I have a deep, abiding love for books. It’s true that I get frustrated with some authors, and I’ve been known to throw a book across the room in a fit of pique, but in general I love the institution of literature, and I’ll give just about any book a fair shot. I attribute this to three people in my childhood, who encouraged and fostered the love of reading.
My mother, who created a rule which went as follows: “You can stay up as late as you want, provided you’re reading and that you’re able to function in the morning.” My dad, who taught me to love knowledge and reason and to value the ability to understand. I remember watching the way he thought about things, the way he saw through things, and thinking that I would never be able to find flaws in logic, to see through charades, as easily as he did. I don’t know if I’m there yet, but it’s a part of my mind that I’ve cultivated, and which is sharp. That’s because of him, and because of the books he brought to me. The last person is my grandmother, who was an example, and also a source. She had many, many books, and I think I’ve gotten some of her eclectic taste. She read everything from murder mysteries to fantasy, political opinion pieces to sappy love-stories. She provided me with an endless supply of pleasant reads, and reinforced that books are not just a collection of words which we can use to deepen our understanding…They’re also places to get lost. Filthy with tyrants and heroes, blackguards and victims and SEALs and talking mice. Books exist to sing to a part of the soul that our lives rarely awaken.
I was thinking about my love of books, and I thought I’d query my meager but loyal blog audience. Blodience?
First a question of tactile preference. Do you prefer hardcover or paperback, and is there a reason for your preference?
Second, Jennifer I already know the answer to this one. Everyone else: What is it about a plot that most engages you? For Jennifer it’s the love story, and if I’m being honest, that’s probably a big part of it for me too. Anyone in love with Dialogue? Characterization?
What style of writing do you most like to read? Wordy and “literature”y, clean and minimalistic, or poetic? Or something in between? There are no wrong answers to these questions.
Finally, what do you hate in books? What plot device, characterization, or theme drives you crazy?
Paperback - I tend to read and reread and I like to fold pages down and so forth. One of my favs, I’ve purchased 3 times. I do like to get hard covers of my fav authors thou. I have to read them ASAP and they look better in my library!
On my phone so will have to come back to the rest of the questions
Ok, baby on the floor playing… but I definitely love the ‘love’ story. I need to get into more mystery, CIA, computer mystery stuff thought too. I don’t read enough of that and I enjoy those.
My BIL writes books and I harass him enough so that he lets me read them and critique them for him before he sends them in for his thesis or turns them in places, etc. The last one I was really pushing him for more details. I like knowing the little details of things, houses - what they look like, people, what they are doing, etc. To much detail is not good for me. I don’t like very wordy wordy - literature stuff. I do like it if it’s interesting though. Like the Phillipa Gregory books (The Other Boleyn, and her other ones) those are historically accurate but fantastic for the relationships behind them.
Romance, definitely. Murder mysteries with love stories connected, contemporary romance. CIA thrillers, SEAL, Navy stuff. Computer things. I liked all of the Dan Brown early stuff, John Grisham. I can only read so many of the thrillers though before I want some romance mixed in! Relationship, gooey stuff
What drives me crazy… Hmmm. If I just can’t connect. I don’t like the really wishy-washy stuff, poetry… If I’m not interested in it in real life, I’m not gonna read about it. If it’s not believable. I don’t know. I just know if I don’t like it
There is this one romance chick who writes these WACKY Scotland stories and it’s almost to silly. Can’t read it. I love seeing the interaction between the people.
Ok, baby on lap now and driving me batty
Have you written every day for November? Where is your story? I wanna read it! 
I love paperback - I feel more connected being able to dog-ear pages and see the wear and tear as I read and re-read a story.
Character development is my big draw. Sure I’m a sucker for the love story, but I won’t care about the love story if I can’t find a way to connect with the characters. Dialogue falls under this as well; if the characters are properly developed by the author, they will say the right things to each other.
I like a mix of styles, but prefer less “literature-y” writing. I appreciate it when older books are written this way, but when a book that is “inside” our time attempts that feel, it seems fake.
What I love about a book is also what I can hate: humor/wit/sarcasm. Yes these things are wonderful when executed well. However, when an author *attempts* humor but fails, it undoes everything for me.
First off, blodience is not a word. Our technology is overtaking our vocabulary at an ever-quickening pace, and I understand the need to coin new words to describe our world, but this is my line in the sand: upon pain of death, blodience shall not be a word.
Whew. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s take a look at some of your (excellent) questions.
1: Paperback all the way. Hardcover books are vanity pieces and consumer traps for people who can’t wait to read a new book from their favorite author and are coerced by an archaic system to shell out more bucks for a brick they can’t even fit in their carry-on luggage. Hardcover is bourgeois, paperback is proletarian–in this instance let’s spring for utility, knowing that the marrow of the stuff is the same.
2: There are a few things that separate my books into two piles: “books that I have finished” and “books that I intend to finish on a later date but let’s be honest that will probably never happen.” The first is a sense of mystery, and not in a strictly whodunnit kinda sense. Most–if not all–of my favorite novels have a strong narrative pull, leaving the reader hungrily reading to find out how events will unfold. This can occur in a weighty sort of book (How will Harry defeat Voldemort?) or it can occur in the most mundane setting (What’s going to happen to Mrs. Dalloway?)–the subject matter isn’t so much important as the quality of characters and the overall storytelling skills of the author.
That being said, there are individual elements that make me truly love a book. I think humor is vastly underrated and absolutely essential to all but the most dour and solemn of stories. Any novel that neglects humor is missing one piece of the human experience and can never feel entirely true (that’s true in the converse as well, though it’s rarer to encounter stories with no drama than no humor).
My other favorite element of a novel is dialogue–you can describe all you want, but the true essence of a character and a relationship comes out in the words they speak. Good dialogue covers a multitude of sins.
3: I think the most important thing in a writer’s style is clarity, a virtue I think can be achieved in any number of styles. I think contemporary literary style has certainly swung toward the minimalist end of the spectrum for the past two decades (thanks, Raymond Carver), and when this is done well it can be quite beautiful and clear. Of course, it’s just as possible to be obscure and difficult with a few words as it is with a lot, so I’m not sure that there’s any one style that lays claim to “good writing.” My favorite authors (Salinger, Rushdie, Chabon, Foer) write incredibly differently but are each totally lucid, and every sentence is a thrill to read, whether it’s in the stark, funny dialogue of Salinger or the labyrinthine, kinetically charged prose of Rushdie.
4: Long, overwrought descriptive passages. BO-OR-RING. This is probably just a poor reflection of myself and my immersion in our ADD visual culture, but hey–I is what I is. Also, attempts at profundity (here’s the message, kids!) that haven’t earned it.