The Up and Down Woes of Loving a Book

After working months, often years on one book, it’s understandable for authors to take critiques about his or her work personally. And getting caught up in our feelings goes both ways too. Sometimes love of a book can be mistaken for agreeing with the content, or personally loving the author. This may be a challenge, for both authors and readers, but folk, following this logic is a big mistake in as far as the books I tout.

It is the story, AND ONLY THE STORY, that I’m loving. While some fall in love at first sight, like others will read, or hear something about a person and instantly decide they don’t like the person, I’m not that good. I remain ho-hum until I get to know the individual, and this includes after having read the individual’s book.

All that exposed, I have only found eleven loves to love this year. Normally I will have read at least 50 books by now, of which more than a dozen will have me pulling hairs trying to select ten I loved the most. This year, and for the first time ever, I’ve decided to pull my hair trying to select FIVE FAVORITES from this list of eleven. The top three questions I ask; How engaging was the story? Did I learn something new? How often did I reference, share or tell others about this book? Bonus: What did the overall story do for my mood? So far, I’ll be selecting from the following list:

All But My Life by Gerda Weissman Klein 

All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung

Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Kong Boys by Gerald Yeung

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov 

More Myself by Alicia Keys

My Africa by Jennifer Peacock-Smith 

Permanent Record by Edward Snowden

This is Just My Face by Gabourey Sidibe

To Tell the Truth by Mia Bay 

Too Much Soul by Cindy Wilson

#LovingAGoodBook #ReadingChallenge #StillWriting #LoveWriting #LoveReading #LiteraryLover