Booking Through Thursday: Current Events

This week, BTT asks: What are you reading right now? (And, is it good? Would you recommend it? How did you choose it?)

I'm reading The Other Side of Tomorrow, a collection of science fiction short stories put together in 1973 and edited by Roger Elwood.  The stories speculate on that far and distant time...the 21st Century! So far, the jury's still out on how good it is...I've only read one of the short stories so far and it was pretty okay. Not a blockbuster, but okay.  I decided to read it because it's been sitting on my TBR pile for eons (I added it to the stack back in 1993) and I was trying to get it read for the Science Fiction Experience blogger event and my Mount TBR Reading Challenge.  Unless I get off the computer right now and read straight through till midnight, I'm probably not going to sneak this one in for the SF Experience (ends today). Ah well.

Booking Through Thursday: Influence

This week, BTT asks: "Do other people influence what you choose to read? When a family member recommends something, or a friend says they hated a book you were planning to read...does it affect your reading choices?"

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Honestly....mostly not.  There are a few friends in the real world who I talk books with and occasionally I take their suggestions to read a book.  I've rarely not read a book that was already on the TBR stack simply because somebody else hated it.  The people with the most influence on my reading habits are out here in the blogging world.  I've read more books in the last few years that fellow bloggers have mentioned in their reviews than I have books recommended by people I know live and in person.  Probably because I mostly follow blogs with similar tastes to mine and so I'm often seeing books (mostly mysteries) that John at Sinister Books or the Puzzle Doctor at In Search of the Classic Mystery Novel or Yvette at In So Many Words have read and loved and so I immediately add them to the already much-too-long TBR list.  

But overall--I have a TBR list of my own that's miles long and I pretty much stick with what I want to read, when I want to read it.

***Addendum: Shame on me for forgetting Ryan at Wordsmithonia...without Ryan I wouldn't have discovered a love for Mary Roberts Rinehart.  And I wouldn't have about 15 of her books sitting on my TBR mountain range.....
 

Booking Through Thursday: On Loan

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This week, BTT asks: "Do you lend your books? Are any out on loan right now? Do you have any that have been loaned to you? Do you put a time limit on these? Do you think people should make an effort to read the loaned book quickly?"
I rarely lend my books.  Mostly because few people in real life have the same reading tastes that I do.  Occasionally I find a book that I think someone I know might really enjoy and I do loan it out.  Currently, I have Helen Reilly's Compartment K out on loan to someone who was taking a train trip in Canada (just like in the book).  We were talking about her trip and I mentioned how I had just finished the Reilly book.  She thought it would be really cool to read the book with her partner while they were on the train. [And that reminds me....I need to see if they were able to finish it yet.]  

And, foolishly, I don't put a time limit on my loans.  Maybe I should.....I really do think that people should make the effort to read loaned books quickly.  I do whenever I borrow a book.  Again, that's rare....I have so many books on my own TBR mountain range that I really don't need to borrow books from anybody--not even the library.  But, again, occasionally one will be mentioned in conversation and I'll think, I'd like to read that....and so I borrow.  My most frequent lending librarian is my good friend Richard.  For the most part, he has saved me when I've managed to leave the house without a book in my purse (gasp!)...he's a professor in the English Department where I work, so I've raided his bookshelves a couple of times when I needed something to read on my lunch hour--'cuz the girl has to read whenever she has a chance.  Fortunately his mother was a reader of vintage mysteries (which he inherited) and he has a lovely shelf or two in his office from which I can choose.

Image found at Pretty Sinister Books

Booking Through Thursday: Record-Keeping

I haven't done Booking Through Thursday for a while.  This week we want to know:

Do you keep a list of the books you’ve read? How? In a journal? Through one of the online services? If so, WHY? To keep good records for future reference? To make sure you don’t accidentally reread? If not, why not? Too eager to move on to the next book? Too lazy? Never thought to bother?

I've been keeping track of my books since about junior high (we won't discuss how many years ago that was).  It wasn't very thorough (there are always books that I'm coming across that I just know I've read, but I can't remember exactly when.)  It started out as a list in a notebook.  Then I moved on to a list in Word.  Now I keep it in an Excel spreadsheet.  But that's not all...no.  There's also my blog--where everything gets logged and reviewed and just for good measure I keep track on GoodReads as well.  

Why?  Well because I like to know what I've read and when.  I started the blog so I'd have a record of what I thought about the books at the time.  And it helps me remember better so I'm less likely to reread...unless I do it on purpose.

Booking Through Thursday: Burn

If your house was burning down and you could save just one book from your collection … what would it be?
(And, for the purposes of this discussion, we’ll allow series to count as “one” long, multi-volume book.)

Can't do it.  Sorry.  I struggled with this question back in February when Top Ten Tuesday asked us to list the top TEN books we'd want to save.  I couldn't manage to pick just ten...there's no way on Earth I'm gonna be able to choose just one.  Here's the answer I gave then:

So...I own over 2000 books....and I'm really supposed to choose only ten to save? I'm afraid I'm mostly going to have to choose Ten Groups of books to save from the Inferno (or other imminent danger).

1. All of my Dorothy L Sayers books--especially the special editions of Lord Peter. That includes a first edition, hard-back British Whose Body? and a special Armed Forces edition of Busman's Honeymoon and a couple of WWII pocket size editions that I will probably never find again in used book stores.
2. Speaking of pocket size editions. I love those little square-shaped books. Must save all of those--the whole shelf.
3. All of my signed editions. Most of these are not signed by famous authors. Rather, 90% of them are signed by authors I know personally and whose books are all the more special because the authors are my friends.
4. A Sprig of Sea Lavendar by J. R. L. Anderson. Is it a great book? I have no idea--I haven't read it yet. But it had been on my must-find list For-ev-er. And my mom-in-law just found it for me this past Christmas at a used bookstore in Florida. Must save it since it was so difficult to find.
5. All of my Frances & Richard Lockridge books. I have a near-complete set...I certainly don't want to have to start collecting all over again.
6. All of my hardbound S. S. Van Dine mysteries--nearly all are first editions in fine to near-fine shape. Don't want those going up in smoke.
7. Beverly of Graustark by George Barr McCutcheon and Laddie: A True Blue Story by Gene Stratton Porter. Two very old editions that also have a great deal of sentimental value. My grandma got these for me--Beverly she picked up simply because that's my name and she thought it would be nice to give me a namesake book. Beverly is in great shape...Laddie, not so much--but I loved it when I was growing up and wouldn't want to lose it for anything.
8. Thomas Moore's Complete Poetical Works. Again, not the greatest poetry on earth--but it is the edition that makes it worth saving. It's what I call my "puff book." It's covered in an interesting, off-white, "puffy" material. When I was growing up, I used to covet it....it sat for years on a shelf in Mason's Rare & Used Bookstore downtown. Finally, one of my best friends arranged for me to have it.
9. Set of 6 Nancy Drew books that were my mom's. They were a Christmas gift to her from her mom and she passed them on to me when she realized she had a reader on her hands.
10. All of my Bibles...they all have been given to me by special people and have additional meaning beyond spiritual.

and I had to add an extra level...

11. The rest of the 1st edition vintage mysteries that I own. If you absolutely insist that I wouldn't have time to save all of these books...then I'll just grab one at random. And then stand outside and cry when I think of the others that I couldn't save.

Booking Through Thursday: Carry Ons

 
This week's BTT question:  Do you bring the book(s) you’re reading with you when you go out? How? Physically, or in an e-reader of some kind? Have your habits in this regard changed? (I know I carried books with me more when I was in school than I do now–I can’t read while I’m driving to work, after all.)

Absolutely.  Books go with me wherever I go.  You never know when you might be stuck in traffic, an elevator, or whatever and you need something to pass the time.  The one absolute rule I have for my purse is that a book must fit in it.  That's it.  I don't care about name brands.  I care a little bit about style (nothing too gaudy...).  But if it's too small for a book, then it's too small for me.  Taking books everywhere has been my habit since I've been old enough to read--so no changes here.

And that would be a real, live, honest-to-goodness, it's got real pages book.  No e-readers.  

Booking Through Thursday: Branching Out

A weekly meme about (mostly) books and reading. Hosted at Booking Through Thursday. A while ago BTT interviewed their readers for a change, and their final question was, “What question have they NOT asked at BTT that you’d love them to ask?” Ever so often they will pose those questions to their BTT followers. Like now.  Amy & Sarah both ask about genres:

 

Amy asks: Name a book you love in a genre you normally don't care for.  What made you decided to read it?  Did it make you want to try more in that genre?

Soulless (and the rest of the Gail Carriger Parasol Protectorate series).   I found Carriger's books mentioned on another blog site (Adventure Into Romance) and it sounded so good, I just had to run right out to the library and grab the first two of the series.  It did make me read everyone of these paranormal/steam punk adventures.  It hasn't really made me go crazy for paranormal/steam punk, though.

And Bookish Sarah asks:  What genre do you avoid reading and why?

For the most part, I avoid horror, true crime and true disaster stories, thriller/psychological thrillers, and children-in-danger stories (particularly more modern, more graphic).  Why?  I feel like there's enough drama, horror and nastiness in modern life--I read to escape.  If I'm going to wind up reading stories that will only remind me of today's headlines or make me have nightmares, then I might as well read the newspaper.  And I cannot take stories that involve the abuse or murder of children.  Can't do it.

Booking Through Thursday

A weekly meme about (mostly) books and reading. Hosted at Booking Through Thursday. A while ago BTT interviewed their readers for a change, and their final question was, “What question have they NOT asked at BTT that you’d love them to ask?” Ever so often they will pose those questions to their BTT followers. Like now.

  Sammy Dee asks: What books have you read that you're secretly ashamed to admit?

I can't think of one.  If I've read it, then I'll own it.  I've read a few really bad bodice-rippers in my time that maybe I wouldn't want to try and discuss in a literature course, but I'm not really ashamed of them.  Wondering what I was thinking, perhaps.  But not ashamed.

Booking Through Thursday: Quotable

A weekly meme about (mostly) books and reading. Hosted at Booking Through Thursday. A while ago BTT interviewed their readers for a change, and their final question was, “What question have they NOT asked at BTT that you’d love them to ask?” Ever so often they will pose those questions to their BTT followers. Like now.

 

Valentina asks: Do you have a favorite quote from a book? 

Um. No. I have hundreds of quotes from all sorts of books that I've collected over the years.  And they're all my favorite.  There's no way I could possibly narrow it down to just one.  So, let me give you a few of my favorites from books about books....

The trouble with bookshops is that they are as bad as pubs.  You start with one and then you drift to another, and before you know where you are you are on a gigantic book-binge.

                                    Bodies in a Bookshop

                                     —R. T. Campbell

N: And who lasts longest? [in Heaven]

M: …scholarly people, they tend to last as long as anyone.  They like sitting around reading all the books there are.  And then they love arguing about them.  Some of those arguments—she cast an eye to the heavens—go on for millennium after millennium.  It just seems to keep them young, for some reason, arguing about books.

                                    Narrator; Margaret

“The Dream”

                                    A History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters (304)

                                    —Julian Barnes

 

There is no substitute for books in the life of a child.

                                    Recipe for a Magic Childhood

                                    —Mary Ellen Chase

“Lord,” he said, “when you sell a man a book you don’t sell him just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue—you sell him a whole new life.  Love and friendship and honor and ships at sea by night—there’s all heaven and earth in a book, a real book, I mean.

                                    Parnassus on Wheels

                                    —Christopher Morley

My husband claims I have an unhealthy obsession with secondhand bookshops….either you intrinsically understand the attraction of searching for hidden treasure amongst the rows of dusty shelves or you don’t; it’s a passion, bordering on a spiritual illness, which cannot be explained to the unaffected.

                                    Elegance (14-15)

                                    —Kathleen Tessaro

…the perfect tranquility of life, which is nowhere to be found but in retreat, a faithful friend, and a good library.

                                    The Lucky Mistake

                                    —Aphra Behn

 

I care not how humble your bookshelf may be, nor how lowly the room which it adorns.  Close the door of that room behind you, shut off with it all the cares of the outer world, plunge back into the soothing company…and then you are through the magic portal into that fair land whither worry and vexation can follow you no more.

                                    Through the Magic Door

                                    —Sir Arthur Conan Doyle