throwing out the question to everyone. What books are for everyone? What book is like Tapestry?

Oh, and yeah, I listened to Tapestry while writing this piece. Man, is that a great album. How in the world did I never hear it until February 2021?

The Fun of Regulated Reading

Do you ever regulate your reading?

I was struggling over what term to use so let me just explain. Last year, I did a little experiment. The book of Proverbs has 31 chapters. I decided that for every month that included 31 days, I would read a chapter of Proverbs per day. To keep things interesting, I changed translations every month. Then, at the end, I was able to go back and compare notes and compare verses that I underlined. It was a pretty fun experiment and, except for the transition from July into August, I never had a back to back month.

To January 2021. As I often do, I start to cycle through all of the things that have major anniversaries. Anything with a year ending in one or six are the key ones this year. In the first week, it was the 50th anniversary of Chicago III. That got me to thinking about music and what albums we’re gonna be celebrating major milestone anniversaries. It was my son – – an avid musicologist – – who reminded me I had a book on the shelf about the year 1971 in music. Why not just read it.

The book in question is titled Never a Dull Moment: 1971 The Year Rock Exploded by David Hepworth. It came out in 2016 and I think I might’ve had it since then. Born in 1950, Hepworth came of age about the same time that rock ‘n’ roll did. Those, he was 21 years old during 1971. He has written extensively about music since the 1980s. 

What got me excited about reading this book in 2021 was a table of contents. It is broken out by month. 12 chapters, 12 months, plus an introduction.

As soon as I saw that, I had a brilliant idea: read each chapter at the beginning of each month here in 2021 and go through the year 1971 with Hepworth. I had to read chapter 1 this week, but I'll get to chapter 2  on Monday. and then continue from there. That means Led Zepplin IV is in my future. So is Sticky Finger, Nursery Crime, Hunky Dory, What's Going On, Bryter Later, and Madman Across the Water. That's just the albums I know about. I can't wait to discover new-to-me albums.

And, if chapter one is any indication, this is going to be a blast. Hepworth writes in an engaging style, but primarily he writes only from the limited perspective of that month. He tells you what Bruce Springsteen was doing, the status of the band Slade, and how Yes was reimagining how music was recorded. He even drops a cliffhanger of an ending as the chapter closed about a woman who invented the album business.

But what makes these chapters special is that Hepworth includes a short playlist of songs that were popular in that month. I already made a January 1971 playlist and dang if I haven't discovered a new-to-me band: Badfinger.

Anyway, I don't know if you read books in this regulated manner or not, but I do, and I look forward to learning about 1971 fifty years later.

Are there other books that could be read in a regulated way?

January Reading Report

At the beginning of the year, I wrote about how well my wife read in 2017 and how poorly did I. She has a habit I called “mindful reading,” which is nothing less than reading a single book at a time without being distracted by other books. Maybe it should be called “non-ADHD reading.” No matter the term, she reads a book, finishes it, and then moves on.

Why not try it myself?

No reason at all. So in January, I set about reading mindfully. I selected a book and read nothing else until I finished it. My only bonus: I simultaneously read a physical book while listening to others during my day job commute. But the main thing was whatever book I was reading/listening to, I finished it.

And I ended up completing eight books in that single month!

Yeah, some of them were shorter pulp novels from the 1930s but they were books. And I consumed eight of them. I was really thrilled and I realized how simple a thing it is to choose a book and just focus on it. None of them were bad—because I will not finish bad books. Life’s too short to read bad books.

Here is what I read and the format:

• 2 Jan 2018: Starfire: A Red Peace by Spencer Ellsworth (audio)
• 11 Jan 2018: Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes by Maria Konnikova (audio)
• 14 Jan 2017: The Shadow: Partners in Peril (audio)
• 21 Jan 2018: One Small Step Can Change Your Life by Robert Maurer (review on Wednesday)
• 23 Jan 2018: Talking About Detective Fiction by P. D. James (audio)
• 26 Jan 2018: The Shadow: The Shadow Unmasks  (audio)
• 29 Jan 2018: Longarm and the Border Wildcat #229
• 31 Jan 2018: Doc Savage: The Polar Treasure (audio)

So much for January. I don’t expect every month to be this productive but it was nice to start the year off on the right step.

My Wife's Reading Habit AKA Reading Mindfully

I'm a lifelong reader, the kind of person who always has a book nearby, but I in 2017, my wife had me beat.

During the holidays, I overheard my wife talking to one of her friends. At one point, my wife mentioned that she had read about 52 books last year. That stopped me cold. Fifty-two? That's a book a week. I thought back over the year and recalled what I saw every day. My wife always had a book with her at home. She isn't one to read on her phone, and she rarely does an audiobook. But she ends each evening by reading a chapter or two of a book. Given enough days, obviously, she completes one and moves on to the next. 

Now, my wife is also the type of reader who, when she discovers an author and said author has a nice back catalogue, settles in and plows through the author's past works. Jodi Picoult was the author last year. My wife has now read every novel Picoult has written save the YA one. Impressive. Most impressive.

Lastly, my wife barely has a TBR pile, except, as in the previous example, she discovers an author. She doesn't troll websites and blogs, reading reviews and collecting lists of authors and books to try. She's an old-fashioned reader. When she's needing a book, she'll go to Half Price or Barnes and Noble and shop. She'll also read the emails Barnes and Noble sends her. Every now and then, she'll see a story on TV and want to follow up by reading the book.

Then there's me. I'm the type of reader with a TBR pile, both virtual and real, stacked pretty high. I read a ton of blogs and many of the recommendations I see intrigue me. I'm also a bit of a distracted reader as well. If I start reading, say, a western and then I watch a really good mystery on TV or read a blog post about the latest SF novel, I'm apt to not only include the second book in my current reading, but also just as likely to stop reading the western because my interests have shifted. Reader ADD I suppose. The process can repeat itself over and over again. The end result is a bunch of half-finished books. Sometimes I can even come around to the year anniversary of discovering/buying a book and realize I never finished it.

Audio is different. When I download a book via Audible, I'm pretty much zeroed in on it until I'm done. Mostly.

If there's a term for how my wife reads, it's "mindfully." She mindfully reads one book until she reaches "The End" and moves on. In that manner, she was able to read a book a month in 2017.

For me, 2018 will be a year of mindful reading. With a full-time job, a commute, and lots of writing to get done, I don't presume to be able to read a book a month. But I will apply the simple rule of writing to reading: Read a book, looking first at the books on my shelves. Finish what you started. Then do it again. And try to avoid distractions as much as possible. When I assess my reading for 2018 in 363 days, I hope to have improved my reading habit. And I'm ready.

First up: the novel I received at Christmas: Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz.

A Sign of a Well-Read Book

Do you ever read your books this way?

My grandfather used to hold his books that way. I remember, even as a boy, cringing at bending the cover all the way around so that he would be able to read just a single page. (It is one of the primary reasons I enjoy reading on my Paperwhite so much.) After awhile, his books—mostly westerns—would end up this way.





A couple of weeks ago, I was in Galveston and I always visit the Galveston Book Shop. I checked the western section and ended up buying HIGH LONESOME by Louis L’amour (as a direct result of reading James Reasoner’s review). It was then I actually took notice of something. Many of the older westerns—i.e., the slim volumes from the 1960s and before—had the same slant to the spine. That meant my grandfather wasn’t the only one who held his westerns that way.

Nowadays, with our thick tomes, even in paperbacks, holding a book that way is almost impossible. And many of us don’t like to do that either. It ruins the shelf appeal I assume.

But there’s also something charming about seeing a stack of used paperbacks in this condition. It reminds me about the consumer quality of cheap paperbacks. They were just a few steps away from pulp magazines. They were one form of entertainment, likely meant to be read, then passed on to someone else or sold at a used bookstore. Not like today when most of us like to have that bookshelf lined with books.

When I open my “new” copy of HIGH LONESOME and noticed the spine had that slant, I actually curled the cover all the way around and read like my grandfather.

I loved it.

Do y’all read paperbacks this way? Did you grandparents or parents?

Louis L'amour's Place on the Bookshelf

I went to four estate sales yesterday. The historian part of me drooled (and sweated a lot) at the treasure trove of magazines in one garage: Life, Saturday Evening Post, Time, among others. I picked up the issue of Life from 1971 with the cover story about the opening of Disney World (two words back then). I also found the first issue of Time after JFK's assassination. Cover: President Johnson.

While those were good finds, I was struck by something else. In two of these homes, the man of the house literally had shelves of nothing but Louis L'amour westerns. Mostly they were paperbacks, a mix of the Bantam titles (with the black spines) and the more recent white ones (with the westerny font on the spines). One house had what we now refer to as a man cave but was, probably, just the library. With all the stuff of a certain age, the L'amour westerns did not seem out of place. In fact, they seemed almost a requirement. I say that because, when I was growing up, my dad and his dad both had their collections of L'amour westerns on their respective bookshelves.

Which led me to this question: is there an author's work nowadays that is required reading for a man? In forty years, at estate sales in 2051, will some future buyer look at the bookshelves of men who lived in these early 21st Century decades and think: "Ah, right, it was altogether fitting and proper for a man to have read those books."