Why do I read?

What is it that makes you read a book? What makes you pick up a novel and keep going? Do you look at the first line, or the back cover? Do you flip to the end? Do you start with the first word and work your way through to the end, no matter what, or do you stop if you get bored, or upset, or angry?

As I’ve mentioned more than a few times on this blog, I tend to re-read books, over and over again. Lately I’ve made a serious effort to read books I haven’t read yet, and to read some newer, more recent books. I still love my old friends, and now I’m getting to know some new friends as well. I’m going to share some thoughts about three books I’ve read recently and what prompted me to read them and stay with them.

The book I just finished about an hour ago is Free Falling by G.G. Wynter. It’s a romance, and I’ve been reading those since I cut my teeth on Emilie Loring and Georgette Heyer. Romance are different today in some ways. They move at a much faster pace, yet the basic elements of a good romance – great characters to root for, great conflict to keep them apart, and great chemistry. And it doesn’t hurt if there is some humor along with the heat.

I picked this up because I read a post by the author on the Writer Unboxed website. I also met her at the WU UnConference about a year and a half ago and hoped I would like her book as much as I liked her. (I did.) The first line grabbed me from the start: I’ve got five minutes, three blocks, and one chance.

From the first page, I was caught up in the story, caught up in Free’s emotions and the world and the people she loves. By itself, that’s great. When you add a sense of humor that had me laughing out loud at times, and the bass notes of genuine heartbreak and broken dreams, you have a book that I find hard to put down. I have to say also, that there were two plot twists that, while they made perfect sense, I didn’t see coming at all. That made it a really satisfying read for me. It left me wishing I could go hang out in the restaurant and the community with the folks from the book.

The next book is one I read not too long ago, André Aciman’s Call Me By Your Name. This is a different kind of romance, one between two young men, and bittersweet. I’ve not seen the film, though that’s how I heard about the book. It wasn’t the first line that drew me in, it was the voice of the narrator. He is trying to figure out when it started, “it” being the dance between the two of them. He starts by suggesting the moment they met, then something later, then something even later, without ever identifying the moment, because that’s not really the point.

It was eight pages in when I read the passage that made it impossible for me to put it down:

But it might have started way later than I think without my noticing anything at all. You see someone, but you don’t really see him, he’s in the wings. Or you notice him, but nothing clicks, nothing “catches,” and before you’re even aware of a presence, or of something troubling you, the six weeks that were offered you have almost passed and he’s either already gone or just about to leave, and you’re basically scrambling to come to terms with something, which, unbeknownst to you, has been brewing for weeks under your very nose and bears all the symptoms of what you’re forced to call I want.

That was it. I was hooked, and had a hard time putting it down from that point until I finished it.

The third book is not as new as the first two. It was/is an Oprah book club choice, and I owned it for two years without reading it. Then a friend recommended it because it had been very meaningful to her, and I had to read it.

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski, explores the world seen primarily through the eyes of a young man who is mute. The dogs bred and raised by his family are integral to the story and to his life, and the relationship between humans and dogs is depicted in a way that is unlike anything I’ve read anywhere else.

*spoiler alert*

I had to put this book down frequently and go away. The sense of foreboding and doom was so strong from the very beginning, it was palpable to me, and made it painful to read. At the same time, it was an incredible, beautiful story, and while it was Shakespearean in theme, it wasn’t necessary to be familiar with Shakespeare to appreciate it. I felt tremendously frustrated at the end. It felt like Edgar became a victim, instead of the hero of his story. I won’t say too much about why, because readers should decide that for themselves. It is not a book about which I could pretend indifference. It was a tough read, and yet it was compelling.

The one thing all three books have in common? I cared. Each one of them inspired some kind of connection with the protagonist and the world he or she inhabited. They were as different as they could be from one another, yet it mattered to me what happened in each one of them.

That will have to be the question I ask as I write – will the reader care about my characters and their world? I hope so.

Take care,

Doc

self-portrait of me reading