Tag: memes

from Booking Through Thursday:

I do, in a way. My husband is not a big reader of books, but he reads a lot of other types of media. We have a lot of little conversations where I share tidbits of books I\’m reading and he shares with me things he\’s read in news media. Of course, it\’s not quite the same as discussing something we\’ve both read in depth, but that does happen from time to time. A few years ago he read some Harry Potter when I was re-reading part of the series (to prepare for a new movie release approaching) and we talked about those books in length. When we first got married we read a lot of Orwell novels together and discussed them. More recently we read through an Orson Scott Card series and had minor heated debates over issues in the books. You can tell how seldom these incidents of co-reading were, though, as I can remember them all clearly! For daily chat on books of course I love visiting all the bookish blogs, and it always thrills me to find a reader who\’s experienced a book I loved (especially the less-popular ones that no one else seems to have heard of). I ought to leave more comments, though. Things never get quite as chatty online for me as in real face-to-face discussions, seldom though I have them.

from Booking Through Thursday:

I think everyone who mentions a book to me is an influence! My parents and sisters often tell me about interesting books they\’ve been reading, and I jot them down to take a look at myself. I\’ve got a book on my pile right now that a family member told me about. I read Jackdaws on my father\’s recommendation, The Plain Truth and The Professor and the Madman on my mother\’s. My neighbor often shows me new books he\’s bought, and loans them to me if I\’m interested. It\’s because of him that I read The Road and Guns Germs and Steel, instead of letting them sit on my TBR for ages.

But all the same, I don\’t usually rush out and acquire a book to read immediately because of who told me about it. Like any other source (mostly book blogs nowadays) that adds to my book list, I jot it down and wait until the time is right for that kind of book. Pretty much at any given moment I\’m choosing a book just because I feel like reading that one right now, drawing titles equally off my list, regardless of how they got there. So yes, I read quite a few books recommended to me by family and friends. They\’re probably more likely to be books I really enjoy, as they know my interests pretty well! But once a book title lands on that TBR list, it could gather dust for quite some time before I get around to reading it.

I saw this week\’s \”Listful Mondays\” at It\’s All About Books; it originated with Julie at A Small Accomplishment. I kept nodding my head at so many of their bookish pet peeves, decided I had to make a list of my own! I can\’t remember if I\’ve done a meme like this before…. well, here are ten things that bug me about books:

1. Cover art that doesn\’t match the story, or has inaccurate details
2. Highlighted passages- underlining and marginalia just annoy me, but yellow highlighter is wrong!
3. Pages stuck together with gum- yuck! and you can never get it apart, either
4. Book plates, labels or stickers that cover part of a map or illustration on the endpapers
5. The first chapter (or more) just rehashing the last book in a series
6. Cigar odor- or anything else really stinky
7. Missing pages- especially at the end! Augh!
8. Loaning it to someone who breaks the spine
9. Trying to read a series in order but one book is always missing from the library
10. Books used for construction– okay, really, until they get left on the floor and stepped on

What are your book pet peeves?

In celebration of her 500th post, Jessica put up a list of her 500 favorite books at Both Eyes Book Blog. I’ve read and loved many of the same, and she wanted to know which ones! So here\’s a little list of my own. Out of Jessica’s 500, I’ve read 90.

Eighty-two I liked, or loved:

1984 – George Orwell
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain
Aesop’s Fables
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten – Robert Fulghum
Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl – Anne Frank
Antigone – Sophocles
Autobiography of a Face – Lucy Grealy
The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
Beowulf
Black Beauty – Anna Sewell
Black Like Me – John Howard Griffin
The Bone People – Keri Hulme
Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
Call It Sleep – Henry Roth
The Castle – Franz Kafka
The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
The Color of Water – James McBride
The Color Purple – Alice Walker
The Crucible – Arthur Miller
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time – Mark Haddon
Dandelion Wine – Ray Bradbury
Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus – Mo Willems
Don Quixote – Miguel de Cervantes
Equus – Peter Shaffer
Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury
The Fellowship of the Ring – J.R.R. Tolkien
The Feminine Mystique – Betty Friedan
Flowers for Algernon – Daniel Keyes
Frankenstein – Mary Shelley
Griffin and Sabine – Nick Bantock
Guns, Germs, and Steel – Jared Diamond
The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone – J.K. Rowling
Heidi – Johanna Spyri
The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien
Ivanhoe – Sir Walter Scott
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell – Susanna Clarke
The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe – C.S. Lewis
Lord of the Flies – William Golding
Maus – Art Spiegelman
Moby-Dick – Herman Melville
Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro
The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway
The Once and Future King – T.H. White
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – Ken Kesey
Out of Africa – Isaac Dinesen
The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde
The Poisonwood Bible – Barbara Kingsolver
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man – James Joyce
The Road – Cormac McCarthy
The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne
Seven Gothic Tales – Isak Dinesen
Siddhartha – Herman Hesse
Silas Marner – George Eliot
Silent Spring – Rachel Carson
Stargirl – Jerry Spinelli
A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
The Tempest – William Shakespeare
Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston
Things Fall Apart – Chinua Achebe
Through the Looking-Glass – Lewis Carroll
The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
The Tragedy of Puddin’head Wilson – Mark Twain
Tuck Everlasting – Natalie Babbitt
The Velveteen Rabbit – Margery Williams
Watership Down – Richard Adams
Where the Wild Things Are – Maurice Sendak
Wicked – Gregory Maguire
The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
Winnie-the-Pooh – A.A. Milne
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz – L. Frank Baum
A Wrinkle in Time – Madeleine L’Engle
Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance – Robert M. Persig

Seven I didn’t care for as much:

Franny and Zooey – J. D. Salinger
Geek Love – Katherine Dunn
Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
Emma – Jane Austen
The Princess Bride – William Goldman
The Gunslinger – Stephen King
The Joy Luck Club – Amy Tan

Thirteen I tried, and did not finish:

As I Lay Dying – William Faulkner
Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
Dracula – Bram Stoker
Primary Colors – Anonymous
Robinson Crusoe – Daniel Defoe
Snow Falling on Cedars – David Guterson
Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
A Thousand Acres – Jane Smiley
Henderson the Rain King – Saul Bellow
Dune – Frank Herbert
The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Canterbury Tales – Geoffrey Chaucer
Then We Came to the End – Joshua Ferris

These I’ve been meaning to read:

The Art of Racing in the Rain – Garth Stein
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas – John Boyne
A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly – Jean-Dominique Bauby
Downtown Owl – Chuck Klosterman
Fight Club – Chuck Palahniuk
Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
The Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins
The Magicians – Lev Grossman
My Antonia – Willa Cather
The Monkey Wrench Gang – Edward Abbey
Out Stealing Horses – Per Petterson
Pigs in Heaven – Barbara Kingsolver
Stiff – Mary Roach
The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway
The Turn of the Screw – Henry James
Walden – Henry David Thoreau

And these I added to my TBR because Jessica introduced me to them:

Animal Liberation – Peter Singer
The Coming Plague – Laurie Garrett
The Female Man – Joanna Russ
The Roaches Have No King – Daniel Evan Weiss
The World Without Us – Alan Weisman

Also, my husband has read half of Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas R. Hofstadter, which I never would have heard of otherwise.

There you go, Jessica!

I borrowed this meme from C.B. James. I’m sure most of you know what triggered it. I tend to steer clear of controversies around the blogosphere, so just a very few remarks here.

When I first started book blogging, I actually wanted my blog to be just about books. I wanted it to look austere and focused. I didn’t plan on including anything personal. I thought some other blogs were way too cluttered-looking and felt that challenges would make my reading feel constricted. I even looked for other blogs that fit my idea of being strictly books. They were hard to find! Now I’m not so stuffy. I’ve come to enjoy the sense of community that all these other activities (memes, giveaways, interviews, contests, etc) bring into book blogging. So over the past nearly-three years I’ve really changed my mind a lot. More about that below!

Do you participate in memes?
Occasionally. I do Booking Through Thursday when I find the questions interesting, and sometimes pick up memes (like this one) from other bloggers. I like doing memes that have something to do with books or reading, since that\’s what this blog is all about, or that let readers know a little more about me. Sometimes I do more random ones just for fun!

Do you participate in Book Tours?  What about ARCS?
Never done a book tour. Don’t plan to. I was thrilled to get my first ARCs, until I realized I wasn’t falling in love with any of the books sent me, and then felt uncomfortable writing negatively about them (wanting to be honest). It’s very rare now that I accept them. I just have way too many books already on my shelf waiting to be read, and don’t like the sense of obligation they put upon me.

Do you encourage followers?  Do you follow?
No. Following seems redundant to me, when I already have all I can handle in my google reader. Can someone convince me otherwise? I just don’t see the point, yet.

What do you think of giveaways and other contests?
They’re fun! I like doing giveaways, just because it makes me happy to send people stuff, especially books to other readers who will appreciate them. I do giveaways of books (off my shelf) or handmade bookmarks a few times a month. I’ve entered some, too. Contests more complicated than a simple giveaway are too much trouble for me to pay attention to.

Do you read and/or conduct author interviews?
Nope.

Do you enjoy challenges?
I’m beginning to! Last year I participated in a few for the first time. Surprised how much I liked crossing titles off a list, and seeing what other bloggers were reading for the same challenge. This year I’ve signed up for more, probably too many to finish. So far I’ve been doing challenges that just help me focus on paring down my TBR, but next year I think I’ll do some that stretch my reading boundaries and get me out of my comfort zone. Isn’t that why it’s called a challenge, after all?

I’ve also tried hosting my own challenge, but that hasn’t been very successful. Maybe I made it too complicated? Due to lack of interest, I’m probably not doing to do it again next year. But I don’t mind. I’m still going to have fun in other people’s challenges!

Do you like giving/getting awards?
I was tickled pink when I got my first blog award. They’re a nice way to show recognition to other bloggers. Lately though, I have trouble deciding who to pass them on to. There are so many blogs I love reading, how can I possibly choose between them all? I think I might start adopting the policy of just thanking who gave it to me and saying: you all deserve this award!

What is your opinion of cat videos?
Some are dull. Some make me cry, I laugh so hard. I don’t mind if people have them on their blog, as long as it’s not overwhelming and becoming the-blog-about-what-my-cat-ate-for-breakfast (instead of the about book I couldn’t put down!) If I’m too busy I just skip it and read the bookish stuff. Same goes for photos of your flowers, birds in your yard, pics of your vacation, whatever. It’s lovely to have a bit of that!

In summary- I do some of these things, not all. If a blog is becoming too full of “extras” I might gradually loose interest just because I don’t find enough about books, and that’s what I originally came for. But it’s all a matter of personal taste. There’s many different kinds of readers, and thus many different kinds of blogs. Serious ones, tongue-in-cheek ones, everything in between. Some have very lengthy analysis of the books, others just an emotional response. Everything from heavy literature to picture books! I’ve even seen bloggers share their kid’s opinion on books they read together (or in C.B.’s case, how Dakota thought they tasted!) and that’s fun, too. That’s what I love about book blogging. There’s so much variety out there, you’re bound to find something you like.

Happy reading, everyone!

Janet at Across the Page gave my blog the Honest Scrap award. Thanks so much, Janet! So now I\’m supposed to share ten honest facts about myself, and then pass it on.

Let\’s see….

1. I don\’t like ironing. I get frustrated with it.
2. When I was a kid, I didn\’t like tomatoes. Now I do!
3. My favorite color is blue.
4. I wear socks to bed all winter.
5. I\’ve given up painting for the time being. Gardening is more exciting!
6. The first nightmare I ever remember having- when I was a kid- featuring a Care Bear recklessly driving a car I was in. I think he flipped it on a curve.
7. My hands are usually cold.
8. I find politics really really boring.
9. I\’m not a very good house-cleaner. I get clutter out of the way, but things like dusting and washing windows tend to slide.
10. Up until last year, I\’d never broken a bone. Busted my toe on a garden brick.

I know I\’m supposed to pick ten bloggers to pass this on to, but I have a hard time choosing just a few out of the many, many I read. So if you\’re reading this and you\’d like to participate, please join in! I\’d like to hear some honest stuff about all of you.

From Booking Through Thursday, suggested by Prairie Progressive:

I had to think about this. I\’m kind of all over the place. If it\’s fiction and brand-new to me, I\’ll often read the flaps and all blurbs on the back before starting, to get an idea of what I\’m in for. If it\’s an author I\’m returning to, I usually skip it because I want to approach the book with an empty slate. Sometimes I go back and read it after I\’m done, to see how the flap description matched up with what I thought of the book. Sometimes it seems way off the mark, as if whoever wrote the flap copy didn\’t even read the entire book!

With nonfiction, I often come up with a question somewhere in the middle of my reading that I think flap copy might answer (usually about the author) and read it then. I have a very old worn copy of Icebound Summer, with an awful-looking dust jacket that I\’ve kept just because the flap copy is informative about the origins of the book itself, and I didn\’t want to loose that information.

And then there\’s always books of all descriptions where it never even occurs to me to read the flaps, and I just dive right in. I guess it depends on how much I want to know beforehand, and how informative the flaps might be.

What about you? do you read the flaps?