Who's Reading What?

In my newsletter, Doing It Write, I asked the question, What Keeps You Reading? I heard from Doris Lakey and wanted to share her comments with you. If you live in north Texas, you may have heard of Doris. She's the President of North Texas Professional Writers Association in Bedford.

Here's what Doris said:

What keeps me reading is a lyrical text by someone like Dean Koontz, giving me language to savor as I travel along. Whether romance or horror, I prefer to add my imagination rather than follow a graphic telling. The stories long remembered feature characters so real you continue to wonder what they've done since the last page, knowing they live on.

What keeps me reading book after book in a series is certainly not the plot (many of those get thinner as the series age). Stephen White's series about a psychiatrist and his family development does this very well and in Braun's The Cat Who... series it's the growth and changes in the continuing characters, the manipulation of minor characters from acquaintance to villain or victim, as real people change before your eyes.

But then I'd read the phone book if nothing else were available. (I've actually done that: when punished as a child with a book-free week, I'd sneak open the phone book just for the comfort of the written words.)

After all, as I often say, I can only take so much reality, tempered with a lot of fiction.

I asked Doris to write a bio line to give a bit more information about herself. Here's what she wrote:

A few of her short stories, poems and nonfiction pieces (including book reviews) have been published. A novel awaits rewrite; her family history takes precedence until completion.

I'd say she's a bit modest. You can find out more about her on the NTPWA site.

As sort of a follow-up to the original column, I wrote a post, Reading Fast These Days, about what I'm currently reading.

Feel free to comment on what you're reading and why.