Today’s Monday Musing prompt from Should Be Reading:
- Are you currently collecting any authors? Why?
- Do you have all of their books? If not, why not?
- Did you buy all the books in the collection at the same time, or did you buy a book here, a book there? Have you actually read all of the collection? If not, why not?
Currently? No.
But I have done, and when I do I like to not only collect the author but also read things like bios and collected letters.
The last author I collected, for instance, was Evelyn Waugh. I read a number of his novels: Decline and Fall, Scoop, Vile Bodies, Handful of Dust, The Loved One, Helene. (I’d already read Brideshead some years earlier.)
Around the same time, I also read Fathers and Sons: The Autobiography of a Family by Evelyn’s grandson, Alexander Waugh. I read Bright Young People: The Lost Generation of London’s Jazz Age by D. J. Taylor.
Reading related non-fiction books enriches the reading experience for me, and may even help me become a better writer.
What is your response to the prompt?
by D.J. Taylor (part of an Evelyn Waugh thing I’ve taken on — g*d I’m such a lit nerd! lol). Some similarities between that generation & the trailing edge boomers — those of us who were too young to serve in Vietnam (like the English kids who were too young to serve in WWI) but hit our late teens/early 20s in the direct shadow of those who did.
