Seeing someone read a book you love is seeing a book recommend a person.
Reddit user coolstoryreddit (via communified)
We have an obligation to read aloud to our children. To read them things they enjoy. To read to them stories we are already tired of. To do the voices, to make it interesting, and not to stop reading to them just because they learn to read to themselves. Use reading-aloud time as bonding time, as time when no phones are being checked, when the distractions of the world are put aside
This quote speaks to me, because as a teacher of secondary school, the amount of times 14, 15 and even 16 year olds ask me to ‘do the voices’ or say that their parents never read to them breaks my heart
(via hotgravelpit)
I have a real issue with anyone trying to protect children from their own imaginations. If we cannot acknowledge that a lot of us have a bit of darkness within ourselves, some more than others perhaps, and bring it into the light and examine it and talk about this part of the human condition, then I think we will be living in quite a dangerous climate. I think that’s much more damaging for children.
J.K. Rowling on parents that forbid their children from reading Harry Potter (or any fantasy novel that they vaguely disagree with)
I wouldn’t say I make up stories but if you’re asking if I make out with stories then the answer is resoundingly yes
dear Jez and Anna,
I have not yet acquired Ready Player One. when one more payday hath passed, I shall hold in my hands this tome. your recommendations will never. be. forgotten.
love always,
august
I am so determined to make my damn Goodreads goal. no more of these heavy 1000+-page books for 2013. (okay maybe a couple. but no more than a couple.) books under 400 pages from here on out. okay? okay. haha. ha ha ha. like that’ll happen.
Writers Must Read!
Here’s my answer to the #20. Something that grinds gears and may be an unpopular opinion.
If you do not read, you will never be a writer.
Let me clarify.
The written word is an ages old craft. There is literally thousands of documents showing this craft. Utilize them. Go to a bookstore, now. Buy some books. No money? Library. No library? Download it. If you’re reading this, you’re on the internet so you have some means of acquiring books.
And read from a breadth of sources. You may want to write Westerns but you need more than Louis L’amour and Bret Harte. Read Huxley and King and Steinbeck. Learn from these other themes and genres. Find what works, what makes them tick, what breathes life into them and makes you fall in love with their worlds and characters and themes. Use them in your works, hammer them and play with them and see what you can make of the paragraph and the pacing and cadence of word choice.
Don’t. For the fuckmothering love of little baby monkeys, DO NOT simply go to tvtropes and wile away an afternoon. Doing that only gives you the barest, vaguest idea of what you’re dealing with. Theory without practice in the worst sense of the concept.
If you’re part of a writer’s circle or any group, show some love for your group. Read their work and have them read yours. Discuss the work. Discuss what you liked and what you didn’t like. Don’t just look for common proofreading errors. Get a feel for the piece. Know the piece. Think of ways that you would present the information they presented, for better or worse, and make note of that for when you are writing. This is what forwards you and your craft.
Everyone wants comments and love and adoration. Pay it forward. Like the above, if you want it, you start giving it just as much. Read and re-read the things you like to know why you liked it, to know why you didn’t like it.
But never, never ignore the other half of your so called artistic calling. Writing and reading, reading and writing are talents one in the same. Anyone who says otherwise knows nothing of either.
Can reply/addend as the question-asker?
Read from lots of different perspectives, not just genres. Huxley, King, Steinbeck, L’amour, Harte = all white dudes from the West, all pretty well-off. I’m not specifically picking on your choices, Rollem — I’m sure you read plenty of not white, straight, rich dudes — but the point stands that those are what came to mind first. They often do, when you mention “classics”.
So… yeah. Read lots of different things by different types of people, writers!
I didn’t really notice it until this year, but with every thing I read – and especially if it’s outside of my normal haunts (sci-fi and speculative fiction) – I can FEEL myself improving. for example, I’m currently reading Kat’s pseudo-Victorian romance novel and some perspectives and ways of using language from that leaked into my latest short story (about a man’s bitterness over an answered prayer). nothing to do with Victorian England, but improved upon by the simple act of reading.