When I Read

Reading to me is better than film or video. Why? What I imagine is far more vivid, meaningful and colourful when I create it in my mind. While others read for information and feel that it enlarges their brains, I do not look for brain development. I can get that kind of stuff on-line. What I want when I tuck into my comfortable reading space with some kind of comfortable thing nearby to consume during moments of reflection is an uninterruptible time space. For me, two or three in the morning works wonderfully. There is no traffic noise, no knocks on the door, no useless phone calls and no tasks waiting to prick my conscience. It is like a time warp into which I escape. When I pick up a new book and turn to the first page, skipping the introduction that I will read later, I expect to be entertained. I don't want to deal with issues or educational aspects that make this a work session or one with which I may use to impress others.  While I have no quibble with collateral didacticism I want it at an intrinsic level. I want to be intrigued, fascinated, amused and warmed. The genre is not important, but I do insist upon a higher level of literary effort in my authors. I don't mind research but don't please throw it in my face when I am trying to get into a plot and I do love plots. To me, storytelling is all about plot. Plot leads me from page one to the end. Please entertain me and if you have issues, state them in a sharable way so that I may walk with you, authors, please. You don't need to drag me kicking and screaming through a miasma of your research work. Description works for me but only if appropriately plugged in. Add in lots of dialogue to let me know my characters lived and spoke. It makes me understand them more intimately. My reading requires that an author is honest and he/she can hit hard, use any kind of language or situation but please make it something that adds to my life, my feelings for another creature and my experience as a planet dweller - or even someone who does not live on this planet. Make me want to turn pages, make me want to stay up all night, make me want never to get to the last page because I will feel that I shall have lost someone or something. Everyone has unique reading needs. I know people who are non-fiction hounds and their needs are to collect facts piled upon facts so that they can exchange them with others of the same bent. It's not my choice and it doesn't make me feel intellectually inferior. I know some who fall into romance or western or fantasy or sci-fi or other formula  novels. That's fine. For them. Sure I read factual material when I must, but when I get up at three a.m. and make coffee and search out my glasses, cuddle into my big leather couch corner,  I want what I want in reading and it is to be entertained!