Evan's 5 Questions
@violentbooks
Five questions answered by the BookshelfTracker community
Be sure to follow Evan on Instagram @violentbooks
1.) Did someone read to you when you were a child (who, what, when, where, why)?
Only when I was very young. It tapered off when I reached school age. From that point on my only exposure to books was through school and those books were awful. It gave me the impression that reading was boring. It wasn't until my 20s that I started reading to kill time on my commute (smartphones weren't really a thing yet) that everything changed...
2.) What’s the first book you remember reading that had a lasting effect on you?
I was searching high and low for a book that wasn't like the crap we were forced to read in school. By a fluke, I found "No Beast So Fierce" by Edward Bunker and it blew me away. It was like nothing I had ever read before. It was authentic and exciting and violent and fast and aggressive. The writing was excellent and the author wasn't some nerd or poet, he was an ex-con! He was dangerous! This was the book that sparked my love of reading. This book was my initiation.
3.) What genre(s) do you love?
Western fiction. It was my first love and my feelings haven't faded in the slightest. I don't read Western novels as much as I used to but when I do it feels like home. It's so familiar and comfortable. It feels like where I belong. The good guys are good, the bad guys are bad, and a .44 at close range will put a man down for good.
4.) Has a book ever changed your life?
That's easy. Yes. The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius changed my life for the better. It's not really a book, it's a man's journal. A Roman Emperor's journal to be exact. Meditations showed me that I wasn't the only one who struggled. Others struggle just like me. Even people 2000 years ago. Even Roman Emperors. What I learned was that these people took action and did something about their struggles, and I could too. This book was a good friend to me when I needed it most, and it continues to this day.
5.) What attracts you to a book? The cover? Podcast? Recommendation from others?
Title and cover. In that order. I'll agree, it's pretty shallow and it probably causes me to miss out. I'm sure there are a ton of great books with awful covers out there, and I know I'll never read them. That's just the cost of doing business as far as I'm concerned. I've done pretty well with this approach and I don’t plan on changing. Let this be a call to action for the literary community: BRING BACK THE PAPERBACK COVERS OF THE 60s, 70s, AND 80s!!!
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