Reading v Writing

Photo by Diana Morrison 21-09-12

Considering I call myself a writer - I have actually only just begun to read in the last eighteen months or so. It's not that I couldn't (obviously), I just didn't get any enjoyment out of it. It was on a solo trip to the UK, last year for a funeral that I decided I wanted something to read on the plane. I made for the bookshop at Cork airport and headed for the non-fiction section, as usual. But being only a small bookshop, the array of books, mainly self-help, aimed at  empowering women (you know the ones I mean!) did not appeal to me at all,  and I found myself in the unfamiliar territory of trying to choose a novel. What genre was I interested in? Did I like crime stories, historical, chick-lit? The truth was, I hadn't a clue! I pulled books from the shelf, read the blurb and put them back, I wasn't interested enough to find out what would happen. 

I thought of my own attempts at writing fiction, my never-ending novel and how I always strived to use the best language that I could in order to make it come alive. I thought good writing wins prizes! So I looked through the books again and picked up "The Tiger's Wife" by Téa Obreht, noticing with satisfaction that it had won The Orange Prize for Fiction that year. So that was it. I bought it, I read it, I loved it! This is now how I choose all the books that I read - the novel or at least the author must be the winner of or  long/short listed for a reputable prize (that doesn't include the Richard and Judy Prize!!!!) and I have not been disappointed, well with only a couple of exceptions. I am now an avid reader of what I think is quality fiction. Call me a snob if you like and yes I may be doing myself out of reading some cracking novels, but to have come to reading so late, there is nothing more annoying to me than to read something that has been poorly written, no matter how good the story is.

I am reading Sebastian Barry's "A Long Long Way" at the moment and I have been unable to put it down all morning. I love it when that happens but there is that ever present niggle, that I should be writing. I justify it though by making myself believe that reading other authors is the best form of research  there is!

My recommended authors just now are David Mitchell, Alan Hollinghurst, Howard Jacobson, Anne Enwright, Peter Carey, Kate Grenville and of course, Sebastian Barry.