Early reading, a Shotgun Approach!
In my late teens and early 20’s my ‘butterfly mind’ was, it seems, on overdrive. I can remember popping down to my local library or hitting it on the way home from school/college and picking up a selection of books that had caught my eye that day or books on subjects that I had, momentarily, focused on as ‘interesting’. As you can see below my interests were varied to say the least.
Notes to Myself by Hugh Prather (Non-Fiction)The Food of the Gods by H G Wells
Rommel by Desmond Young (Non-Fiction)
Fighter Command 1936-1968 by Chaz Bowyer (Non-Fiction)
A Salute to British Genius by Gordon Rattray Taylor (Non-Fiction)
The Great Defenders by Judge Gerald Sparrow (Non-Fiction)
The History Man by Malcolm Bradbury
Animal Days by Desmond Morris (Non-Fiction)
Tropic of Ruislip by Leslie Thomas
As before there’s a random selection of non-fiction from History (generally military back then) to Biography (all over the place). My fiction reading was similarly ‘wide’ from classic SF, thrillers (political especially), original works from things I’d seen on TV and some things that passed themselves off as ‘comedy’. I guess in those days I still had no great idea what I really liked and didn’t really know where to look for the ‘answers’ that my adolescent/young brain demanded – so I looked EVERYWHERE! Over the years I’ve calmed down a bit but, as you know by now, my butterfly/scattergun approach is still very much alive and well.
4 comments:
I am the ame way now. When I first started really getting into reading again after college, it was alllllll UK history, and even the first couple years of my blog, though I branched out to more non-fiction as well. But then I discovered YA and the wheels have come off completely, lol. Add to that the fact that I am 100% a mood reader...I am on the hot mess express when it comes to any kind of order. Good thing I thrive on chaos!
I remember a few times the librarians asking me to bring some of my books back as I was over their loan limit. If only they knew how many I REALLY had over that limit!! But they didn't seem to mind too much as I looked after the books and was always in there asking questions and requesting books from other libraries. I guess they liked the traffic I caused and most probably helped their stats a bit!
It’s a good approach that has served you well. I see no need to alter course.
It still makes me laugh when a bunch of us were huddled round a pub quiz machine and I was getting obscure questions right one after another. "How to you KNOW this stuff"? one of the guys said. "Because I read books and I remember things" I responded. We made money from those machines.... [grin]
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