Do You Glom?

by Christine Wells

When I was young and we'd get chocolate eggs at Easter, my brother would devour all of his in short order. I, on the other hand, having the appetite of a sparrow (oh, for those long, lost days!) would eat one small egg a day and when all of those were gone, I'd move on to my large hollow rabbit and eat it, one bunny body part at a time. It drove my brother nuts and of course, looking back I can see what an utterly irritating child I must have been.

I tend to be totally the opposite when it comes to entertainment. If I discover an author I love I want to read everything she has ever written and I want to read it NOW!



It's the same with television series. In Australia, we get the BBC series Spooks/MI-5 a lot later than our British cousins, so we usually buy the DVD series of a season before it airs on television here. I was on deadline and my husband walked in with 8 episodes of Richard Armitage under his arm. No, I said, they will be my reward for when I finish this book.

I held out for a day. And then I watched all 8 episodes back-to-back. Or as close together as you can when you have a young family and a book to write. Hey, I was writing about spies, albeit in the Regency era. It was research!

Then there was Anne Stuart, who is one of the best romance writers around but for some reason until my friend Anna Campbell introduced her books to me a couple of years ago, I hadn't read them before. Anna lent me Anne Stuart's backlist and said "Do NOT read all these in one go." I meant to savor them, really, I did! But... you can guess what happened.

So, do you savor, eke out every last drop of anticipation of the next book from a particular author, or do you glom? Is there nothing better than discovering that a great, new-to-you author has a large backlist you can devour in a few sittings? Or are you the sort of person who can tease out the pleasure, read slowly and savor? Who was the last author you glommed?