Here are some statistics for you: according to the L.A. Times, a study conducted by the Pew Research Center indicates that only "72% of American adults have read a book in the past year, while the percentage for millennials, ages 18 to 29, was higher: 80%.in the last year," and "[t]he percentage of Americans who reported reading e-books actually dropped slightly, from 28% to 27%."

I'm not sure if that's grim or not, but it's definitely telling. Maybe I should change the title of this article to "Read, Dammit!"?

Whatever.

More books for me.

Stats aside, if you're a writer, you better be reading. And if you're reading, it's best not to get stuck in one genre for too long. Don't get me wrong. Most of us are busy, and it's easy to fall back into reading our favorite kinds of books. I'm a sucker for horror, sci-fi, and post-apocalyptic novels or anything that contains those elements. Here is a list, in no particular order, of seven (it's a magic number!) of my favorite books of the last couple of years, along with a one sentence description. There are some spoilers here, so if all you want are the book titles, don’t read the descriptions.

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North—Like a more serious Phil from Groundhog Day, Harry August lives his life over and over again, retaining his memories and knowledge until he’s over a thousand years old, at which point another one of his kind tries to destroy humanity, but he’s really too tired to do anything about it—just kidding; he really tries to stop it.

The Book of Strange New Things: A Novel by Michel Faber–Peter Leigh, an ex-junkie turned Christian missionary, is selected to minister to the native inhabitants of the far-off planet Oasis (who have faces that resemble “a placenta with two fetuses — maybe 3-month-old twins, hairless and blind — nestled head to head, knee to knee”), while back on Earth the climate change ravages the world, and everybody turns to violence and tribalism in order to survive.

Your House is on Fire, Your Children All Gone by Stefan Keisbye—One of the most dark and disturbing books I’ve ever read, Your House is on Fire, Your Children All Gone has been described as combination of The White Ribbon, The Village of the Damned, and every whacked out episode of The Twilight Zone, the former of which involves horse mutilation, the blinding of an intellectually disabled boy, and nascent nazism.

The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker —One of my favorite parts is when the jin gets the socialite pregnant—not the act itself, or the pregnancy specifically, but the weird changes the poor woman undergoes.

The Goldfinch: A Novel by Donna Tartt—Theo Decker survives a terrorist attack on the Metropolitan Museum, steals the titular painting, is shipped out west to live with his ne’er-do-well father, does drugs with his bff, kidnaps his step-mother’s dog, escapes back to NYC, is taken in by his mentor/father figure (who teaches him how to be an antique furniture dealer), and finally ends up in Amsterdam where he gets into a firefight with a gang of art thieves.

The Girl With All The Gifts by M.R. Carey—Every morning before school, the soldiers come into Melanie's cell and strap her to her wheelchair, making sure to fix her head in place just in case she tries to bite someone; that would be bad.

The Library At Mount Char by Scott Hopkins—The young adults in this horrifying fantasy novel (for adults) all have special powers given to them by "Father"—not their real father but a mythical figure who has . . . . adopted them: David kills everything, Margaret dies and resurrects herself, Michael talks to animals, and Carolyn learns every language ever written; when they are bad or disappoint Father, he puts them in a barbecue-shaped like a bronze bull and cooks them until there's nothing left but charred bones, then brings them back to life.

Honorable Mentions: Slade House, by David Mitchell, and The Stolen Child, by Keith Donohue, The Reapers Are the Angels, by Alden Bell, and Lovecraft Country, by Matt Ruff. (Actually, I loved these, too, but I wanted keep my list at seven.)

Two of them, The Girl With All The Gifts and The Reapers Are the Angels, are post-apocalyptic zombie novels, my go-to plot of my go-to genre. The only odd man out on that list is The Goldfinch. It's definitely imaginative, but I wouldn't call it Sci-Fi, Fantasy, or Horror, which are my go-to genres. And I loved reading all of them, by the way, but by the time I finished Lovecraft Country, I felt as though I was on autopilot. The plots started becoming predictable (something I'll address in the third article of this series), and the characters a little run-of-the-mill. It wasn't the author's fault; those books are excellent representations of their genre. I'd just read too many of them.

Fortunately, a good friend of mine suggested a non-fiction book, And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut: A Life. It's a great read, and it led to me reading a biography of another one of my favorite authors, Joseph Heller (it was okay), which for some reason led to me reading Fierce Patriot: The Tangled Lives of William Tecumseh Sherman. This past January, I was asked to do a talk at Fredericksburg Nerd Nite. I chose to talk about Ambrose Bierce, so I read his biography, Alone In Bad Company.

And so now my biography binge is over, replaced by four completely different books: Moonglow: A Novel, by Michael Chabon, Silence: A Novel, by Shusaku Endo, The Hapless Child, by Edward Gorey, and, for some reason, The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done, by Peter Drucker.

The best thing about this kind of variety is not just the breadth of information and subject matter, but also ingesting the numerous styles, approaches, and purposes of the work. All of it matters to a writer. Why? Because it's your profession, and it isn't just a suggestion to know as much as possible about your profession, it's imperative.

Next up: Varying Your Reading Tip #2—Challenge Yourself

Are you a fan of horror or post-apocalyptic fiction?

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--JN