Oh yes, I read other stuff too

 I've written a bit about my summer (2025) reading list and why my reading doesn't provide comps for agent queries. Yesterday I got caught having to admit I was reading something more in line with current popular tastes.

I was sending a query to an agent who, I'll admit, seemed like a pretty hopeless choice for what I'm trying to sell but after a while, after you've sent out dozens of queries, you sense you're beginning to run out of possibilities -- so you grasp at straws.

The agent I was querying used Query Manager for submissions and I had all my materials ready to pop into the appropriate boxes -- bio, word count, genre, query letter, pages -- but then, this particular agent had added to the Query Manager form, a question of her own: "What book are you reading?"

It wasn't "what books have you read lately?" or "what books are your favorites?" or "what books do you want to read?" but "what book are you reading?" Of course I was reading a book but not one I would have liked to get caught reading. I was reading The Perfect Marriage, by Jeneva Rose and I had a history with this book.

A year or two ago I had set out to get a taste of what was currently popular in fiction. I was browsing through the fiction section of our local Barnes & Noble. The staff had tagged certain books which they had particularly enjoyed. I bought two of them. At home I found both unreadable.

I set them both aside and turned to some other books which I had wanted to read. I didn't quite forget them and I did think that "someday" (like Justin Bieber's perfume) I might get around to them, but I was in no rush. Then, as we were making plans to go to Canada, my wife spotted my copy of The Perfect Marriage and told me her book club had chosen it for their next book. I offered it to her and it came along with us. I still hadn't read it. My wife however dug into it.

Then she began to urge me to read it. If I wanted to be a "contemporary writer" (which I didn't!) I had to read this book. I continued to resist, plowing through the titles I had picked up at Frenchys. But she persisted and, without giving anyway anything, finally got me to promise to read it. Finally I did and, I'll admit, once I got into it -- it did take a while -- I wanted to keep reading ... until I had finished it.

So this was the book I had to name when, in that query, I was asked, "what book are you reading?" It wasn't a title anything close to what the agent was looking for. It was probably as far out of her specified preferences as it was out of mine. But, like it or not, I had to tell the truth regardless of how embarrassing it was.

But the real truth is that books fascinate me and teach me and add something to my vision of the world I live in, even books I never expected to be caught reading.


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