I mentioned to another friend, earlier this week, that I would read Jessie Burton for her descriptive prose, even if I weren't sucked right into the story itself.

If the language isn't vivid and visual, it had better be a good, quick, adventure story. Or one with characters whose personalities are irresistible, whose dialogue draws me into their world and makes me a sort of confidante or conspirator. I don't have to love them, but I do have to find them interesting.

I usually read the first page or two, the last page or two, then ask myself, "Do I give a damn how they got from A to Z? Does the writing itself flow smoothly enough that I can stick with it this long?"

When I was ten, I devoured gothic romance. But I think, even then, I much preferred the houses to the women who were so determined to run away from them. Real love shouldn't be so brooding, so complicated, so damnably hard. (I've been married almost 39 years - and trust me, it's not been. That said, a good marriage may not make for an enthralling novel - because we all know that conflict drives story.)

I also loved Edgar Allan Poe. Ghost stories. Not gore - nothing so lurid as a slasher story. At some point, I turned to murder-mystery thrillers. Forensic science stories. And now I realize that while I'm interested in what makes people tick, I really haven't got the patience for their ordinary, day-to-day foibles, when it comes to literature. I love the Outlander series because it has so many cross-genre elements - from fantasy to steamy romance to adventure to medical science and drama to historical fiction - and it has some wonderfully-made characters to love and to hate. (The TV series is well-done, but the books are the real pleasure and worth reading more than once. I still marvel that Gabaldon could hold our attention for 750-1000 pages, not once, but for however many books are in the series - eight, now? Nine or ten? And we crave more.)

Our tastes definitely change with age - or, more accurately, I think, with life experience. That tends to put them into a whole different context. At 15 or 16, I didn't CARE about the subject of anything Faulkner or Hardy wrote. I think it may be time to revisit them. I will NEVER not throw James Joyce novels, forcibly, across the room - I simply loathe his writing. I don't know why my reaction to it is so visceral, but it is. I try, every seven years or so - but it's like buttermilk. Some tastebuds never do change.