A while ago, I interviewed my readers for a change, and my final question was, “What question have I NOT asked at BTT that you’d love me to ask?” I got some great responses and will be picking out some of the questions from time to time to ask the rest of you. Like now.
Bookish Sarah asks:
I did this previously for another post (Top Ten Tuesday...year or so ago)...so here are my Top Ten (slightly adjusted):What are your literary “pet peeves”?
1. People who dog-ear books that do not belong to them. (All my friends understand that I have a murderous streak when it comes to the maltreatment of my books....). Finding it in library books drives me nearly as crazy....not quite, but nearly.
2. Ditto for people who highlight in books that do not belong to them. Did you pay for that library book? (Not counting tax money support here.) Didn't think so. Take notes--that's what pen & paper are for. Or buy your own copy...then you can refer to your highlighting whenever you want.
3. Stores that slap stickers all over the books (particularly used book stores that use the kind that apparently have super-glue on them). I can't stand having stickers on my books.
4. In the same vein...bookstores and libraries who stick stickers and/or their library coding system directly over the synopsis. How the heck am I am supposed to find out if this book really needs to come home with me if I can't figure out what it's about?
5. BUT I don't want book blurbs that TELL ALL. It's really annoying when the book blurbs/synopses give away the whole plot.
6. Book cover art that has nothing to do with the story. When there is a blond, blue-eyed damsel in distress on the cover and none to be found in the book or a bug-eyed monster on that science fiction novel just because the artist was told it was Sci-Fi, this tells me that the artist has no clue what the story was about.
7. Speaking of covers...neon covered books of any sort. Sorry, Janet Evanovich--but it's unlikely that I will every read one of your books. They make my eyes hurt.
8. People who say, "I don't see how you can read that many books" when standing behind me in the checkout line (bookstore or library, doesn't matter). What do they care? OR people who come to my home, regularly see me with a [different] book, etc who ask the same kind of questions. How can you read that many? Don't you have a life? Have you actually read all these books? It's like my book habits threaten them in some way.....
9. Stream of consciousness writing. Something in me just wants to scream: "It's a book! It's supposed to have a plot!"
10. Children in danger/murdered/tortured etc. I'm not sure that this is a pet peeve....but it's something I cannot read unless it's a Golden Age type mystery that leaves out all the details of the crime. I just can't take details like that about children.
Thanks for stopping by my blog. Your list is on-target, as well.
ReplyDeleteOh yes, it's so annoying when people highlight in books that are not theirs.
ReplyDelete#8...Just a day or two ago, a blogger told me I was the readingest person she knows, now why this was strange to me is this, she is a writer and is writing her memoir, which she mentions often on her blog.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your visit today.
I love some of your peeves. Especially the neon covers. I hate them too.
ReplyDeleteI'm with you on the dog-ears, highlighting and writing in books.I let a friend borrow a book for class once and she underlined numerous passages. It was so odd because she knew how I felt about violating books that way. Fortunately she used pencil, so I could erase the lines--unfortunately, I had to go back and erase those lines. Needless to say, that was the last book I let her borrow.
ReplyDeleteI don't mind the stickers so much, I can usually peel them off and stream of consciousness used to bother me, but when I read Orlando, I liked how Woolf experimented with it, so now I don't mind it so much.
We share a lot of 'pet peeves' it seems. I too really hate it when people dog-ear or highlight books that do not belong to them. I do not dog ear books that belong to 'me' let alone ones that do not.
ReplyDeleteAnd don't get me started on people who say stupid/mean things about my book reading habits! "Are you going to read the 'whole' book?" "Why do you read so many books?" "You're just trying to avoid talking to people while you 'pretend' to read."; etc, etc.
I totally agree with most of these. An extension on number 8: people who will say pretty much every week "Weren't you reading a different book the last time I saw you?!" Umm, yeah, books end, and then you start new ones.
ReplyDeleteLianneLavoi: Love your extension! These comments should have like buttons like FaceBook. :-)
ReplyDelete