Some of my most loved reads have either been Booker prize winners or made that year’s short list. They often tend to be out of my usual reading lane, but have introduced me to some of my now favorite authors.
I am in the industry and to stay current I use the "Read sample" on Amazon Books. For fun I watch TV. Just kiddin I like literary fiction. Ugh, that awful word : )
Oh, I know. I hate the terminology, too. I look at it as marketing divisions more than anything--where books show up in the bookstores--but there's so much engrained snobbery involved. It would be lovely if we could come up with some more neutral language, but I'm not holding my breath.
I’ll admit that I don’t usually add to my TBR pile from the prize lists. Mostly, I get recommendations from friends and other readers, including here on Substack. I’m already overwhelmed by my pile—I just can’t read fast enough!
I hear you! I dream of booking a week's vacation where I just move into a nice hotel with good room service and hide away in my room with a big totebag of books.
I tend to like reading genre fiction more than anything literary, but I, too, measure time by what I read at each stage of my life. From age nine or ten onward, I frequently gravitated to Newbery Award winners and finalists, having read and enjoyed all the books you mentioned above. Often many times over (especially The Witch of Blackbird Pond and Island of the Blue Dolphins).
Many of my favorite childhood and teenage memories involve being dropped off at the public library for a couple of hours while my mom went grocery shopping. We lived in a rural area, an hour from town, so this was my only chance to get different books than my school library held. The maximum number I was allowed was six, so I chose carefully. When I was about twelve, I was shown the YA section by my favorite librarian, and I decided to read the entire section alphabetically. If I was stuck or down to a choice between one book and another, being a Newbery book was often the tie-breaker.
When I got older and mostly read fantasy, if a book had a positive Locus review, that was a decider. Older still, it was Hugo and Nebula award winners. As an author, when my book is a finalist for IndieReader Discovery or NextGeneration Indie Book awards, that means a lot.
Libraries are such treasures, especially when we're small. And librarians are the best. I remember taking out a book from the adult section when I was maybe ten or eleven and the children's librarian asking me if I'd read all the books in her department already. (Of course I hadn't; there were thousands.)
Some of my most loved reads have either been Booker prize winners or made that year’s short list. They often tend to be out of my usual reading lane, but have introduced me to some of my now favorite authors.
I am in the industry and to stay current I use the "Read sample" on Amazon Books. For fun I watch TV. Just kiddin I like literary fiction. Ugh, that awful word : )
Oh, I know. I hate the terminology, too. I look at it as marketing divisions more than anything--where books show up in the bookstores--but there's so much engrained snobbery involved. It would be lovely if we could come up with some more neutral language, but I'm not holding my breath.
I’ll admit that I don’t usually add to my TBR pile from the prize lists. Mostly, I get recommendations from friends and other readers, including here on Substack. I’m already overwhelmed by my pile—I just can’t read fast enough!
I hear you! I dream of booking a week's vacation where I just move into a nice hotel with good room service and hide away in my room with a big totebag of books.
I tend to like reading genre fiction more than anything literary, but I, too, measure time by what I read at each stage of my life. From age nine or ten onward, I frequently gravitated to Newbery Award winners and finalists, having read and enjoyed all the books you mentioned above. Often many times over (especially The Witch of Blackbird Pond and Island of the Blue Dolphins).
Many of my favorite childhood and teenage memories involve being dropped off at the public library for a couple of hours while my mom went grocery shopping. We lived in a rural area, an hour from town, so this was my only chance to get different books than my school library held. The maximum number I was allowed was six, so I chose carefully. When I was about twelve, I was shown the YA section by my favorite librarian, and I decided to read the entire section alphabetically. If I was stuck or down to a choice between one book and another, being a Newbery book was often the tie-breaker.
When I got older and mostly read fantasy, if a book had a positive Locus review, that was a decider. Older still, it was Hugo and Nebula award winners. As an author, when my book is a finalist for IndieReader Discovery or NextGeneration Indie Book awards, that means a lot.
Libraries are such treasures, especially when we're small. And librarians are the best. I remember taking out a book from the adult section when I was maybe ten or eleven and the children's librarian asking me if I'd read all the books in her department already. (Of course I hadn't; there were thousands.)