The stuff I tend to read has certain common qualities, and that’s fine. (I occasionally make deliberate efforts to mix it up, which I suspect helps. Although I do continue to bemoan the lack of an anti-recommendation button on any sites I frequent–you know, “absolutely no-one who has read the stuff you read has also read this popular book” or something.)
The stuff I read also has a certain common look, which occasionally perplexes me. I mean, if you look at my Goodreads widget, down in the lower right-hand corner (which I have for the moment switched from “currently reading” to “read”), there’s a bit of visual sameness. Black, red, and grey or blue-grey, mostly, with the occasional touches of yellow (hi, Elmore Leonard) or sickly green (either Scottish crime or Cthulhu). Killshot and Joyland are the brightest things I’ve finished lately, and they’re both pitched in a very classic-pulp-pop-crime style. (Joyland isn’t that at all – I would call it literary adventure ghost story if I had to call it something – but that’s not what the cover says.)
In the absence of a particular craving, am sorely tempted to determine the next book I pick up out of the ones I have on hand by colour of cover. Something bright or cheerful or at least atypical. (Possibilities include the nigh-solid lilac of Provender Gleed[1], the cheerfully bright green of The Manual of Detection, or the Northern Lights-evoking blue-and-purple-and-white of Tales from Earthsea.)
Do you read in patterns? How do you break out of them?
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[1] By James Lovegrove; at this point, I feel compelled to once again mention that his novel Days is a brilliant work, absolutely worth reading.