What do you read for inspiration?

At the moment I get most of my inspiration from music- ambient or lyrical..have read a lot but that's not where I am at the moment. Get it also from feeling the world around me and myself.

Well Stan I should read more and I will let myself be inspired by you and the authors you mention. Have also a few of my own lurkng on the bookshelf. But have recently discovered earphones and streaming music (my mobile follows me everywhere for the same reason !!!) and have always felt a great inspiration by folks like Leonard Cohen, Mark Knopfler (and a lot of others) and now 120 Days- all with brilliant lyrics (120 Days is ambient though- really rocks me). I know I am a pretty illiterate person nowadays and it shows in my poetry- tends to be written along the same mould- must do something about that. Meanwhile I am happy in my ignorance!

Yeah got it- Telegraph Road- more than 11 minutes of it.. splendid Funny you should say that about knowing where to find out- I am a librarian and you just have to know where to find things- how to look up in handbooks etc- but now I suppose it is all IT of course it is-but it is a really fun profession- well while it lasted for me- no regrets though. rather like the rhythms of Coldplay, you know.. gotta keep myself in check- noone else does.. ;)

Reading definitely influences my writing consciously and subconsciously, but don't think it inspires it, if I can make that distinction. Reading a book I think is great can depress me from a writer's point of view as I can feel I'll never reach that standard. Conversely I can be enraged by badly written yet somehow published books.

I find this good for blowing away the smog, http://www.urbandictionary.com/

The topic is very good. When I was able to hike at least a few miles, my inspiration was the woods, where I could sit and reflect on everything and anything. A pad and pen always accompanied me. My tape recorder was ok for a while, but then it became a chore to write what I said. Now you can buy a Dragon type of recorder where your voice is programmed so you can simply plug into your computer and have it typed. Music is good for inspiration, older ones like Moon River and Elvis Presley, now Shania Twain songs. My wife inspires me, her love for me and the way she likes to talk positively about people is music to my ears. I enjoy going back to older Canadian poets like Raymond Souster who writes with such simplicity about people and places (he was my mentor when I lived in Toronto), and deceased Archibald Lampman for his tremendous nature poems. Above all else, I get much inspiration from the well written and newly written writers with ABCTales. There are some tremendous writers here. God bless everyone. Richard and Esther Provencher, Truro, Nova Scotia, Website: www.wsprog.com/rp/ PS. Remember---All BOOKS are free for download to our ABC friends, including the three for sale.

There's nothing puts me more in the mood for writing than watching a good film, or seeing a good band, hearing a great piece of music. As for reading, I read widely and wildly, some of the influences seep through and some don't.

Good points here, as I reread the blogs. I forgot to mention my reading giant is John Grisham and the earlier novels of Stephen King. The first issue of "The Stand" was phenomenal. Re movies: I enjoyed watching and reading The Road. All the best, Richard LP