Lately I’ve been trying to expand the range of my reading material, in the interest of improving my own writing. My theory is that, at this stage of my writing career, at least a portion of what I am writing is reflective of what I’m reading.
So I’m trying to mix it up a bit by reading different authors with different writing styles, by reading different genres, and even by reading books for different age groups. Right now I’m simultaneously reading The Plot Against America by Philip Roth, a hypothetical-historical piece of literary fiction, as well as Fade by Robert Cormier, a YA book about a boy who learns to become invisible and witnesses the dark secrets of his friends and neighbors, which I originally read many years ago and am now re-reading.
My experiences with both books are obviously very different, and the juxtaposition is interesting. Read more »
A friend of mine recently bought a copy of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight … in French. Though she studied the language in college and speaks semi-fluently, she’s definitely not a proficient reader of French and reads much more quickly and easily in English. Nevertheless, she’s forcing herself to plow through the French version of the incredibly successful teen vampire novel just so she can feel less guilty about reading it. She thinks that most people who see her reading Twilight will think that she has terrible taste in literature, so by reading it in French, she can defend herself as merely practicing another language.
