The Book Tower

From Booking Through Thursday.

Do you get on a roll when you read, so that one book leads to the next, which leads to the next, and so on and so on?

I always claim to stumble from book to book, although when I look back at the trail behind me I can usually spot a pattern.

I’m currently reading the latest novel by Clive Barker, which is probably because I’ve been reading a lot of Neil Gaiman recently, although I wasn’t really thinking of anything when I bought the Barker book. I just subconsciously decided to widen my appreciation of the ghostly and supernatural to include a taste of horror. And what probably got me onto this path was Nicola Barker’s Darkmans, which has a supernatural element and was nominated for the 2007 Booker Prize. Because I’d read both this and Ian McEwan’s latest, the Booker theme continued when I bought The Gathering by Anne Enright – the eventual winner. But I must confess that I hated the book, so sometimes rolls don’t work out.

Usually planned reading directions don’t work out for me either. I finished Albert Camus and wanted to read Kafka, but the plan went nowhere. I put Kafka away again for another day. Even when I find an author I love I can’t read too many of their books in one go; their power gets diluted. This year it’s happened with Cormac McCarthy, Graham Greene and Sebastian Faulks. Sometimes my roll goes no further than picking up the next unread book on my shelf, other times it’s picking up a tip from another blog. More often than not it’s just luck and chance.