Drinking in the words...

I have come to a conclusion that when I read more, I write more.

It makes sense, really. I absorb the beautiful words of people like P.G Wodehouse, Agatha Christie, Sara Gruen and J.K Rowling and it inspires me to make more beautiful words.

I was also reading this list, Ten Rules of Writing, and there were two that stood out to me in particular:

1. Try to spend more time writing than cruising the Net, and that includes reading chat about writing.

5. Read widely, and that means outside your genre, and as far outside your socio-economic-ethnic pool as you can get.

So I decided to make a booklist. And spend more time reading instead of being on the internet, in an effort to get me writing more. Reading and writing usually go hand in hand.

I also want to embrace this idea of 'reading anything and everything I can get my hands on', which includes things that I don't want to read. And so I jumped on Book Depository, with the goal in mind that I would order one book that I had never read, one non-fiction book about something that interests me, and one book that I wasn't really keen on reading but should read anyway if I want to be a Young Adult author. I briefly thought of adding one book of poetry to this as well, but seeing as Book Depository has free postage and therefore no handling, I would save my money and buy and nice hard backed copy from somewhere like Elizabeth's and know that it wouldn't get dinged up on the way to my doorstep.

So, the three books I ordered.

Firstly I added Never Let Me Go to my shopping cart, by Kazuo Ishiguro. You may recognize the title from the movie that's about to come out starring Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield and Keira Knightley. I'm keen to see the film and so I thought perhaps reading the book would be a good idea. Plus it sounds like my kind of story - sci fi without being in space. :D
Secondly was the ever-wanted-to-order Queen Victoria, by Lytton Strachey. I read the first chapter or two when I got it from the library, and fell in love with it, so I put it on my mental wishlist to order the moment I wasn't poor. Then I forgot about it. But now it's coming! I do so love the 19th century. I can't wait to read the rest of this book - I found some incredibly interesting little tidbits in the first couple chapters that will definitely be turning up in the pages of my own novel. Excitement.
Lastly, I had to choose a book that I should probably read but am not quite excited by the concept of it. I'm into trying to read popular teen fiction at the moment so I can 'know what's on the market'. Currently struggling through City of Bones (which, for the record, failed me on the second page with the most hideously awful sentence I have ever read in published fiction. Not counting a few sentences written by Stephenie Meyer, of course...). Thought I'd try for something perhaps a little better and order myself a nine-dollar copy of Tomorrow, When the War Began. Purposely went for the non-movie-edition-cover, of course. I have never read it and yet surprisingly did not mind the movie; although, truth be told the protagonist was one of the biggest Mary Sues of all Mary Sues, so I can't say I have much hope for her in the actual book. Nevertheless, I'm willing to give it a try.

Now off to read the rest of Chapter One of After the Funeral by Agatha Christie. Care to share what you're reading at the moment?