WHAT I LIKE TO READ

by Joelle Steele

As a writer, I am often asked what I like to read. That's a tough question for me, because I read about two books a week, I have very wide and eclectic interests, and I read both fiction and non-fiction. I have an incredibly long list of books I want to read, and that list keeps on growing. I currently have about 150 ebooks in epub, mobi, and PDF formats, and I try to read at least one every week. I also borrow from the library. I rarely read all the works of an author. I usually gravitate towards individual books that I've heard about or that were recommended to me.

In fiction, I enjoy novels that are mysteries, ghost stories, science fiction, and historic fiction. I do deviate from those genres from time to time. I read novels from all eras, many of which are rather obscure, usually out of print, and hard to get. But, no matter where I've lived, my local libraries have always managed to find those titles for me through interlibrary loans.

I get bored very easily, so I almost never read more than three novels in a series, and I no longer read horror or fantasy. I find that many of today's books are very formulaic with unoriginal or poorly-developed characters and plot lines. I guess I'm super picky or super snobby.

In nonfiction, I read history, especially about ancient cultures, Egypt in particular. I also read about architecture and archaeology; art and music; biographies and letters of artists, musicians, and writers; social customs and everyday living from all eras; and very old travel books about what tourist destinations used to be like in days long gone.

Because I do a lot of research for my own books, I frequently find myself reading an awful lot of books about subjects that I would otherwise never even think about, such as farming in the 1920s for my book "Spider in the Attic;" mirror making in the early 18th century for "Reflections;" schizophrenia for "Delusions;" ghost hunting for "Shades;" the deep and dark webs for "The Man in the Drawer." The list goes on and on …

So back to what I read. Here are some of the novels that are among my top favorites, along with a list of some authors for whom I have read many or all of their titles. I'm not recommending any of these books, because I have no idea what other readers might like. These are just representative of the kinds of books I most enjoyed. I have read more than 1,200 novels, and more than four-thousand non-fiction works about a wide variety of subjects.

Growing up, my parents had a library of about five thousand books. My mother read to me regularly, I loved going to the library, and I started reading at age three. I was reading at 8th grade level when I was in 4th grade. I love to read, my reading tastes are extremely eclectic, and I have an enormous list of books I want to read. That list grows by leaps and bounds because I'll be reading something and it mentions a book I've never read or never heard of and it goes on the list. There is almost no author or genre that I haven't read, and when I read novels, it isn't to escape, but to be entertained.

Here are some of my favorite novels, followed by a list of some of my favorite authors:

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
Black Water Lilies by Michel Bussi
Bruge-la-Morte by Georges Rodenbach
Feint of Art by Hailey Lind
Felidae by Akif Pirinçci
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Marjorie Morningstar by Herman Wouk
The Gauguin Connection by Estelle Ryan
The Knowledge of Water by Sarah Smith
The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
The Other by Thomas Tryon
The Paris Wife by Paula McLain
The Peat Cutters by Alphonse de Châteaubriant
The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough
Timeline by Michael Crichton
Zoli by Colum McCann

These are some of my favorite authors for whom I have read most or all of their titles. I don't usually like books written in series with the same characters (I get bored very easily), but I made exceptions with Stephen R. Donaldson, Alexandre Dumas, Diana Gabaldon, Winston Graham, Anne McCaffrey, Jean-François Parot, and Anne Rice. Here are just a few other favorites:

Asimov, Isaac
Bradbury, Ray
Bronte, Charlotte
Camus, Albert
Christie, Agatha
Dickens, Charles
Dinesen, Isak
du Maurier, Daphne
Flaubert, Gustave
Follett, Ken
Hardy, Thomas
Hoag, Tammy
Hugo, Victor
Kafka, Franz
King, Stephen
London, Jack
Michaels, Barbara
Michener, James
Niven, Larry
Siddons, Anne Rivers
Steinbeck, John
Stevenson, Robert Louis
Straub, Peter
Tan, Amy
Tolkien, J.R.R.