I buy a lot of books. It just happens all the time that I stand in a bookshop and think "that sounds interesting" and since I don't limit myself when it comes to books, I buy it. There are more pointless hobbies, I think. And more expensive ones. Being a medieval fan, for example. Or geo-caching. Or golf. I don't need any equipment to read, I don't have to travel anywhere and I don't have to prepare myself. So I buy books when they interest me. Sometimes I'm also interested in people and then I want to read their books. Sometimes someone talks good (or bad in the right way) about a book and then I want to read it. And so book after book goes into my bag and later onto the shelf. Once they're there, my interest in them miraculously disappears. And what happens is what they call tsudoku in Japan ("the act of acquiring reading material that then piles up at home without being read" - Wikipedia).
And there are reasons for that. Every book I read influences me and that makes it a potential danger. I don't want someone else's writing style to affect my writing unless I think it's unreservedly good. I don't want to be influenced by the structure of a story that I might not really like. I don't want something to creep in on me unobserved. In short: I protect my subconscious. From poisoning. And this is where the literary taster comes into play. All the books that move into our home are read by my husband. He has a thicker skin than me and a fast reading speed. He makes a recommendation for every book and I am particularly interested in two points.
- Is there violence in it and is it described in detail? (I am a gentle soul)
- How is the writing style and is the story good? (Positive influence?)
If a story is violent and unconvincing, it is removed immediately. If it is violent and still very good, I put it on the shelf for an unspecified moment in the future when I feel particularly strong (never happened so far). If violence doesn't play a role and he enjoyed reading the book, it goes on the shortlist for my next book to read. It usually takes another year before I actually read it, but that's because I always read several books at the same time, incredibly slowly and very carefully.
As a result, my husband has read almost all the books we have and I have only read a small proportion. He is constantly running out of reading material and the sheer volume of unread books overwhelms me on some days. I also keep the low-violence books that he finds terrible to see if I feel the same way. We don't always see eye to eye. There are books that I like, but he doesn't. Proust, for example. It's a very specific type of book that he doesn't like, but I do: novels that only open up to you if you read them with great concentration and patience. Mirjam Wittig's Grasnarbe, for example. And that's how our opinions differ, even though we have a lot in common. I've been spared a lot by his taster and I continue to give him every new book first.
