This weekend, I had the opportunity to browse in a bookstore in Quantico, Virginia—where the FBI is based and where marine officers receive their first qualification and training.  I found the range of titles they carry very interesting.

I was at Quantico because my son was graduating from Officer Candidate School in the Marines and, in fact, he and his classmates had read many of the books (though obviously not all) that I found below:

There were books like this one about policy: 

Reference books: 

Children’s books: 

Related titles for women: 

Books by bestselling authors: 

Books about leadership: 

Books to improve our intellect and make us think:  

And bestselling fiction: 

(Interestingly Battle Cry is a book that my father both edited and published.)

All of this underlines the fact that books about military subjects hold a real fascination for the reading public.  Now that my son is an officer, it’s a category I will follow more closely.  What are your favorite military titles?

But have you ever lied about having never read a certain book? I ran with self-professed book nerds in high school and college, and because we were all judgy teenagers, there were books that we simply avoided out of ignorance or because everyone else was reading them. For example, there was a time (for a while, until I got caught) that I denied reading Twilight by Stephenie Meyer because most of my friends made fun of it (even though I looooooved that series as a preteen).

Working at DGLM, my reading tastes have broadened considerably. You read everything so you can recognize good writing or storytelling when you see it, no matter what the genre is. As an example, I’ve discovered that I really like picking up a romance at the end of a long week. (I just finished Nancy Herkness’s The CEO Buys In, which I couldn’t put down!) Not that long ago I’d never read an adult romance novel—I had just wrongly assumed that I wouldn’t like them.

I’m grateful for the chance to open myself up to new kinds of writing and get rid of some of the preconceived notions I’d had as a young reader! How have your reading tastes changed over the years? Are there books you love now that you wouldn’t have five, ten, or twenty years ago?

I have authors on my own list who have tried their hand at both. From my experience, they are usually better at one or the other and once they have some success with finding a publisher they stick with that. One of my most prolific fiction authors doesn’t seem interested in nonfiction, despite a few prods from me. And another who has only done nonfiction so far has teased me by talking about doing a novel at some point. I love the idea of this creative exploration.

I found this piece on Crosley’s publisher’s website interesting for aspiring or established writers because it goes into the psychological mindset of switching from one category to the other, or in her case the idea that many writers move seamlessly from fiction to nonfiction but it’s a different beast when it goes the other way. While the feelings Crosley has experienced crossing over are hers, I suspect there are some common threads that other writers would agree with. She feels fiction is a lot harder, she says that “publishing nonfiction feels like reading poetry on stage and publishing fiction feels like doing it naked while playing the piano.” I look forward to reading the novel and seeing how it compares to her nonfiction.

What do you think? Fiction or nonfiction or both? I say if you have the talent, spread it around!