I must be in a contemplative mood, because I am again thinking about how my taste in books have changed over the years and seasons of my life.
If I look over my bookshelf, I not only see my current taste, but the books I read and collected in other times of my life.
We begin with historical fiction. Enter Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little Women, and a variety of other series and books all with a similar theme (American Girl doll books were a favorite). I don’t quite remember what drew me to the historical fiction, perhaps it was what was available growing up, and so I read it. Perhaps I loved how similar and yet different the characters were from me. I do know that I love history, but whether my love of history came from the books, or the books from the history, I can’t remember. They probably grew up together in my wild imagination that couldn’t quite separate fact from fiction.
Next, it was fantasy. There was no one book which sprung upon me a love of magic and dragons. ‘The Hobbit’ and ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ were read aloud to me as a child, and the older I grew, the more I was drawn to worlds unlike my own. I didn’t want to escape from my life, I wanted to add to it. Faeries peopled my imaginary worlds, just as farms and historical heroes once did. I read just about everything I could get my hands on. Dragon on the cover? I probably read it. The thicker the book, the better. I thrived on the doorstopper high fantasy novels.
I didn’t grow out of fantasy. I still love fantasy, I am still drawn to books with dragons on the cover. But a funny thing happens when you read many, many books. You accidentally become picky.
At a certain point, I began to get tired of worn out tropes, paper flat characters, and cliche plot lines. I still wanted to read fantasy, but it was getting harder to find books I had not read which were worth my very, very limited time. Also, the limited time made it hard to read the ginormous books I lugged around in my teenage years. I save those for summer break now.
All of this made me drift to a different section, one I had dabbled in before, but was now mature enough to enjoy.
I dislike saying the classics, I think it sounds pretentious, but I don’t really have a better word for these particular books. So you’ll have to forgive me. I started reading the classics. Or more of them anyway. I fell in love with some of them, disliked others, and sometimes wondered what all the fuss was about. Just like any other genre of books I have ever read. Such is my current mood, or taste, in books. Books which have been around long enough to prove themselves.
I wonder what I will go to next. Will I circle back to a genre, or keep moving on to more and different adventures?
Shaina Merrick
The Beauty of a Story 