For writers, music can be a great aid to the creative process. It can evoke a certain mood, set the scene for the story and even bring out new emotions in your characters. Chronicled in an earlier post, what music you listen to while writing can greatly influence the overall tone of what your book becomes.

However, today’s post addresses the topic of music entering into the actual reading of a book. Certainly, the union of music and reading can have its problems, as reading requires a great deal of concentration which can be easily disrupted by an influx of lyric heavy music. It is absolutely not necessary for reading to have an auditory component. I pose this more as a hypothetical. I know plenty of people prefer to be left alone with their thoughts and the words on the pages, and that’s absolutely fine.

But that doesn’t mean reading with a soundtrack can’t be done and isn’t done quite frequently. I mean, just look at the woman in this picture, she seems to be totally on board with it. That, or the stock photo people paid her to look like she’s having a good time.

Either way, I must ask authors out there, for those readers that enjoy reading while listening to music, what would the preferred soundtrack to your book sound like?* What would play during the action? What would play in the heart wrenching moments, like at the end of your book when your protagonist must release his trusty domesticated ocelot back into the wild? What about the funny scenes? If you know your soundtrack, let us know what it would sound like.

*Note: Claiming it would sound like a Wes Anderson movie might be a mild copout.