IMG_2003How many times have you thought this or said this?

When I say it, I actually don’t mean good; I mean that will take my breath away. That will make me want to read it again. So I say this, I’m guessing, three or four times a year. I’m not the only one. I found a blog post last week that actually illustrated the problem.

When I read book after book and they’re all just okay or not good at all and I long for a book where I’m rereading lines over and over again or reading as slowly as possible, then I either resort to one of my all-time favorite books or to a classic–Jane Austin, Faulkner, Dickens, Fitzgerald.

Which takes me to the question of how I choose what book to read next anyway. Because if I chose better, perhaps I would never come to… I want something good to read.

I discovered another blog post last week (yes, guilty of too much time on the internet) where the writer/reader decided to become more intentional about choosing what to read. She came up with specific criteria about what constituted a good book. The problem, of course, with this approach is that you can’t know whether the book meets these criteria until you read it.

Taking a look at how I chose what I’ve read lately:

Don’t Cry-writing group pick (one a month)

Stop-Time-recommended by a writer for its form

Out Stealing Horses-recommended by an independent book store owner when I asked “if you could recommend one book in your store, what would it be?”

Tender is the Night-never read it before and a classic about a marriage (my novel-in-progress is about a marriage)

How do you choose what to read next?

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