My mom has been staying with me for the last month recovering from a fall, and with little else to do, has been gobbling up my bookshelves almost faster than I can replenish them. I’m passing along all the books I think she ought to like, but I’m finding something odd. There are some books she just doesn’t like, books I loved. Why is that?
After thinking it over for a little while, I came to a very important conclusion. Readers all read for different reasons.
Some read to be entertained. Others, to be educated, or uplifted, or distracted, or to find the love they don’t have. And while every reader is looking for something different, they also seek it in different styles of writing, too.
I greatly enjoy a book that takes me into the heart and mind of a character. I can happily go for five pages of exposition or narrative without anything happening if those pages are well-crafted, show me the heart and mind of the character, and either lend to the plot or give me a foundation for the plot. It also doesn’t bother me to just take a meandering walk through the woods, enjoying what I find, as long as it’s written well.
My mother, on the other hand, reads for a story. She’ll skip the meandering through the woods to get to the “good part.” We’ve often had discussions on books that I thought were beautiful and lyrical, and she thought were boring and stupid, because the plot was too gentle or the piece was too literary. At first I thought I had failed my mother in some fundamental way, but I’ve realized that she doesn’t care for literary novels. I don’t care for many of them, but I’ve found some I truly have enjoyed.
I’ve spoken with people who absolutely refuse to read fiction at all. Others refuse to read historical fiction, not liking the way that fact and fiction are mixed together. I confess, I find that personally saddening, given that’s what I write. But I do acknowledge that everyone has their own tastes. Some readers won’t read books with sad endings. And others, like me, will read a little bit of everything, casting around for their favorite individual books rather than earmarking an entire genre as a favorite.
But no matter what you read for, entertainment, enlightenment, or education, the main goal is that you enjoy it. I can’t foist my reading tastes off on you and demand that you like what I like – we’re all different and so we all have different tastes. Your tastes are not wrong. I might find them a little confusing when compared to mine (the thought of never reading fiction just curdles my insides) but that’s part of what makes us all unique.
Some of Tristi’s Favorite Books: