Category Archives: booking through thursday

Booking Through Thursday – Disaster!

You’ve just dropped your favorite, out-of-print book into a bathtub, ruining it completely … What do you do now?

Whine. Post on the BookCrossing forums about it. Then pop onto AbeBooks and see about finding another copy.

One time my cat urinated on my backpack, utterly destroying the book I was currently reading. But then, it was The Da Vinci Code, so she may have just been commenting on my taste in literature.

Booking Through Thursday

Just a simple survey this week.

1. Favorite childhood book?
There are so many, but probably Dear Mr. Henshaw by Beverly Cleary

2. What are you reading right now?
Ishmael by Daniel Quinn, The Secret Scripture by Sabastian Barry, and Holes by Louis Sachar.

3. What books do you have on request at the library?
None at the moment, but I have Foundation by Isaac Asimov checked out for when I finish Holes.  When I start Foundation I’ll put the next book on hold.  (I don’t like browsing the shelves.)

4. Bad book habit?
Sometimes, despite my best intentions, the spine gets broken. The horror, I know.

5. What do you currently have checked out at the library?
Holes and Foundation, as mentioned above. They’re both audiobooks; that’s all I use the library for these days. I have plenty of regular books to read on my shelves at home.

6. Do you have an e-reader?
Nah. I sit in front of a screen all day long already. That, and you can’t BookCross e-books.

7. Do you prefer to read one book at a time, or several at once?
Several at once. I have one main book (mostly read in bed at night), one audiobook in the car, and one book in my gym bag for reading while on the stationary bike.

8. Have your reading habits changed since starting a blog?
I give more thought to what I thought about them and why. Sometimes I even make notes for my review before I finish the book.

9. Least favorite book you read this year (so far?)
The Taking by Dean Koontz. Cripes that was terrible.

10. Favorite book you’ve read this year?
Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan. Didn’t want it to end.

11. How often do you read out of your comfort zone?
More often than I used to, that’s for sure. It’s amazing the things that have fallen into my lap since joining BookCrossing.

12. What is your reading comfort zone?
Oh, I dunno. Science fiction and fantasy, I suppose.

13. Can you read on the bus?
No, I get motion sickness very easily.

14. Favorite place to read?
My recliner with a sleeping kitty on my lap. :)

15. What is your policy on book lending?
I don’t lend any book I absolutely must get back.

16. Do you ever dog-ear books?
Not anymore. I did as a kid.

17. Do you ever write in the margins of your books?
Generally no.

18. Not even with text books?
Not uness I’m correcting a mistake in the text.

19. What is your favorite language to read in?
English. It’s the only one I can read in!

20. What makes you love a book?
That’s far too in-depth of a question to be answered in a single survey post.

21. What will inspire you to recommend a book?
If I really really loved it and can actually articulate why.

22. Favorite genre?
Probably SF/F.

23. Genre you rarely read (but wish you did?)
History and historical fiction.

24. Favorite biography?
Um. I haven’t read many biographies.

25. Have you ever read a self-help book?
Not unless you count the Inner Bitch books.

26. Favorite cookbook?
I don’t cook, but my husband says Julia’s Kitchen Wisdom by Julia Child is essential.

27. Most inspirational book you’ve read this year (fiction or non-fiction)?
Inspirational? I guess probably The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova.

28. Favorite reading snack?
I avoid eating while reading, as I tend to pay more attention to the book and end up eating far more than I should without thinking about it.

29. Name a case in which hype ruined your reading experience.
Hard to say. I certainly wasn’t as impressed with The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini as I’d expected.

30. How often do you agree with critics about a book?
I don’t know. I don’t pay much attention to critics.

31. How do you feel about giving bad/negative reviews?
About the same as giving good/positive reviews.

32. If you could read in a foreign language, which language would you chose?
Japanese.

33. Most intimidating book you’ve ever read?
Jeez, I dunno. Possibly The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber

34. Most intimidating book you’re too nervous to begin?
North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell.

35. Favorite Poet?
Shel Silverstein.

36. How many books do you usually have checked out of the library at any given time?
One or two.

37. How often have you returned book to the library unread?
Several times, always because the book was unlistenable due to either a terribly scratched disc or a terrible narrator.

38. Favorite fictional character?
I don’t think I can narrow it down to just one, but at the moment I’m kind of in love with The Colonel from Looking For Alaska by John Green.

39. Favorite fictional villain?
That’s not any easier to narrow down. Maybe Javert in Les Miserables by Victor Hugo.

40. Books I’m most likely to bring on vacation?
Whatever I’m currently reading plus several paperbacks – usually at least two more than I could possibly read in the timespan I’ll be gone. I’m paranoid about running out of things to read.

41. The longest I’ve gone without reading.
Until college I almost never read for pleasure, so probably months.

42. Name a book that you could/would not finish.
The Void by Georges Perec, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson, others.

43. What distracts you easily when you’re reading?
The television.  A cat rubbing her face on my book.

44. Favorite film adaptation of a novel?
The Last Unicorn

45. Most disappointing film adaptation?
There are so many. Probably Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, not because it was a particularly bad movie, but because the book was just so good that I had hoped to recapture those feelings with the film. And I didn’t.

46. The most money I’ve ever spent in the bookstore at one time?
Not counting textbooks, probably somewhere around $100, but it was mostly Christmas presents.

47. How often do you skim a book before reading it?
I don’t. I read the back and the first few paragraphs, and if it sucks me in, I read it for real. I don’t like skipping ahead, though as a kid I always read the very last word before starting a book. I have no idea why I did that.

48. What would cause you to stop reading a book half-way through?
If I just really wasn’t enjoying it and every page was a chore. Life’s too short to read bad books.

49. Do you like to keep your books organized?
I don’t, really, though I often play around with my TBR spreadsheet.

50. Do you prefer to keep books or give them away once you’ve read them?
I release them into the wild, of course.

51. Are there any books you’ve been avoiding?
The Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien. It’s pretty much my husband’s favorite story ever but I am reluctant because The Hobbit gave me narcolepsy.

52. Name a book that made you angry.
The Death of Common Sense by Philip K. Howard.

53. A book you didn’t expect to like but did?
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. Sigh…

54. A book that you expected to like but didn’t?
Island of the Sequined Love Nun by Christopher Moore. More recently, The Russian Dreambook of Color and Flight by Gina Ochsner.

55. Favorite guilt-free, pleasure reading?
Jennifer Weiner.

Booking Through Thursday – Encouragement

This week’s BTT is about Encouragement. That is:

How can you encourage a non-reading child to read? What about a teenager? Would you require books to be read in the hopes that they would enjoy them once they got into them, or offer incentives, or just suggest interesting books? If you do offer incentives and suggestions and that doesn’t work, would you then require a certain amount of reading? At what point do you just accept that your child is a non-reader?

I was one of those non-reading children, and once I was into chapter books the few things I did read were only because other people did. My sister, whom I idolized, was a big reader. It was because of her that I ever read any Piers Anthony, D. Manus Pinkwater, Douglas Adams, or Robert Asprin. I read A Little Princess and some unicorn series because my grade school friends were really into them. I always participated in the Summer Reading Program at the local public library (which had the best children’s librarians ever, by the way), but there wasn’t much incentive for me, really, considering the prize at the end was just another book. I remember getting a book in the gift exchange in fourth grade and being just incredibly disappointed, especially since everyone else got toys. The books assigned at school were no help either. I still fall asleep just hearing the names of such standard English Class fare as Johnny Tremain, The Incredible Journey, A Separate Peace, and The Scarlet Letter.

The change came during my freshman year of college. I didn’t own a television, and after a while I became so desperate to read something – anything – that wasn’t a text book that I picked up Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice. I’d liked the movie, so I figured I’d give the book a try. I loved it, and luckily was able to find copies of the next three books in the series at the college library. (Being in the Honors College gave me the unexpected perk of being able to check books out for an entire semester, which came in handy considering how little free time I had for pleasure reading.) After that was the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan (aside: this is one series I’d want an e-book reader for, since the mass market paperbacks have a tendency to fall apart and anything larger is super heavy), and by then I was hooked. I needed to have a book on me at all times, if only to pick up for a few minutes before class started. These days I have three books going at any one time: my regular book, an audiobook in my car, and a paperback in my gym bag for reading on the exercise bike.

So I guess this is a long-winded way of saying to just let them be. You can’t – and probably shouldn’t – force interests. If they want to read, they’ll get around to it eventually. If not, then not. Pleasure reading isn’t the be-all and end-all of pastimes. I enjoy reading, but I know plenty of perfectly intelligent and well-rounded people who don’t. It’s just one of those things.

Booking Through Thursday

Today’s Booking Through Thursday is fairly straightforward:

Which do you prefer? Biographies written about someone? Or Autobiographies written by the actual person (and/or ghost-writer)?

I don’t read many biographies, auto- or otherwise, though my favorites have been primarily memoirs, such as If Chins Could Kill and Cancer Vixen, and of course pretty much anything David Sedaris or Laurie Notaro put out. I’m not sure I’ve ever read a straight-up biography, come to think of it; the closest was probably Silverstein and Me, which wasn’t really so much a life story as it was memories of a good friend in reasonably chronological order. Books about single people have never really interested me.

So I guess that’s my long way of saying that I prefer autobiography. Which is interesting, since before this meme I would have thought I had no preference either way.

Booking Through Thursday

So I’ve decided to start taking part, at least occasionally, in another weekly book-related meme, Booking Through Thursday. (And yes, I’m well aware that it’s not Thursday.) This week’s topic is on weeding your book collection. More specifically:

When’s the last time you weeded out your library? Do you regularly keep it pared down to your reading essentials? Or does it blossom into something out of control the minute you turn your back, like a garden after a Spring rain?

Or do you simply not get rid of books? At all?

The fact of the matter is that I don’t need to weed my books. I almost never reread books, and for a lot of years, most of the books I read went straight into my mother’s annual garage sale. These days they all get BookCrossed. The only time I’ve ever done any actual weeding was once when I pulled out all the Dan Brown, Dean Koontz, Robin Cook, and any other generic thrillers I knew it would be no problem to find again someday if I really wanted to read them. And in that case, it was just a matter of reclaiming some shelf space. BookCrossing may be about releasing books, but I’ve sure ended up with a whole lot more than I ever had before joining!

I keep the few favorites that I do like to read again from time to time, but otherwise my personal library consists mainly of to-be-read books. Which is part of the reason why I don’t understand judging someone by the books they own. Most of my books aren’t ones I’ve been able to form an opinion about yet.

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