Two of the most common pieces of advice you’ll hear about writing are:

* Write more

* Read more

I’ve also read many interviews where writers say they no longer have time to keep up with other novels published in their own genre.

Sturgeon’s oft-mentioned law is that 90% of everything is crud.  These days even if you only concentrate on a particular sub-genre (e.g space opera), the amount of reading material available means that the 10% is far more than anyone has the time to read.

In the pre-Internet days it was much harder to get recommendations for books.  Now it only takes a little bit of web surfing to uncover a slew of interesting sounding books.

Add to this the amount of free online material (magazines, blogs, podcasts, discussion forums, etc).

Another factor is that the more serious you get about writing the more likely it is that you’ll make friends with other writers.  It’s only natural to want to support your friends and read their books.

I keep a file on my computer with list of books I want to read.

There are now more than 600 books on that list.

It’s no longer the case where I’ll read a book simply because I want to read it.  I have to want to read it more than I want to read a lot of other books.

I used to decide which book on my bookshelf I wanted to read first, with the understanding I would read the other books later.  I own at least a couple of hundred books I haven’t read.  Given on average I read around 50 books a year, even if I stopped buying books and going to the library, it would take me a few years to clear my backlog of books to read.

With all of the information and book recommendations available online sometimes less can be more.  The more recommendations available, the strength of each particular recommendation can diminish.  They get lost amongst all the noise.  If someone gives you a list of their 100 favorite books how likely is it you’ll read a particular book on that list versus a book they place in your hand and tell you that you have to read?

Another factor I’ve noticed is that once writers are published they tend to read less fiction and read more non-fiction.

If you’re writing science fiction or fantasy it pays to do a lot of technical or historical research.

I’m working on a novel set in a monastery in an alternate-world feudal Japan and so I’ve been reading books about the history of Japan and  a book written by a Japanese salaryman that spent a year studying to be a monk in one of Japan’s strictest Zen monasteries.

The amount of available reading material has also changed how I read.  I’m a lot less patient.  If a short story hasn’t grabbed me by the first page I move on to something else.  I’m quite happy skimming non-fiction books looking for the parts that interest me.

I’ve also noticed I’m less inclined to read novels by authors I’ve read before.

One of the reasons I read is to encounter new ideas (hence my preferences for science fiction, fantasy and non-fiction).

Of course I still try and read books by my favorite authors.  But if I enjoyed a novel by an author and it’s not one of my favorite books, well maybe I’m more likely to try something from a new author I’ve heard good things about.

There is also the consideration of timing.

Controversial new books (especially non-fiction) can get bumped up my reading list, because it’s fun to read them while others are discussing them.  There’s also the sense of not wanting to be excluded from the conversation when people are talking about books that have made a big impact, such as Harry Potter.  But it would still take a lot more than that to get me interested in reading the Twilight books though.

What you’re currently writing can also influence your choice of fiction reading.
Some writers don’t like to read works in the same genre as they’re working on because they feel they might be influenced too much.

I’ve noticed it can be distracting for me to read works in a different genre from the one I’m working on.  If I read a great dystopian monkey comedy of manners novel, that makes me want to stop my current project and write my own dystopian monkey comedy of manners.

Peter Watts, Canadian science fiction writer, beaten and arrested at US border
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/12/11/dr-peter-watts-canad.html

Ten Ways Space Travel Isn’t Like Television or the Movies
http://www.satelliteinternet.com/news/ten-ways-space-travel-isnt-like-television-or-the-movies/

The Funniest Reasons Customers Reject Books
http://www.publishersweekly.com/blog/660000266/post/210048821.html
“I don’t do books about elephants set during the Depression.”
If you look in the comments, you’ll also find this gem:
“You know books that expand your mind, make you want to think, make you question the nature of humanity and wonder why and how we do the things we do? Yeah, I hate that s**t. Gimme something with dinosaurs or a war.”

Hospital study shows full moons werewolf effect
http://www.theage.com.au/national/hospital-study-shows-full-moons-werewolf-effect-20091213-kpwl.html

Che: the graphic biography
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/12/10/che-the-graphic-biog.html

A Day in the Internet

http://www.onlineeducation.net/internet/

Monkey calls give clues to language origins
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8405806.stm

The Language of Avatar (Creating an Alien Language)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8408245.stm

The Link Between the Transgender Community & the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
http://andy-social.blogspot.com/2009/12/huff.html

50 Beautiful Watercolor Paintings
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/12/09/50-beautiful-watercolor-paintings/

20 Best SF Books of the Decade
http://io9.com/5423847/20-best-science-fiction-books-of-the-decade

Japanese ladies long for date with brutal men of history
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6954029.ece

The Longest Way: Walking Across China
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1945379_1945171_1945161,00.html

Deadline: Stop Motion

A couple of fun articles on the Guardian about how scary books and movies for children should be.

Maurice Sendak tells parents worried by Wild Things to 'go to hell'

Do you know what today's kids need? Thumb amputation, that's what

From Warriors of Medieval Japan by Stephen Turnbull

Head collecting is a tradition found throughout samurai history… When a battle was won, the taking, recording and presentation of these ghastly trophies was as systematic and as thorough as the battlefield situation allowed.  In an ideal situation of a clear-cut victory the heads would be viewed in a highly ritualized ceremony by the victorious daimyo, who was seated on a camp stool and surrounded by his closest retainers.  He would not wish to be presented with a bloody trophy, so the heads were carefully cleaned and dressed, the hair combed, and the resulting trophy made presentable by cosmetics.  They would then be mounted on a spiked wooden board with labels for identification.
This routine was a task traditionally done by women, and there exists a rare eyewitness account that was recorded by Oan, the daughter of a samurai.  She experienced the horror of sleeping beside a collection of severed heads in Ogaku castle at the time of the battle of Sekigahara in 1600.  The castle was under constant attack from the superior forces of Tokugawa Ieyasu, and her description of her work with the heads is a follows:

“My mother and I, as well, as the wives and daughters of the other retainers, were in the castle’s keep casting bullets.  Severed heads taken by our allies were also collected in this area of the castle.  We attached a tag to each head in order to identify them properly.  Then we repeatedly blackened their teeth.  Why did we do that?  A long time ago, blackened teeth were admired as the sign of a distinguished man.  So, we were asked to apply a generous coat of black dye to any heads with white teeth.  Even these severed heads no longer held any terror for me.  I used to sleep enveloped by the bloody odour of those old heads.”

The invasion of Korea presented the logistical problem of shipping heads home to their commander-in-chief Toyotomi Hideyoshi.  Hideyoshi’s increased irrationality made him demand proof that his generals were carrying out his wishes, so a compromise was reached.  When Namwon, the first objective of the 1597 invasion, was captured, out of the 3726 heads counted that day only the head of the Korean general was kept intact.  The others were discarded after the noses had been removed, the beginnings of the process of nose collection in lieu of heads that was to become a horrible feature of the second invasion.  Toyotomi Hideyoshi began to receive a steady stream of shipments of noses pickled in salt and packed into wooden barrels, each one meticulously enumerated and recorded before leaving Korea.

It was also recommended that “samurai should grow moustaches so that their severed heads would not be mistaken for those of women.”

Advice for treating wounded samurai:

Cover the intestines with dried faeces, then close the wound with mulberry root sutures and spread cat-tail pollen over the area.  Activities to be avoided were anger, laughter, thought, sex, activity, work, sour foods and sake.

From Lost Japan by Alex Kerr. 
 

Japan is fascinated by secrets.  They are the defining feature of the way traditional arts are taught and preserved.  They cause problems for governments and business, since different departments of the same organization tend to guard their knowledge jealousy and not speak to one another.  In museums, the finer an artwork, the less it will be shown to the public – which is why you will often find that the National Treasure you travelled so far to view is actually just a copy.  The real piece stays in storage, and is shown only to a chosen few curators.

This tradition goes back to ancient Shinto, when the objects inside shrines, typically a stone or a mirror, became invested with mystical secrecy.  At Izumo, Japan’s oldest Shinto shrine, the object has been hidden from view for so long that its identity has been forgotten; it is referred to merely as "the Object."  At the Grand Shrine of Ise, the object is known to be a mirror, but no one has laid eyes on it for at least a thousand years.  When asked about Ise, the nineteenth-century Japanologist Chamberlain replied, "There is nothing to see, and they won’t let you see it."

…

Buddha statues with great power became hibutsu (hidden Buddhas), and were displayed only once every few decades, and there are some that have stayed in hiding for centuries at a stretch.

…

That evening, we stayed at Kongo Sanmai-in, one of the sub-temples that offer rooms to pilgrims and travellers.  We arrived at our lodgings at around half past four.  One of the monks asked us if we would like to see the Buddha in the main hall, but we were all exhausted.  After an early supper, I went to my room to read a book and relax for a while.  That night, on my way to the bath, I passed a monk in the hall.  "Good evening," he said pleasantly.  "How fortunate for you to have come here today.  You were able to see our great Buddha of divine power."
"Well, actually we were planning to see it tomorrow," I said.  The monk shook his head.  "I’m afraid that won’t be possible.  Sanmai-in’s Buddha is a hibutsu.  Mt. Koya’s other statues are sometimes put on display, or even lent to other temples and museums.  But this one has never left the mountain.  This is the first time it has ever been shown to the general public.  It’s called a five-hundred-year hibutsu.  the doors closed at five o’clock today, and you’ll have to wait another five hundred years if you want to see it."

This was my greatest failure ever as a travel guide.  I was so embarrassed that I could not bring myself to confess to my friends, and to this day I don’t believe they realize that they missed seeing a five-hundred year hibutsu by only thirty minutes.