A couple of incidents have prompted this week's topic.
- I very much enjoyed the two Susan Hill novels that I’ve read and already have the next book in her series Simon Serrailler series on my audio book playlist. Then I discovered, via the author’s opinion column in a
- Craig Sisterson's excellent blog Crime Watch featured an article about historical mystery author Anne Perry who, as it happens, committed a particularly grim murder many years ago (at the ripe old age of 15). "Thank heavens I'm not a fan of hers" was my first thought.
So I have been pondering the issues of whether it is possible to separate an author's non-writing life from the books they produce and thought I'd throw these questions over to you. Feel free to answer one or more of these and give examples if you have them.
Does an author's politics matter to you? Do you have a favourite book or series written by someone you know to be your political opposite? Or have you stopped reading works by a particular author after discovering that their politics was radically different from your own?
What about their personality? Have you ever stopped reading an author's work after seeing or hearing them talk because you didn't like what you saw or heard?
And how about that secret past? How would you feel if you found out your favourite author was a murderer or some other kind of criminal? Are there some crimes that you would be OK about and others that would stop you following their work? Do you know about the pasts of 'your' authors? Do you want to?
This week's topic is brought to you by Bernadette at Reactions to Reading