Authors Electric

No, for heaven's sake, I don't mean this: And no, Lev Butts, I don't mean this: This   is the hot sexy thing with your lips: That's right,  move  'em when you read! I don't know when exactly I started to question my own reading speed...or my habit of sounding the words in my head, savoring rhythms and diction. Nor can I recall when I first felt ashamed at helplessly reading some sections aloud. I knew that others read far more quickly than I -- some with perfect recall. I read a book on speed reading not long after college, stung by a stranger's cruel remark about my lipful reading style. I recall trying to master the basic principles: not sounding the words...silently ingesting lines, then paragraphs of type. I never entirely abandoned my efforts or enjoyed any real success. Reading in this fashion was pleasureless to me, while reading my own way brought equal measures of pleasure and shame. Ah, but I remember my emancipation after r...

What is it that attracts you to a book, that makes you pick it up and read a little to see if you like it (and if so, then to buy it)? Much has been said here about the importance of getting a book cover right, and when I'm browsing in a bookshop, it's certainly the first thing which catches my eye and makes me look closer. The title may hook me further, but as far as I'm concerned personally, the first pull comes from the appearance of the cover. I've read books which I've loved, but would never have considered if the cover hadn't lured me over and then sucked me into picking them up - Across the Nightingale Floor by Lian Hearn is one such. Although I did enjoy reading Shogun many years ago, it was only because I missed the last episode of the mini-series on TV and wanted to know what happened that I bought it - Japanese Samurai stuff isn't something which ordinarily holds any appeal for me. But this ravishingly gorgeous cover (and this picture really does...