| Writer |
January 23, 2020
|
| He liked to read books, but his favorite writers and genres were kind of limited, especially during his younger days. His favorite writers after high school until his retirement were like this: 1. High School & College Days: He liked Edo period stories written by a certain male writer. He wrote about common people's lives in that era. He liked his humanism. He also liked essays written by three female writers. He especially loved essays written by a writer who was also a famous scenario writer for TV. Her TV dramas were very funny and somehow warm. Her essays were frank and had some specific quality that resounded to him. 2. First half of his working years: One of his colleagues introduced him to a writer who wrote on international politics, businesses, and spies. The writer had studied at a university in the US, and during his university years, he opened a karate school. After graduation, he worked in the oil business. He said that some of his karate students entered into various agencies like the CIA, and he could learn about their information in order to write his stories, although he had to be very careful to change the details. He was very  attracted to those stories and every time the author's new books were published, he would buy them and enjoy them very much. Another author was an essayist who wrote about cheap traveling. He felt just like he was traveling to various exotic places along with him. 3. Second half of his working years: After reading many international conspiracy stories by this author, he soon stopped. The author's main writing topic became "How-To" books for young people. He liked them at first, but soon became bored with them. After him, he started to read books written by an economist. The author used to work as a business consultant and now was the president of a cable TV network that offered business content as well as an internet business school. His way of writing was plain, but strategic and persuasive; some of his business books were best sellers. He felt that he was kind of his mentor. About 10 years ago, he started to read mysteries written in English. He had been studying English, and he thought it would be a "killing two birds with one stone" situation: he could enjoy reading the mystery stories while getting used to English. For him, mysteries seemed to be easier than serious literature. His favorite book was Sidney Sheldon's, "If Tomorrow comes". Sidney Sheldon is one of the greatest bestseller writers in the world, and that book was one of his most famous works. There were many twists and turns, and he couldn't put the book down. After he read the book, he started to read his other books. His reading speed was limited as they were in English, so he could enjoy them for a long time. After he finished reading Sheldon's books, he started to read other books. He was amazed at the books written by Michael Crichton, Ken Follett, John Grisham, and Jeffery Deaver. He also read some children's books like, "Holes" by Louis Sachar. He didn't read Agatha Christie, but he read other popular books, like the "Dragon Tattoo Girl" series. But, overall, he had to say that his genre of reading was very narrow. He thought about why. Why hadn't he read mysteries from writers from his own country? There were many good mystery writers from his country. When he was a high school student, he read a famous mystery book called, "Points and Lines" by a leading writer of mystery from his country. It was a great story and he was amazed by its clever way of writing. But he hadn't read his other stories despite the author's vast amount of stories. Why? For him maybe real things, especially international things set in the real world, were more interesting and curious than a fictitious story. As the saying goes, "Facts are stranger than novels." One more thing that he remembered. One of the female essay authors that he liked best had passed away due to an airplane accident. It happened when he was in his early 20s. The writer was in her early 50s. It was a very shocking incident for him. Because he read a lot of her essays, he felt that she was his close friend. Maybe the accident made him avoid mysteries. After retiring, he had been working a part time job once a week at a train station which had many shops, including a bookstore. During his lunch time, he would sometimes browse at the bookstore, and would buy a book and read it during his lunch time. There were some recommendation memos for some books at the bookstore. It was his routine to read a few pages first of some books, and, if he liked it, he would buy it. Some of them were mysteries by authors from his country. The shop didn't have any English books, though. Now, he found that there were some very good mysteries, and he felt that some of the authors would become his favorite. |
| |
*resound :共鳴する
*persuasive :説得力のある
*mentor :誘導者