One annoying thing about being a writer is deciding when to read and when to write. Both are constantly vital to becoming or being a good writer, so how do you divide your time between them? Since my day job is almost all writing, I often keep going with my own personal writing (like this blog) and leave reading for the end of the day. 2021 has been a big reading year for me.
What I Finished Already
Stephen King: On Writing
On Christmas Eve 2020 I got a gift card for Amazon, so I went to bed pondering what I would get with it. I was drawn to the Kindle app and found a book on sale for $1. It was Stephen King’s On Writing. I wasn’t sure I would enjoy reading King’s non-fiction, but I gave it a try. The book pulled me in, even as I lay awake swiping through pages on my phone, into early Christmas morning. From purchase to completion, this might be the fastest I’ve ever gone through a book, especially an ebook. I was done before February was over, which is rather fast for me. Highly recommended.
Andrzej Sapkowski: The Last Wish
Those who have played the Witcher games or watched the Netflix series might recognize the name. I started this a couple of years ago, but I was making incredibly slow progress until this year. Nightly reading habits helped me crush the last ¾ of the book. Great collection of connected short stories, fantastic fantasy. Those who only know the Netflix series will find Yennefer under-represented, but perhaps more happens with her in the sequels.
Frank Herbert: Children of Dune
Few books excited me as much as the ending of Children of Dune. This is another one that I started a long time ago and didn’t really push through until this year. I would call this my favorite read of the year, but the beginning is a little slow. The final scenes had me geeking out harder than I have in the better part of a decade.
William Strauss/Neil Howe: The Fourth Turning
As part of a project, I have spent a lot of time reading or listening to books on generational studies. It’s not really the kind of thing I would read normally, but the Strauss/Howe generational theory is inspirational for my writing. I’m also reading their book Generations right now.
Orson Scott Card: Ender in Exile
The Enderverse is a huge part of my life ever since I read Ender’s Game back in college. Had I been wiser, I would have read up on the reading order and read through the Shadow series before doing Exile, but I wanted to finish the Quintet. It’s not as good as Game, Speaker, or Xeno, but it might be on par with Children of the Mind.
Currently Reading
R.A. Salvatore: Homeland
I am a big fan of Dungeons & Dragons, and this is my first attempt at diving deeper into the lore of the forgotten realms. I stumbled upon the Icewind Dale trilogy compilation by the same author on Amazon and bought it, not knowing there are three books before it. I quickly found and ordered the Dark Elf trilogy which starts with Homeland and started reading. There’s a lot there to read, and I’m moving slow, but I’m immediately enjoying Salvatore’s style.
J.R.R. Tolkien: The Two Towers
I’ve been going through the Lord of the Rings series far too slowly. Last I read I was at entmoot, but that was probably last year. I’ve been reading these on the Kindle app which probably doesn’t help me keep up as much as I would with a solid book.
Brandon Sanderson: Mistborn
Instead of reading this one on my own, I’ve been going through this one with my wife. Every once in a while, I will ask her to read a chapter to me before bed. She likes to read to me, and it’s nice to be read to instead of doing the reading sometimes. Sanderson is somewhat of a role model for me personally, so I should work a lot harder on reading his stuff but… what can I say? I’m terrible.
Also, I started King’s Dark Tower: Gunslinger, which isn’t that long, I’m just lazy and scatter-brained.
The Phyronian Chronicle 