Do other people influence what you choose to read? When a family member recommends something, or a friend says they hated a book you were planning to read … does it affect your reading choices?
A recommendation can certainly get me interested, and a negative review may affect my decisions too. That rather depends on whose opinion it is, though, and also what kind of book and if they give specific reasons for liking or disliking it. I’m more likely to weigh in someone else’s opinion if I know we often enjoy the same books/genres.
Sometimes I also read to form my own opinion, even if I suspect I might not like the book as much as whoever recommended it. In that case I usually borrow from the library rather than buy, though.
…Postcard received recently from a friend….
you should take a photo of your kindle and put these words on it... i ignore what anyone tells me and decide for myself. we all like different things, what one loves the other doesn't. i have a friend that if she tells me she LOVED a book, i know not to read it because what she LOVES i don't so what she says does influence me
ReplyDeleteMy hubby and I have similar tastes and I usually like his recommendations and vice versa. I must add that my blog friends are powerful influences on me in choosing books and I found Barbara Pym and C.J. Samson through blog posts, plus many others.
ReplyDeleteWell, yes, a friend's opinion will make me buy a book, like recently Squirrel Queen posted a book review on her blog and I bought the book. But it is not only the recommendation, they need to tell me about it and if it is not the kind of book I like I won't buy it.
ReplyDeleteYes, I think similar tastes would lead me to someone's recommendation over another's....and borrowing from the library is what I do if I'm not sure.
ReplyDeleteThanks for visiting my blog.
Yes, it depends on who does the recommending. Books that some of my friends LOVE, would not even interest me, but then there are others whose opinion I value strongly and they usually have a better idea of what I like to read.
ReplyDeleteI must admit though, that from reading your blog, I have made a list of books to read based on your recommendations.
While I do listen to the recommendations of people I know well and like, such as my sister, my Mum or my mother-in-law, we do not always like the same books. One example was the "Jesus"-book recently mentioned on my blog; it was my sister's recommendation, but I couldn't bear it after 50 or so pages for its inflationary use of the f-word. And while I really like Martha Grimes' Inspector-Jury-series, neither my Mum nor my sis ever really got into them.
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