fine whine

Not as a matter of a New Year's resolution or anything (namely since I was doing it mid-December), but I seem to be doing more reading lately. Fiction, even.

Once I started messing around with 43 Things and 43 People it was only a matter of time before I stumbled upon, and likewise began using, All Consuming, also currently run by the same people, the so-called Robot Co-op. The site had existed in some other form before* but in its current incarnation it is connected to the 43 whatevers sites. What matters to me is that it is a simple method of
keeping track of the books I've read and music I've heard (and the DVDs I watch, though those I record elsewhere already).

But that alone doesn't lead me to any more reading. It's effort enough trying to remember the books I've already read. The reason I am reading more books is that it is easy to see what the other members have read recently. At times it's easy to see how a commonly-read book spreads through everyone's lists, and the less common ones that pop up now and then.

But back to that part about seeing what others have read. I can look at which people who have read the books I've read and then the other books they have read, and enjoyed, and sometimes find interesting things to read.

That's how I stumbled across The time-traveler's wife, one of the best books I read last year. If you haven't read it, I heartily recommend it.

In adding to my list I thought back to the other books I've enjoyed this year, including Michael Kun's You poor monster, though I cannot recall how I'd found that one, unless I grabbed it because of the interesting cover image (a guy in a suit, underwater). It's a good read, and in remembering it I decided to seek out Kun's other books, and have already enjoyed his My wife, and my dead wife and look forward to reading The Linklater letters, the book that seems to pop up as the book he's also authored (you know, as in 'by Michael Kun, author of The Linklater letters).

Back to the other people, though, I've read some of Stephen Fry's books as well, though those are more hit or miss. In that The Hippopotamus isn't so much a hit as much as Making history is. And Revenge is somewhere in between.

Even the books that aren't so great are still mostly worth reading. And I do so enjoy reading, and having found a way to find decent books and moreover to keep track of them is all the better.

* To which I undoubtedly belonged, at one point or other. Being a sucker for signing up for interesting free communities as I am, of course.