This week's Booking Through Thursday question asks:
Are your book choices influenced by friends and family? Do their recommendations carry weight for you? Or do you choose your books solely by what you want to read?My close personal friends, Messrs. Booker, Pulitzer, and Black, influence my book choices more than anyone.
Being a compulsive "list" reader, it is hard for me to change course and move into uncharted literary waters. There are so many books already on my TBR shelf that won some prize or made it onto a "Must Read" list that it is hard to get my attention for anything else.
There are a couple of exceptions. My parents and sister pass on books that they finished that they think I would like and I usually take those. And a couple of my girlfriends give me books that I always read. In fact, I had a dream last night about reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society because my friend gave it to me and I'm seeing her next week.
And I will always read a book written by a friend. That's a hard and fast rule for me. It has been a little strange since I started this blog, because now I usually review the books as well as read them. I promise an honest review, so I have been lucky that I have talented friends who write good books. But the day could come when I will be in an awkward spot. If that happens, I'll skip the review.
Here is a partial list of very good books by friends that I've read recently:
Water the Bamboo by Greg Bell (reviewed here)
A Small Fortune by Audrey Braun (reviewed here)
The Age of Reagan (Vol. II): The Conservative Counterrevolution, 1980 - 1989 by Steven Hayward (reviewed here)
Lost in Translation and The Last Chinese Chef by Nicole Mones (reviewedhere and here)
The Top Ten Myths of American Health Care: A Citizen's Guide by Sally Pipes (reviewed here)
Creating a Class: College Admissions and the Education of Elites by Mitchell Stevens (which was really fascinating and engaging and I live with guilt because I forgot to review it but I will one of these days)
