Read a lot of novels

In the days when I thought I wanted to be a romance writer I went to a conference and signed up for a group pitch with an agent. We went around the circle giving the elevator pitch about our books. The agent asked one woman what she read in the genre. The response was, "I don't read romance."  The agent was literally speechless.  I read extensively, fiction and non-fiction.  Mysteries are my favorite and I have favorite authors. I like ones with a lot of dialogue like Robert B. Parker, because I find that when I read a book, I'm look for the story in the dialogue. I glaze over with long passages of description.  Other people read differently, of course, but if you aren't reading lots of novels, I wonder how you are going to write a novel.