I Am Reading Three Books Now

book reader showing three books he is readingMe posing with the three books that I am reading currently

I have liked reading books as far as I can remember. Books have always been an important part of my life. I remember 10 years back I went to a bookshop and bought books worth INR 6000 that talked about my city, Lucknow. I wasn’t really planning on buying so many books, but I went ahead and bought them as I felt it was right.

It is another matter that I never got around to reading any of those books. I was interested in knowing more about Lucknow and that had caught my attention then. But then that interest waned away. Life brought in other interests for me to focus on. And I went walking on those new bylanes. 

Consider online shopping, which all of us do at some point. Most of us apply common sense when we shop online and ‘Add to Cart’ only those products that we want. Plus, we think twice or even thrice whether we need a particular product or not before ordering it online. 

In my case, where books are concerned, if I like a book, I order it online and when it comes it gets placed on my bookshelf. I may not have the time to read it, or even the inclination to read it when it comes, but I am sure that I will get around to reading it one day. That ‘one day’ does come, by the way. 

So what I am saying here is that I am open to buying good books without a second thought. Though, I am not open to buying good products that I see online when I go shopping there. For non-book products, I prefer to question the need for buying ‘that’ product. If I am convinced that I should, I buy. Otherwise, it gets ignored. 

bookshelfMy bookshelf with select books - most that I have read, some that are still waiting patiently to be read.

Next thing is that currently I am reading three books. Two fiction novels and one self-help non-fiction book. The fiction novels are: Major Bakshi: The Dragon’s Nemesis by Sudip Talukdar and The Duke & I (Bridgerton series) by Julia Quinn which is now a successful Netflix series. The non-fiction I am reading is Feel-Good Productivity by Ali Abdaal.

I picked up these books again to read because I wanted to finish them. I had started reading them earlier, but I was not doing it regularly. Sometimes I would read one book, then I would pick up the other book and then the third one. Today, I decided to read all three together. 

What I am doing now is that I read a few pages of one book, then I pick up the next book, read a few pages and then open the third book. 

There are a quite a few unread books on my bookshelf now. The plan is to finish off reading all those books in sets of three, like the way I am handling the current books. Once I have read each book, I will review the book and publish it here on my website.   

As you would know, I am a book editor. So, my world at present revolves around words and how to place them together in the proper order, so the required meaning becomes clear to the reader.

To be a good book editor, it is important to be a good reader. As a book editor, if you read books daily, you begin to understand the mind of the authors and how they put their message in their book. You will also understand how the book editors who worked on those books finally edited the book. 

As I read the two novels and the non-fiction book, I am observing how the book editors handled the grammar, punctuation and sentence structure. Any book published by a publishing house means it was edited by a book editor who worked together with the book author to bring out a good end product. 

If the book does not have a publishing house imprinted on its pages, then there is a high possibility that the book has been self-edited by the author. If I come across such a book, then I assume that the author is a skilled and experienced writer who understands the English language and grammar well. I expect that such a book will be well-edited and proofread and there won’t be irritating errors in it.

It is alright if an author self-edits his/her book, as long as the editing is good. Good editing leads to a good reading experience. But it is not the right strategy to self-edit your first book as an author if you are not an experienced writer who has worked professionally. 

For your first book, if you have a fair budget, not necessarily a big one, hire some experienced book editor. 

Since I provide book editing service, do check out my nonfiction book editing gig on Fiverr. You will also find many book editors there who can take care of your fiction manuscript. 

~ Raza | @bylineraza