To start: I am reading Dreams of Gods and Monsters by Laini Taylor. If (when) you read my intro in 39 you'll see her name. I love, like, every word and feel like I finally found that inspirational author whose name folks always seem to be able to whip out when asked.

This is how I want to write.

And yeah, it took forever - because I don't read as much, nearly, as I should. We're talking maybe five books a year. The heavy hitters do that in a month.

I even recently took a class on reading put on by the Highlights Foundation (they have lots of great classes). One takeaway was to set a daily page count goal. The instructor's was fifty. Mine... not so much. But the idea was to pick the book up. Make it a habit. Find a way.

And to read broadly. This I struggle with mightily. If I'm not interested in something, I just can't read on. Then the desire to pick up the book fades and I read five books a year. Heh.

Another takeaway was if you're not thrilled by a book, put it down. Don't get mired in something you don't like or feel that you must finish it. Keep digging until you connect, then when you do, you'll get excited and read, read, read.

I'll add my own piece of advice, which is that it's okay not to like a book everyone else likes/loves. I suffered in silence with this one for a long time. Moby Dick is the best book evar! Well, that first line is classic...

Put. It. Down.

Go to a used book store, pick up ten books for five bucks and say, I'll read the first ten pages of each. Keep the ones that click, return the ones that don't.
Hmm... Maybe that's how I'll get my 10 page a day goal in.  

I love this idea. Reading is absolutely essential to being a successful writer, and it will be fun to see what everyone else is reading. 

Usually, my reading list is all over the place because I’m a part of two very different reading groups and because my personal tastes are also quite varied. Currently, I’m reading Enders Game, Mistborn, and the Ickabog (for my daughter,) but I just finished the Song of Achilles (loved it and her beautiful writing!) My Friend Anna, and The Guest List. Soon I will dive into reading a few magazines and hopefully find one where I can volunteer as a first reader. 

Posted by: @tj_knight

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The heavy hitters do that in a month.

I don't speed read, but when I get going I finish what I start at a fast pace.

Lately I've been reading books of da judges. Right now it's Kevin J. Anderson

In November it was Jody Lynn Nye.

Posted by: @tj_knight

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If I'm not interested in something, I just can't read on

If a book doesn't satisfy my needs, I opt out in a hurry.

Posted by: @tj_knight

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Go to a used book store, pick up ten books for five bucks and say,

I buy from a small bookstore, but their prices are not as low as that.

I also worked on helping proofread the coming anthology. It was an awesome experience to be recruited to do that.  

I really want to see what the illustrators have created for each story. The world is in for a treat once again with the quality of the winning stories that were judged to be the best.  

This year, I've read Lamb by Christopher Moore, Eric by Terry Pratchett, and On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers. I'm also intermittently reading the Wonderbook by Jeff VanderMeer for spots of inspiration, but I have no deadline or timeline for that one.

I started another book a couple of nights ago, but after 25 pages, decided it wasn't for me (it was a gift from someone who liked it, but it just wasn't clicking with me), and I've set that one aside. That's something I didn't do often in the past, I would try to muscle through a book anyway--it's perhaps the second or third novel I can remember abandoning like that. With it pushed aside, though, next in line will be Favored of the Gods by KD Julicher (earmarked to start reading that tonight, finally!), and after that, it'll be a toss-up between The Brass Queen by Elizabeth Chatsworth, or a re-read of Dune, which I've been wanting to revisit for years now.

“If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.” - Stephen King

I do want to say that this, along with every other "you aren't a writer unless" and "every real writer does x" types of advice, I don't fully subscribe to. I loved reading for pleasure for many years, and my love of reading definitely taught me how to get started in writing--but in order to improve how I wrote, I found I had to put reading down for quite a few years, despite not really wanting to do so. I chose to do that, to discover myself within my own work first. It wasn't a question of not having time to write, but one of seeing myself, and understanding what I needed to do for me as a writer.

(Technically, you could read it as different to the letter compared to King's advice--but I think the real implication of the advice is that if you aren't reading, you also can't write well.)

Taking that, as with every other piece of advice I see like this, I'm always wary that a new writer may see it, and feel discouraged because they're not following every one of these you've got to do this bits of advice from every writer they respect that can be found out there (which, taken as a grand and complete package, would be contradictory and impossible anyway). The only one I subscribe to is that you do have to write, in order to really get better at writing. Everything else is our well-trodden pirate's code--more what you'd call guidelines than actual rules--and nobody should be afraid to throw out a rule that isn't working for them, even if some very successful writer believes it's utterly necessary.

That being said, I've been rediscovering the joy of reading again, and I feel more like myself through doing so. I'm glad to be back in a place where I feel I can do this, and when I sit down to write, I'm still all myself, in my own space, writing my own way.  

This year I finished The Eye of the World (series book 1) by Robert Jordan. I'm half-way through The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch. Then I will find book 2 in Jordan's series. I got my first Kindle for my birthday, so I look forward to many library ebooks. This kindle came with a free KU subscription for a few months. I skimmed a few KU books. Erk. I need to look for more quality in KU. I'm researching dowsing for my next story, so reading many online articles. As a writer of dark fantasy, I need to know how occult tools work, right? I bought my first dowsing pendulum stone, lapis lazuli, a healing stone. Also, I'm researching Little Red Riding Hood stories. These have always fascinated me. Modern ones have a feminist bent. I found a few online. More I must hunt down. I bought a hard copy of this LRRH book since it is not available in Ebook. It was published in 2002.  Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked Ten Moral Tales From The Forest. "Catherine Orenstein reveals for the first time the intricate sexual politics, moral ambiguities and philosophical underpinnings of Red Riding Hood's epic journey to Grandmother's house--and how, from the nursery on, the story influences our view of the world." I've always wanted to write a LRRH. There's a lot of deep sh*t in fairy tales.

I keep my current list of reading on GoodReads and usually put reviews there as well. I don't mind repeating some of that information here if it would help others. 

Recently, I've been trying NetGalley to read/review pre-published works. I find a lot of fantasy there, not much sci-fi. A lot of the works seem pretty juvenile in writing style, and I've declined to review two because my reviews would be rather negative. But I've also found some good novels there, too.

Over the last year, I've been working my way through the entire list of Hugo novels. There's an accessible list at https://www.abebooks.com/books/hugo-awards/ . I'd already read many of them. I've been surprised, however, at how many of these top-award novels really didn't float my boat. Of the recent winners, I loved Martha Wells' Network Effect, the N.K. Jemison trilogy The Fifth Season (all three of which won in 2016-2018), Cixin Liu's The Three-Body Problem (also a trilogy), and John Scalsi's Redshirts. Many of the older ones are also outstanding, as you'd expect, but I found myself not even finishing some of the novels from the 1980s. (With, of course, the exception of the outstanding Orson Scott Card novels.) (No, that's not pandering to a judge. I've always been in love with Ender's Game and its sequels. Thanks for those, Scott.) (Okay, that last line might have been pandering a little bit.)

I've also been working my way through all the prior Writers of the Future anthologies. Lots of excellent stories, a few that made me shrug.

But I've got a question for those of you who are on staff and may know: What happened in 2015 with Volume 32? That volume seemed to be filled with nihilistic stories in which the protagonist dies or is defeated. I've enjoyed all the positive stories in volumes before and after, so that one really stood out to me.

"The clock on the local Crematorium struck midnight" is a line from "The Late Breakfasters" by  Robert Aickman.

I can't recommend it to anyone looking for one of his "weird tales" —this is far less weird and even less"erotic" than I'd expected from the guy's (rather obscure) reputation.

I was lead to this collection (the full title is: "and other strange stories") by picking up, somewhat at random, "Aickman's Heirs", a collection of actually quite weird tales I half-read before taking the plunge on "Breakfasters" 

The latter does treat homosexuality as really rather ordinary and unworthy of censure, which is doing pretty good for something written in 1964!

Excellent idea Dustin! One of my New Year's resolutions was to be more intentional about reading just for fun. I keep reading things about the craft of writing and publishing (which are good), but I need to get back to the reason I started writing in the first place. I love good stories and I miss reading them. But my writing is also influenced by what I read, so I need to keep it light as I'm trying to write a light-hearted urban fantasy novel at the moment.

So far this year I've read "Poker Boy: The Slots of Saturn" by Dean Wesley Smith (a grand romp through Las Vegas), and "The Middling Affliction" by Alex Schvartsman (a grand romp through NYC and Europe). Highly recommend both. Next on the docket is "Highfire" by Eoin Colfer, an urban fantasy about an alcoholic chain-smoking dragon hiding out in the Bayou.

This is a great idea for a thread, Dustin (as is the sister thread started by @ease).

I must admit, I still struggle to put down a book I am not enjoying, especially if it is a "classic" of the genre. Sometimes I find a book slow going and give it the benefit of the doubt, but if I hit over 100 pages and still finding it tough, that's when I know I should cut ties with it (but don't always do). I found myself struggling with Midnight's Children by Salmon Rushdie until about 2/3 of the way through, then loved the last 1/3, which makes me look quite fondly on the book as a whole now. Echo your thoughts re Moby Dick, I felt like some of the chapters were instructions on how to be a whaler rather than a story. Never finished it, and never will.

Over the last year I've been working my way through N.K Jemisin's excellent Fifth Season trilogy (on the final book now), highly recommend and totally worthy Hugo winners. I dip in and out of Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, last book I read was Guards! Guards!. I've also read the first two of Joe Abercrombie's The Blade Itself trilogy, which I've really enjoyed so far. I have yet to start the last book. I have not long started Lois McMaster Bujold's The Warrior's Apprentice. The story hasn't quite clicked with me yet but I really like her writing style and voice and am keen to read more of her works.

Thanks for the parenthetical compliment, @joel-c-scoberg . I'm really enjoying the renewed comradey that this forum has always been about.

The Fifth Season is incredible. N. K. is a genius, and in the Interviews I've heard from her she seems like a wonderful person too. 

I loved Abercrombie too but I disagree with his title of Lord Grimdark. Didn't feel half as Grimdark as other stuff I've read (i.e The Night Angel).

The only published fiction I'm reading is previous WOTF volumes. Otherwise I'm all over Take off your pants: how to outline by Libbie Hawker, Characters and Viewpoint by OSC, and Emotional something something by Donald Maass. That, and critiques for a couple forumites. Oh, and listening to a lot of TED talks (for idea generation) and Writing Excuses.

I tried reading Lois McMaster Bujold's stuff and got nowhere. It's like, I want to drink tomato basil soup and instead I'm choking on beef stew.

Funny, I didn't notice a darker turn in 32. I imagine it was coincidence. I'll go have a look out of curiosity...

Posted by: @lost_bard

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Excellent idea Dustin! One of my New Year's resolutions was to be more intentional about reading just for fun. I keep reading things about the craft of writing and publishing (which are good), but I need to get back to the reason I started writing in the first place. I love good stories and I miss reading them. But my writing is also influenced by what I read, so I need to keep it light as I'm trying to write a light-hearted urban fantasy novel at the moment.

So far this year I've read "Poker Boy: The Slots of Saturn" by Dean Wesley Smith (a grand romp through Las Vegas), and "The Middling Affliction" by Alex Schvartsman (a grand romp through NYC and Europe). Highly recommend both. Next on the docket is "Highfire" by Eoin Colfer, an urban fantasy about an alcoholic chain-smoking dragon hiding out in the Bayou.

This is a great idea! I feel like every time I put down a new book, my writing skill literally levels up - haha. Additionally this will be an excellent source of suggestions on what to read next!

I started out the year doing Lex Fridman's reading list, then switched over to genre research for my current novel WIP. So in 2023 I've read:

Out of The silent planet, C.S. Lewis

1984, George Orwell (Lex list)

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams (Lex list)

Brave New World, Aldous Huxley (Lex List) -- terrifying

The Ten Thousand Doors of January, Alix E. Harrow -- I want to write like thiiiiiiissss ? 

Current: On The Trail of The Jackalope, Michael P. Branch.

Plus currently reading The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis for my daughter haha.

I read pretty fast now, but I used to be lucky to get through a book or two a year -- my life was so busy with work or an infant that I barely had time to write, not to mention read. But it's so important to read! I ardently agree that it's about quality, not quantity -- Read for the joy of reading and to remember why you love this art form!!

Posted by: @watt_writes

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Plus currently reading The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis for my daughter haha.

It is awesome that you read to your daughter. My mother read to me when I was womb-bound. I'm certain that led to my ability to read at a young age.

I was the student that hid the book I wanted to read behind the one the teacher thought I was reading, lol.  

@storysinger Haha! Same! I used to hide Harry Potter open flat in my desk in elementary school with a paperclip marking what paragraph I was on, then find excuses to open my desk and read a snippet when I could ?. Dedicated nerdidom.

More beautiful dichotomy. I didn't read on my own (aside from picture books and Charlie Brown comics in elementary school) until high school. A friend bought me Sword of Shannara for Christmas, then like six months later guilted me into actually reading it. Slow going at first, then, wait a minute... This is awesome! Are other books awesome, too?

Turns out, yup.

Posted by: @watt_writes

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The Ten Thousand Doors of January, Alix E. Harrow -- I want to write like thiiiiiiissss ?

Just getting near the end of this and loving it.

Just to follow up, I've loved reading for as long as I can remember. Back before I could read myself, my Mam told me that reading books to me was the one sure-fire way to settle me down -- I'd sit quiet while someone read me a story, without fail. I read by myself as soon as I could, read my favourite book to other kids in pre-school, and wanted to write books of my own just as soon as I understood that it was a thing you could do.

(I also loved choose-your-own-adventure books, and wrote my own, filling entire school exercise books with them one at a time. My parents got pretty mad at one of my teachers when they discovered I'd spent almost a whole school year when I was 10-11 years old doing that instead of actually studying the things I was meant to be. And they were right to be, but that's a whole other story.)

I was embarrassingly old (20+) when I realized you could actually earn a living at writing, or even get rich at it if you're one of the lucky few. I'd wanted to do it for such a long time that it really hadn't crossed my mind that people would be doing it for money. I just sort of assumed that it was something people liked to do, not unlike reading a book, and so it'd always been on my list of things to do, without ever really being in mind as a career you could have. (Looking back, there are quite a few life choices I made at one time or another that were based in the idea that X, Y, and Z weren't things you could sustainably do for a living, and I was wrong about most of them.)

Anyway, that's just a snippet of background, following on from everyone else's comments...

I just finished K.D. Julicher's Favored of the Gods, and I had a pretty good time with it--it was the first novel I picked up because of WotF, and I'm glad I read it. Next in line is looking likely to be The Brass Queen by Elizabeth Chatsworth, which I picked up after reading her short story in the WotF volume (the one about the Morrigan helping a woman whose cat was murdered by gangsters), but that's all subject to change until I sit down and turn that first page.

I also realized that if I keep this reading pace up, even though it's far from spectacular, I'm still going to be burning through my to-read pile pretty fast. But soon enough, I'm going to be turning my attention to the final Terry Pratchett books that I have lined up. I have The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents, then all of the Tiffany Aching books--I started reading the first one before moving house in 2021, but got thrown out by that whole thing--and then the very last Discworld novel, which I think I may read first, so that I don't have to end with that one being the final book (as I read the one before, and know that his very last books are missing just a little bit of the magic that he had when he was able to write them directly himself). I know there are others, but for me, those are the ones that I actively wanted to read. I'm looking forward to it, but aware that the last one is going to feel pretty bitter-sweet when I close that final page.

Awesome thread, Dustin! I just requested Dreams of Gods and Monsters from the library.

Generally, I try to carve out time each day for reading prose and poetry, the poetry per Bradbury's advice. Acquainted but a few years, poetry's influence has filtered into my writing and overall taste for fiction. As an aside, I full-heartedly recommend the podcast Poetry Unbound. 

I just finished Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders. There are sections I found challenging to keep moving along, but in the end, found the book spectacular. How he spins his tale challenges what a novel is. It's certainly polarizing amongst Good Read reviews.

I'm currently reading Saunder's most recent short story collection Liberation Day and have enjoyed the few stories I've read thus far. I'm alternating between it and the most recent F&SF, my other dream market (along w/ WotF, of course!)

Next on my docket is Something Wicked This Way Comes. I'm stoked! I just started a book club, and it'll be our first read. I listened to the audible a few years back and am excited to have the prose to marinate on if desired. My mind can get flighty when I listen to books on audible. 

As for poetry, I'm currently leaping between Poetry Unbound and Mary Oliver.

Starting a book club is awesome!

Something Wicked is a classic I'd love to tackle... Someday?

Also, Gods and Monsters is book 3. It's running a little slow for me, sadly.

Daughter of Smoke and Bone is the first one. But honestly, if you're going to try this author out, I recommend Strange the Dreamer. It's *more* of what I love about her as a writer.

Posted by: @tj_knight

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But honestly, if you're going to try this author out, I recommend Strange the Dreamer. It's *more* of what I love about her as a writer.

Right on! I amended my library request to Strange the Dreamer. Ain't libraries grand? 

Something Wicked is also on my list to read, so if you guys do decide to go that way, I may just have to join you...

Chiming in with an unread copy of Something Wicked This Ways Comes on my nightstand.

Currently dipping my toes in Roger Zelazny's "Nine Princes in Amber." I don't usually love amnesia stories, but I'm pushing through because I liked his "A Night in the Lonesome October" so much.

At last I am reading The Heroine's Journey by Gail Carriger.

About half way through and enjoying it so far. Took a little while to get started, as if she had to justify its own existence (and that still crops up from time to time).

In a nutshell, the hero's journey is a path toward victory at all costs and likely isolation as a result. A great image is the final seconds of Conan the Barbarian where Conan is sitting on his throne. He won - he's got everything - but he's alone, and the voice over says there's a story for another day. You know what that story will be.

The heroine withers in isolation and thrives in company. But more than simply not being alone, the heroine doles out authority and has independent-thinking allies for the quest and retains them when the quest is complete.

So in analyzing my WiPs:

Book 1 heroine's journey (resolves)
Book 2 hero's journey (or dark hero's journey as our poor girl is questing toward evil)
Book 3 heroine's journey - multiple characters.

I'm pretty familiar with the hero's journey as I've been working on that for many years, however it has been illuminating to see it in contrast. For instance, I hadn't picked up on the isolation bit, and it makes me look back on some stories anew, which is the brilliance of reading, right? Offering of new perspectives.

So my book club wasn't so much a fan of Something Wicked, ? which I took slightly personally (in a cheeky, overdramatic way) since the book was my suggestion and Ray Bradbury is up there on high for me. For them, and I'm generalizing here, his poetic style, chalked full of metaphors, got in the way of clarity. I get it, disagree with it, & love the book all the more. No doubt, I wear rose-tinted glasses, glasses which I'll wear into the grave. Unless that is, I jump a ride on a certain carousel.

Our April book is Pride & Prejudice, which I'm stoked for. That classic, really anything by Austen, has been on my TBR pile for a long time coming. Other books just had jumped the queue. 

I recently finished Sula by Toni Morrison & Child of God, by Cormac McCarthy. Sula is masterful. I've only read two others from Morrison (Beloved, The Bluest Eye) & she is now up there w/ Ray in my eyes. Her prose can be as comforting as a blanket, then sharp and jagged the next. And the sorrow, my god, it's thick. Can't wait to read another, maybe Song of Solomon. 

Child of God was a quick read (less than 200 pages), certainly an incredibly dark read with the flourishes of lyrical brilliance you expect from McCarthy. 

On the craft front, I just read Susan Griffin's Out of Silence, Sound. Out of Nothing, Something. I loved it & recommend it. It's very accessible, instructed in vignettes, and besides the many nuggets on the technical, it really meditates on the creative process. Here's Susan Griffin on the podcast, First Draft, in conversation about the book if you're interested: https://podglomerate.com/?episode=first-draft-susan-griffin

As a slight aside, First Draft is a great podcast on writing.

@jeschleicher Thank you for posting about your reader adventures. Several books you listed, I have not yet read and now they are on my list.  FWIW my book club hates anything I suggest.  After this happening twice, I stopped suggesting books. Hmph! They are lacking in imagination.Believe it or not, they hated An Orphan's Tale #1 In the Night Garden by Catherynne Valente. Their dislike for this book cut me to the quick! She is one of my favorite authors. I no longer will drop such pearls before swine. I will check out the First Draft podcast you mentioned. Right now, I'm reading a Summer 2022 Ploughshares anthology, Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked Sex, Morality, and the Evolution of Fairy Tale by Catherine Orenstein and The Great Hunt by Robert Jordan. I hope to write a feminist Little Red Riding Hood story someday. For craft, I'm reading Story Genius by Lisa Cron. I especially like the chapter Myths Galore: Everything We Were Taught About Writing is Wrong. This is the best craft book I've ever read, or it just hit me at the right time.

Posted by: @pegeen

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I no longer will drop such pearls before swine.

? ? ?  Preach!

Posted by: @pegeen

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For craft, I'm reading Story Genius by Lisa Cron. I especially like the chapter Myths Galore: Everything We Were Taught About Writing is Wrong. This is the best craft book I've ever read, or it just hit me at the right time.

I most certainly will give this a read. Thank you!!

Even though it hasn't helped me score higher than HM I tend to read stories by judges of WotF. I also keep reading the anthologies. Right now it's volume 39, the e version.

Right now I'm reading the second book in K J Andersons The Saga of the Seven Suns. I don't remember reading anything presented the way he's doing in this saga.

I just received a very nice critique from Cherrie on my Q2 entry. After today I will be ready to submit a winning story.