“I never tell students they cannot read a book they pick up, but I do guide them toward books that I think would be a good fit for them. I think of myself as a reading mentor-a reader who can help them find books they might like.” ThinkingBookHelpingMightWould BeReadingStudentsReaderFitPicksGuidesMentor Book:Reading in the Wild: The Book Whisperer's Keys to Cultivating Lifelong Reading Habits Source: Reading in the Wild: The Book Whisperer's Keys to Cultivating Lifelong Reading Habits
“The only real reason for self-referencing is the fun factor. It's fun for the writer, getting little peeks at what old characters might be up to. And it's fun for readers to spot a familiar face, or pick up on a made-up book title or something from an earlier story. I don't know that it does -- or even should -- contribute to the story in hand being any better than it would have been without it.” KnowsShouldLittlesDoeHas BeensMadeBookRealSelfReasonCharacterStoriesHandsMightFacesFunReaderPicksFamiliarFactorsSpotsTitlesReferencingFamiliar FacesBook Titles Author:Charles de Lint
“I think I write for reluctant readers. Of course I want everyone to enjoy my books, but if the kids in the back row who normally don't pick up a book are engaged with what I'm writing, along with the kids who are big readers anyway, then I really feel like I've done my job.” IfsThinkingWantFeelsWritingBookDoneBigsKidsJobsCoursesEnjoyReaderPicksEngagedReluctant Author:Rick Riordan
“Give me a thrill, says the reader, Give me a kick; I don't care how you succeed, or What subject you pick.” GivingCareReadingSubjectsReaderSucceedPicksGive MeDon't CareI Don't CareKicksThrill Book:Collected Poems Source: Collected Poems
“As a writer I'm essentially just trying to impersonate a first-time reader, who picks up the story and has to decide, at every point, whether to keep going.” TryingFirstsStoriesReaderPicksFirst TimeKeep GoingImpersonate Author:George Saunders
“Not taking the Bible (or other texts based on 'revealed truths') literally leaves it up to the reader to cherry-pick elements for belief. There exists no guide for such cherry-picking, and zero religious sanction for it.” BeliefReligiousReaderElementsPicksGuidesZeroSanctionsCherries Author:Jeffrey Tayler
“Like when you pick up a book and you don't realize what type of text it is - it could be an essay, a novel, a biography - and at one point you realize you don't know where, as a reader, you want to be. Where are you going with this text? What is the goal? How are you supposed to interpret what you're reading? And people's responses vary - some dislike it, and are put off by the confusion, the lack of comprehension.” PeopleKnowsWantBookReadingGoalRealizingNovelTypeReaderPicksResponseConfusionDislikeBiographiesEssaysVaryComprehension Author:Sergio Chejfec
“As soon as I start to write I'm very aware, I'm trying to be aware that a reader just might well pick up this poem, a stranger. So when I'm writing - and I think that this is important for all writers - I'm trying to be a writer and a reader back and forth. I write two lines or three lines. I will immediately stop and turn into a reader instead of a writer, and I'll read those lines as if I had never seen them before and as if I had never written them.” IfsThinkingWritingTryingWellsTwoImportantMightTurnsThreeLinesWrittenReaderPicksStrangerBack And Forth Author:Billy Collins
“Most writers are lazy intellectuals, and it's a goddamn shame because a writer with an audience has a moral responsibility to make readers think about the world in a different way than what they're used to. Why else would you pick up a book if not to inhabit another realm of existence for a while?” IfsThinkingWorldWayBookDifferentUsedExistenceResponsibilityMoralAudienceReaderPicksShameDifferent WaysRealmsLazyMoral Responsibility Author:Kevin Keck
“I've been a faithful reader of the great classical documents of economics, or tried to be. The first book in the field that I ever read was Principles of Economics by Alfred Marshall. I suppose subsequently I would have to pick out Keynes, Adam Smith, Marx.” FirstsBookPrinciplesFieldsReaderPicksEconomicsFaithfulAdamDocumentsKeynes Author:John Kenneth Galbraith
“What's impossible not to notice, though - it's all around us - is the diminution of American prose: How pedestrian it has become. Pick up any short story and listen to its voice, the tedious easy vernacular that mistakes transcription for realism. This would display an understandable pragmatism if it were a pandering to common-denominator readers; but it is, in fact, a kind of hifalultin literary ideology, the less-is-more Hemingway legacy put through an up-to-the-minute industrial blender.” IfsKindFactsStoriesEasyVoiceCommonMistakeImpossibleMinutesReaderPicksIdeologyLegacyProseShort StoryDisplayRealismTediousPragmatismCommon DenominatorPedestriansLess Is MoreVernacularBlendersTranscription Author:Cynthia Ozick
“I think the best writers are voracious readers who pick up the cadences and the feel of narration through a number of different books. And you begin by maybe copying the style of writers that really knocked you out.” ThinkingFeelsBookDifferentNumbersStyleReaderPicksCopyingCadenceNarrationDifferent Books Author:Stephen King
“[In the moment of reading writer and reader] are both briefly their best selves, or at least better selves. A flawed human being writes something and 60 years later a reader picks up the book and something in them rises to meet it.” WritingYearsHumansBookSelfMomentsReadingHuman BeingsReaderPicksFlawedBest Self Author:George Saunders
“There are an awful lot of readers who won't pick up a book if they think it's got anything horrific in it, or paranormal or whatever.” IfsThinkingBookReaderPicksAwfulParanormalHorrific Author:Peter James