stories on a page

i'm always asking people what they're reading. i love books. more specifically, i love stories and characters and themes. maybe this interest stems from my affinity for observing human behavior and personalities. everyone has a story, his or her own plot line. look around you. your family, your coworkers, your friends, people at your church, your hair stylist, people at the gym, people you regularly see at your grocery store. they all have lives. some are very different from your life; some share uncanny similarities to your background, preferences, beliefs.

you can also tell a lot about a person by their literature preferences. some people stick with the classics; others take a shine to modern stuff; others only read biographies or non-fiction (these people CAN be kind of irksome...like they look down on fiction because it's not real); some are pretty keen on self-help or christian books about christian topics. 

i read everything. 

i don't believe that christians should only read the "safe" stuff...the stuff they find at northwestern bookstore and the like. not that i think those books are bad. most of it, in my opinion, is poor writing, but everyone's a critic, eh?

i read sad stuff, humorous stuff, escapist stuff, real stuff, fake stuff, biographical stuff, christian living stuff, how-to stuff (well, not often, but i have). because isn't that more true-to-life? we all have different moods or different stages in our lives that influence our interests. we are ever-changing. not to say that we don't have some fondness for the past. for example, i have a special place in my heart for books like rascal, winnie the pooh, madeline, babar, charlotte's web, a cricket in time's square, a wrinkle in time, the phantom tollbooth, the chronicles of narnia, stuart little, betsty-tacy-and-tib, and the secret garden because they are tied to childhood memories: memories of my mom reading us winnie the pooh and rascal before nap time; my dad reading us the chronicles of narnia before bed. 

literature is the stuff of life-the substance of dreams and hopes; epic adventure; searing loss; situational comedy; missed trains, old men and the sea, glass castles, sleeping beauties, little houses on the prairie, antonias, frogs and toads, ghosts of christmases past, playing mah jong with your friends while you discuss your daughters' lives...

what do you like to read? how do you choose a book? when you read a book, do you take a peek at upcoming pages or do you read methodically from start to finish?

i read a variety of literature. i choose books either by friends' and family's recommendations, reading literary reviews, or simply walking through the library and judging a book by its cover. :) when i pick up a new book, i read the forward and introduction if there is one. i read the dedication page. then i go to the penultimate or last page to see if there is a note on the font or typeface. then i go to chapter one, and the rest is history.

What are you reading right now? What are your favorite genres?