Reading Beyond SF

 

In a number of my previous posts I recounted some of the reasons how I have managed not to read so many of the classic speculative fiction novels. There is, however, one more reason, and that is that my reading of SF fell by the wayside; I graduated from college and set out to make a living in the real world.

I simply no longer had the time or easy access to bookstores both new & used. Early on I had several jobs and moved about for a time, acquiring a wife and then children. We ended up in a small town with the major mall bookstores an hour away. In those olden days before the internet, I would only come across new SF books on the shelves of our local small town library or on those of a larger, small city library ten miles away. And by that time many of the authors were new and unfamiliar, plus, I still had to watch my pennies so I didn't buy books on a whim -- new mass market paperbacks were no longer fifty cents. Looking at my SF shelves, I don’t think I bought even one new SF book in the 1980’s.

However, I did not stop reading. Rather my interests expanded into other genres.

For some years I was into old mysteries, including Dorothy L Sayers’s Peter Wimsey novels, Georges Simenon’s Inspector Maigret, Earl Derr Biggers’ Charlie Chan, John Mortimer’s Rumpole of the Bailey, Robert van Gulik’s Judge Dee, and a host of other old mysteries.

And then I discovered the adventure stories from the Victorian period up to the first half of the last century. They ranged from Anthony Hope’s The Prison of Zenda, to H Rider Haggard’s African tales, to John Buchan’s Richard Hannay stories, and all his rest as well. I tracked down to read many of Compton Mackenzie’s humorous Scottish stories including Monarch of the Glen, Whiskey Galore, and the like.

I’ve already talked about the sea stories of Guy Gilpatric, W Clark Russell, and C J Cutcliffe Hyne that I loved.

And them, there were all the odd little byways that interested me. For example, I enjoyed all of Miss Read’s (Mrs Dora Saint) stories I could find about life in the village of Fairacre and other small English towns. I also read a number of Scottish author D E Stevenson’s “light romantic novels” as well. I’d pick up any Nevil Shute book I’d run across. I have four of Jean Shepherd’s (In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash) books. I own and have read a number of Booth Tarkington novels. And I’ve already mentioned my large collection of Joseph Lincoln novels. In short, I found that life was too short to spend reading just SF.

While I did buy some  new books, more and more of the books I picked up were second hand books. While on vacation I would seek out second hand bookstores to explore. However, the highlight of my book buying year was  the great, but late, Bethesda Fair. Bethesda was a local charity that each September would stage a giant rummage sale that filled up all the buildings of  the fairgrounds with a treasure trove of junk for a week. I'd be at the doors of the book building on the first day waiting for the sales to begin. I bought many’a book at the Bethesda Fair. Most were not SF.

Still, I always considered myself a science fiction fan. Almost everything I ever attempted to write was science fiction. 

However, when looking back over all the books that I’ve read and enjoyed over the years, there is no mystery as to why my books are written in a very old fashioned style of story telling. I learned to write by reading. And my reading informed my writing.