Reading Taste Quotes

I'm not actually sure I'm grown-up enough for grown-up books.

I'm not a big Austen reader. I wouldn't say I dislike her, but if I had to choose between her and Eliot to bring to a desert island, it would definitely be Eliot.

I read a lot when I was at college, but really, only a few of Dickens's books work for me.

On the whole, I don't like reading long books. I'm not a fan of 'Ulysses.' And I haven't quite finished 'War and Peace.'

I've always loved what I'd term 'dark fiction' writers, everyone from J. G. Ballard to Mervyn Peake and Philip Pullman. I'm not sure it's a genre, but it's what I like best.

When I get asked about novelists I like, they tend to be white, male, and British, like Graham Greene. They write the kind of declarative sentences I like. I don't like to be deflected by acrobatics.

I’m rather apt to read old books than new.

I'm completely indifferent to what genre I read provided that I feel sympathy with how a writer perceives being alive in the world.

Children simply don't make the distinction; a book is either good or bad. And some of the books they think are good are very, very bad indeed.

The unread is always better than the unreadable.

What's your favorite book? "The last one I read.

'Great Expectations' has become one of my favorite books.

Can't get my head around sci-fi or fantasy. I'm not putting those genres down; it's just that I'm not built for them.

I had hundreds of books under my skin already. Not selected reading, all of it. Some of it could be called trashy. I had been through Nick Carter, Horatio Alger, Bertha M. Clay and the whole slew of dime novelists in addition to some really constructive reading. I do not regret the trash. It has harmed me in no way. It was a help, because acquiring the reading habit early is the important thing. Taste and natural development will take care of the rest later on.

Once she read a book but found it distasteful because it contained adjectives.

Jane Austen is one of my all-time favourites.

Stephen King. Now I'm not crazy about him, but he's a great a writer.

Your failure to enjoy a highly rated novel doesn't mean you're dim - you may find that Graham Greene is more to your taste, or Stephen Hawking or Iris Murdoch or Ian Rankin. Dickens, Stephen King, whoever.

I like to read fiction, and I particularly enjoy reading young adult fiction. But I also read children's books, adult books, current authors, and classics, but I like fiction the most.

I like westerns, fantasy, sci-fi, graphic novels, thrillers, and I try to avoid the word 'genre' altogether. A good book is a good book.

The image I had was that Oprah books were fluffy.

I don't have a favorite author; I have favorite books. 'Moby Dick' is a favorite book, but Melville was a drunk who beat his wife. 'Moveable Feast' by Hemingway, but I would not like him personally. He was a stupid macho person who believed in shooting animals for fun, but that book was incredible!

I have a brother younger than me. My mother was a librarian, so from her, I got the taste to read.

As a reader, I tend not to get too much from tales of unrelenting grimness.

I like some science in my science fiction.