You should check out recordings of interviews/lectures of an author (if availabe) prior to engaging with his writings to know what kind of person you're going to be dealing with. You'd get a lot of mileage out of focusing on one person's manner of speaking.

I just look up photos of authors and if they're ugly I don't read their books.

every author worth reading existed prior to recordings being a thing

>you should be a retard before being a retard