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Saturday, May 4, 2024

How My Reading Habits Have Changed

 


As a very unpopular child whose father was a professor of literature and humanities, I was a voracious reader. I learned to read by the time I was four years old. At six, I was reading Edgar Allan Poe. My love for the macabre has never ceased. As a teenager, I discovered H. P. Lovecraft and Stephen King. I would much rather be reading than doing homework.

Since I've started writing fiction myself, I'm more likely to read nonfiction, specifically autobiographies and biographies. Unlike my younger days, I prefer to read on a computer. I'm old enough that the computer wasn't even an option in the days of my youth. I believe I got my first computer in 1988. It was an MS-DOS model with actually floppy discs, which gives you an idea of just how old I am. 

I live at least an hour from any city, so I listen to audiobooks while driving. It took a couple of years to listen to all the books in Stephen King's Dark Tower series. The books at the end of the series went a bit off the rails, but I understood why that happened. Stephen King was in a serious accident (he was hit by a van) and was contemplating his own mortality. He inserted himself as a character into the stories. 

My younger self would probably be a bit horrified if she knew just how much her reading habits were going to change when she aged. She could not have imagined being without her beloved stories. 

Cara H
The deranged brain behind C. L. Hart and Lil DeVille




2 comments:

Tina Donahue said...

Like you, Cara, I started reading well before kindergarten. Having to endure an awful home life, the library was my sanctuary. I didn't want to play; I wanted to read to escape to other lands, lives, possibilities...

I gave up on Stephen King after a few of his latest books. Wish I could recall the titles, but they elude me. His work's become so self-indulgent, most of it - to me - is unreadable. The same with Dean Koontz. I loved Intensity and Odd Thomas, but the rest of his recent work - to me - is forgettable.

Ornery Owl of Naughty Netherworld Press and Readers Roost said...

I liked Duma Key, but I think the accident really affected King's writing style. Since he was well-known at the time when it changed, he got away with it. We lesser beings can't even get away with a misplaced comma! ;-)