Bad Book Learning

This reading for writing idea is not always as straightforward - or as easy - as it sounds, is it?
Parallel to me writing a crime novel I began, for the first time, apart from a few Ian Rankin's, reading them - both crime and thriller.  I discovered there was a huge variation in type as well as style, but that I really enjoyed a lot of them, especially those with characters who developed as book followed book.
I learnt that short sharp sentences add pace, that descriptions of fights are hard to do convincingly (and boring when they go on too long), that good sex can be told - or at least implied - in just three words.
And I've no doubt I learnt a lot unconsciously - or do I mean subconsciously?.
Since York, where I bought books by WW-connected writers, I've fully realised that when a book is really good I can only read with 100% enjoyment.  Even though I always mean to take note, go back, analyse how it's done, I rarely do because I am on to the next book.  Harry Bingham's wonderful 'Talking to the Dead' came into this category.
Two others were much more informative.  One, totally unreadable, but at least I now know that it would have benefited immeasurably from a bit of psychic distance. (Though I doubt that alone would have rescued it).  The other, fast paced and brilliantly-plotted, brought home to me that a superfluity of adverbs and too imaginative a deviation from plain old 'said'  are definitely to be avoided.  I'm grateful to 'How Not to Write a Novel' for that.