Musing Mondays — Meme-tastic

I've been a Musing Mondays slacker of late, as I just haven't connected with a good question. But this week's offering is a little meme-thing, and you know how I love those little buggers. So!

What was the last book you…
• borrowed from the library?
I just today grabbed The Red Tent, my book club's next pick.
• bought?
A Visit From the Goon Squad, which I found at The Bookmark, my local-ish indie bookstore.
• cried over?
The Book Thief, because I am not made of stone, people.
• disliked and couldn’t finish?
I tried listening to a free version of Emma, but the narrator took her commas and full stops way too seriously for me. Not the book's problem, though, and I might try a different version later.
• read & loved?
Anya's Ghost, which I did not intend to like at all!
• got for review? (or: got in the mail?)
Well, I don't do that first part, and I like to buy my books in person... hmm... I think the last time I mail-ordered books I ended up with John Green's first three novels, and also The Secret History
• gave to someone else?
Uh-oh. I lent a friend some books recently and I don't remember what they were! I'm pretty sure I lent her The Sparrow and The Manual of Detection, and probably In the Woods? I should really keep better track of these things.
• stayed up too late reading?
The Hunger Games, which is just too engaging for its own good!

Booking Through Thursday — Excitement

Today's Booking Through Thursday question is more like several: "What’s the last book you were really EXCITED to read? And, were you excited about it in advance? Or did the excitement bloom while you were reading it? Are there any books you’re excited about right NOW?"

Oooh, good questions! To the first couple, the last book that I was all "omg why is this book not in my hands RIGHT MEOW" about was One of Our Thursdays is Missing, which feeling was only heightened by the fact that I saw it come into the library about a day or two before it made it into my grubby little hands. And it was totally worth it.

The last book that I was excited about while reading it was A Visit from the Goon Squad, which I was vaguely familiar with as "that awesome book that won some schmancy prize or other" but otherwise clueless about. Then I started reading it, and I was just so smitten with the way Egan built the book that I couldn't put it down. Love.

What am I excited about right now? Well, I have a whole stack of books sitting here at home, but none of them are really crying out to me. And I am terrible at keeping track of when books come out, so I'm not sure what's out in the near future. I did hear the other day that there will be another Flavia de Luce mystery coming out for the holidays, and while I won't quite be first in line to get that book, I am definitely planning on reading it!

What are you guys excited about? What should I be excited about, if only I had any idea it was happening?

Musing Mondays — Cull or Surrender?

Today's Musing Mondays is a long one:

"Below is a link to an NPR discussion about the simple fact that there’s no way you can read, see and experience all the things that are available to be experienced. The two methods for dealing with it are culling (i.e., cutting out certain genres that don’t interest you, etc.) or surrender (i.e., just making peace with the facts and enjoying what you can in the time that you have).

http://www.npr.org/2011/06/27/137451477/you-cant-possibly-read-it-all-so-stop-trying

So, do you cull, or do you surrender? Or do you do both?"

I'm guessing that most people do a combination of the two, and I am no exception. I have surrendered to the fact that I will not read many many many wonderful things in my life, but I'm certainly going to try my hardest! And I think there should be some sort of third option up there of "seeking" — as in, I know I can't read everything wonderful but I am going to seek out the things that I feel I absolutely must read or that I think are important to read or fun to read or whatever. The opposite of culling, really. Right now I'm seeking out more literary fiction and experimental fiction because I feel a lack of it, and I'm looking in the future to seek out more early mystery novels from authors I haven't read because I want to have a better breadth of knowledge there, and I'm sure in a year or two I'll have another subset of literature that I am eager to get my hands on.

In the culling department, I know that I will not read any of the 700 or so Harlequin/Silhouette romance paperbacks that are filling my cataloging department right now (I really did not know there could be so many variations on sheikhs and millionaires and mistresses, etc.). I'm not going to pick up any long epic fantasy series. I'm not likely to read political books or Christian/inspirational fiction or urban novels or westerns or cat detective novels or self-help books. I don't mean never to any of these — if something that fits one of these categories came highly recommended I'm sure I'd give it a try — but I do mean most likely not. I mean, I have plenty of other stuff to read!

Booking Through Thursday — To Own or Borrow

Today's Booking Through Thursday asks, "All things being equal (money, space, etc), would you rather own copies of the books you read? Or borrow them?"

Well, I imagine that if I had more money and more space, I would buy more books. Because I like books, and I like authors, and I like supporting the books and authors I enjoy. And I do quite like owning the books that I love because a) I get to see them on a regular basis and b) I can easily loan them out to friends (read: force them upon unwitting victims).

But of course, I am also a longtime lover of the library, as you would know if you saw the shelf my husband just cleared out for me today just for my library books. I have a problem. But it's a good problem, I think, in that the books are free and when I go to read one and I don't like it or I realize that I no longer have an interest in reading it, I can go give it back to the library without hard feelings. And if I like it, I can wait a little longer to get the trade paperback (which is cheaper and lighter, which is good for my wallet and shelves) because I don't usually have an intense need to re-read things immediately.

So, all things being equal, I'd say that I still like my current method of obtaining books — checking millions out of the library, loving a handful, and showing off that handful on my shelf. If only I could afford bigger hands...

Musing Mondays — Reading Nooks

Today's Musing Mondays question is... "Where is your favorite place to read?"

Well. Hmm. When it's nice outside (read: below 90 degrees [read: not now!]), I like to go hang out on my balcony, pictured here. Those chairs are surprisingly comfy.

But when it's like now, and the only safe place is indoors, I spend most of my time reading on the big leather couch in our living room. And then I have a nap on it. It's a pretty good deal, that. What's most fun is when Scott is playing video games on the TV and I can cuddle up with him while we're each doing our thing. That's really my favorite!

Strangely enough, the place where I do the most reading is my least favorite, because that's at work! I listen to all my audiobooks there, which sometimes takes quite a while because someone will make a super loud and prolonged noise and I'll have to just give up on trying to hear my book over it and instead wait and rewind back to where I think I was. Which is sometimes nowhere near where I actually was. Which is unfortunate, unless the book is really good, in which case it's just a second helping!

Booking Through Thursday — Age-Inappropriate

Today's Booking Through Thursday question is... "In contrast to last week’s question–What do you think of censoring books BECAUSE of their intended age? Say, books too “old” for your kids to read?"

There are two components to my answer. The easy one first — I absolutely do not believe in blanket bans on books that are "too old" or "too young" for a certain age group. Kids should have the opportunity to read what they want.

The second one is in regards to my own hypothetical children, or even my kid brother who is twelve these days, which is astounding. As I've mentioned before, I take a lot of care in picking out books for William, largely because I want him to like what I get him and thus like reading. Which he seems to, so excellent. He's not the best reader, and reads a lot of things I would have been well past at his age, so I try to strike a balance between things that are written for kids his age and things that he is capable of reading without giving up on. I won't buy him the little-kid books he loves because I think he can do better, but I do try to find similar stories in a higher reading level.

On the opposite side, you can take my reading habits as a kid — I started reading The Baby-sitter's Club books in kindergarten and was reading Sweet Valley University when I was ten or eleven. I bring up this latter because I distinctly recall asking my mother what condoms were after reading about them in an SVU book, because from the context I thought they might be snack food and maybe we could get some. Yeah. Gross. I am certainly glad that my parents never kept me from reading whatever the heck I wanted, because I read a lot of great books that way, but I know that my hypothetical children will not be getting books with sex in them for Christmas when they're eleven. And if they're reading them on their own, they will be informed that I expect to be able to a) read that book and b) discuss it with them after they read it. It's not that I want to keep my kids from reading things that are above their age-appropriateness; I just want to make sure they understand what they're reading, because that's really the important part.

My poor, poor, hypothetical children.

Booking Through Thursday — Age-Appropriate

This week's Booking Through Thursday asks... "Do you read books “meant” for other age groups? Adult books when you were a child; Young-Adult books now that you’re grown; Picture books just for kicks … You know … books not “meant” for you. Or do you pretty much stick to what’s written for people your age?"

Well. Let me do a bit of a longitudinal study here... -examines Goodreads-

Okay, so. I was going to say that I read a lot of YA and children's books, because they are short and quick and usually delightful, but it turns out that I read way more adult-age-group (as opposed to "adult," which sounds skeezy) books in general. But I suppose I read more books for young'uns than the average 25-year-old? I don't know what the average 25-year-old reads. Nothing?

Anyway. Back to the point. In high school, I read a lot of YA, of course, but I also read a lot of adult-age-group books, including some that I still love today. Excellent. Then, in college, I didn't read, like, at all for the first few years, except to re-read The Phantom Tollbooth, continue A Series of Unfortunate Events, or read through A Wrinkle in Time and its sequels. Those were some fun library trips!

So the first three or so years of college were about kids books. The summer before my senior year, though, I tried really hard to actually read books over summer break instead of working myself to death, and so I managed quite a lot of adult-age-group books, and then I read lots of stuff for classes during my senior year, and then when I got out of college I continued on that path.

The reason that I think I read all of these YA books is that after I got laid off and started reading ALL of the books, reading more book blogs, and going to library school, I found a lot of cool YA books I had never heard of and therefore devoured. Especially last year, when I took a whole class on YA services and had to read 21 books for it... a lot of my reading time after that class was spent reading the rest of series and other books by the same authors.

So far this year my reading is back to where it was a couple years ago, probably because I've burned myself out on YA books, and because I don't have people constantly recommending new awesome ones to me! And on the flip side, I have lots of people recommending excellent adult-age-group novels to me every day, and my list is just so full! Of course, there's plenty of year left and this could still change — got any books to recommend me? :)

Booking Through Thursday — New and Used

This week's Booking Through Thursday question is, "All other things being equal–do you prefer used books? Or new books? (The physical speciman, that is, not the title.) Does your preference differentiate between a standard kind of used book, and a pristine, leather-bound copy?"

This is an interesting question. A quick look at my bookshelf shows a preference toward new books, which makes sense since I generally don't buy books unless I'm going to keep them. And I've learned from experience that you can't keep an older used book indefinitely unless you have a lot of patience and tape. But I do have a few used books that I'm planning to keep; for these I looked specifically for the least used-looking of the bunch, and they have worked well for me.

And I do have a decent collection of last-legs, or nearing there, used books, largely come my way by giant booksales. These I buy because they're 14.7 cents or whatever and I'm not terribly concerned about liking them or reading them a second time, and I know that if I don't treat them too terribly I can always take them to a used bookstore where someone else can worry about their cracking spines. Of course, some of them turn out to be really awesome books, and so I try to touch them as little as possible so I don't have to buy a new copy, but of course eventually they will fall apart and the new books will inhabit my shelves again. :)

Musing Mondays — New Year's Books

Today's Musing Mondays question is... "How many books did you read in 2010? If you had a reading goal, did you meet it? What books are you most looking forward to reading for 2011 (either new, OR ones that have sat on your shelves for a while)?"

As I mentioned yesterday, I read 123 books in 2010, which is more than I thought I would read — I had figured on 100, maybe, but I ended up with about half of my reading being children's and YA, which of course tends to read more quickly. So I did pretty well for myself!

For this year, I am looking forward to FINALLY reading a few books with the TBR Challenge. I have to admit that I don't really know what's coming out this year in books except for Jasper Fforde's One of Our Thursdays is Missing, which is coming out... soon-ish. I don't really keep track of these things, I just note them when they happen and go from there!

Booking Through Thursday — Borrowing

Today's Booking Through Thursday asks... "Who would you rather borrow from? Your library? Or a Friend? (Or don’t your friends trust you to return their books?) And, DO you return books you borrow?"

That's a lot of questions! First, I tend to prefer borrowing from the library, because even though the library lets me keep things for a while it eventually wants them back or I have to start paying some serious fines (it's $0.20 per day, here!). With friends, there's usually not a set date for returning books except "as soon as you're done"... and so unless the book is something I am already interested in reading (like Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk, which I read the day I borrowed it), that might take a while.

Second, I'm pretty sure my friends trust me not to, like, lose their books or burn them or something, but I think they know it's going to take me a while to return them. :) I know that's how it is with books I've lent out, one of which I have been itching to read and am thisclose to checking out of the library. And third, of course I return them! I want mine back, so my friends get theirs back. Just sometimes it takes a while. Like how I'm returning a tape next weekend that my friend lent me... a long time ago. I would say possibly two years. And that I still haven't watched, but can no longer even attempt to do so because we got rid of our VCR. But I have kept diligent track of it, so I think that counts for something!

Musing Mondays — What to Read

Today's Musing Mondays question is a thoughtful one...

"I was reading Eleanor Roosevelt’s book, “You Learn By Living“, via Google Books the other day, and came across a quote that really struck a chord with me. The quote said this:

“What counts, in the long run, is not what you read; it is what you sift through in your own mind; it is the ideas and impressions that are aroused in you by your reading.”
(pg. 7-8, “You Learn By Living” by Eleanor Roosevelt)

What do you think about this quote? Do you believe this to be true? If so, why and how? And, if not, why not?"

I've said a little bit on the subject before, but I will say again that I am a big fan of people reading what they want to read rather than what they think they should read. Reading in general is good, and you're going to learn new things and get new impressions from every book you read, even if you're not reading "literature" or whatever.

But at the same time, I would say that reading widely is what's really important for ideas and impressions. If you like mysteries, say (which is pretty much the only thing I used to read, back in the day), that's great, but don't spend your life re-reading those books, or reading only mysteries by Agatha Christie or Philip R. Craig or whomever. Read stories that are different, try new authors, look at books that are mystery but are for whatever reason shelved in fiction instead (these are now my favorite mystery books!). And move on from there! Even if you don't like everything you pick up (and feel free to put it down if it's not engaging you!), you'll be exposed just that little bit more to new ways of thinking.

Booking Through Thursday — War

Today's Booking Through Thursday is topical... "It is November 11th, known here in the U.S. as Veteran’s Day, formerly Armistice Day to remember the end of WWI but expanded to honor all veterans who have fought for their country, so …

Do you read war stories? Fictional ones? Histories?"

...Not usually with that aspect of the story in mind. I have read plenty of books that take place during wars, but usually I read them because I've heard they're good stories in general, not because I'm seeking out war. And, looking through my blogged books, I can see that I haven't even read that many in the past couple of years. Perhaps I need to work on this! In case you need to work on it, too, here's what I've got for you:

The Pox Party (Octavian Nothing), by M.T. Anderson — American Revolution plus slavery
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, by John Boyne — Holocaust plus sadness
The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak — Holocaust plus intense sadness
The Madonnas of Leningrad, by Debra Dean — World War II in Russia plus Alzheimer's

Got any suggestions to broaden this list a bit?

Musing Mondays — Buying Books

Musing Mondays is quite interesting today:

"A blog I frequent suggested I check out several articles of interest… one of them which happened to be this one: “Trendspotting: Readers’ Spending On Books“. So — being the avid reader & book junkie that I am — I couldn’t help but click over and read the short piece about readers’ current spending habits.

My questions for today are ones that are asked at the end of this particular article: What are your responses to this report? Does it match with what you –as a reader– have observed? With your own buying habits? When was the last time you bought a book? What did you buy and why?"

The tl;dr of the article is that people are buying fewer books, people are paying less for the books they buy, hardcover sales are down, and Amazon and other e-retailers are up.

And I'm not surprised by any of that. It's a tough economy, books aren't really a need for most people, and of course libraries are doing pretty okay right now lending out to people who need books to breathe. And of course e-retail is up, with its lack of sales tax and often free shipping and especially with the proliferation of free and cheap e-books.

My own buying habits, as I've mentioned before, I'm sure, involve only buying books new when I've read and loved them. I'll stock up on maybe books at a cheap-pants booksale, but my big dollars go to the books and authors that I adore. But right now I don't have a lot of big dollars, so often I wait until I have gift cards to buy anything and then still try to find things on a decent sale so that I can stretch those free moneys.

So most of my books come from libraries. And if I had an e-reader, which I am seriously thinking about once I'm gainfully employed again, it would be of the sort that can read library e-books because again, I don't want to pay for things I don't love, and also the things I do love, I want to be able to lend out to others to read.

The last time I bought a book... I bought Life as We Knew It and Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging from the library booksale a while back — the first is a loved book, the second a maybe that turned out to be awesome. And I've got several moneys in Barnes and Noble gift cards that I am figuring out how to spend. At the moment, it looks like I'm going to grab up John Green's novels, but I'm not sure what else. Time to page through my list of loved books!

Musing Mondays — How Many?

Today's Musing Mondays question is... "About how many books (roughly) would you say you own? (If you don’t have a clue how many, do you care to know? Why, or why not?)"

Well, my GoodReads "owned" tag tells me that I have 72 books, which seems a little low... a quick count of my shelves puts it at more like 95, on account of I don't track my reference books on GoodReads just yet. Perhaps I should?

But really, I don't care too much about how many books I own, just which ones I do, so I don't go buying duplicates at book sales and so that I remember what I've lent out. And actually, I'm surprised to know I own so many books! I guess that explains the new bookshelf we just bought...

Booking Through Thursday — Foreigners

Todays Booking Through Thursday question is... "Name a book (or books) from a country other than your own that you love. Or aren’t there any?"

Oh, there definitely are.

The Shadow of the Wind (from Spain) is a book I read what feels like forever ago, but that I'm still pretty in love with. I need to find the Cemetery of Forgotten Books someday.

Its prequel, The Angel's Game, is also good, if more confusing than its predecessor.

Who Slashed Celanire's Throat is an intriguing book, one of those where there's not much plot but there are plenty of interesting characters.

And of course no list of anything is complete without my beloved Thursday Next series, out of Wales, which is a completely oddball series about a literary detective in an alternate-universe England where time travel is real, people have cloned dodos for pets, and books are not just for reading.

Booking Through Thursday — Travelling

Today's Booking Through Thursday question is, "When you travel, how many books do you bring with you? Has this changed since the arrival of ebooks?"

Well, I don't have an e-reader, and probably won't until they work out the whole DRM issue, so that's not a consideration.

But the number of books I take does depend on where I'm going and what I'm doing and how long I'll be there and how I'm getting there. If I'm headed out for a vacation, where I don't have to do anything in particular while I'm there, I'll bring one book for every day I'm going. Usually that ends up being just enough; sometimes I have to scrounge for more to read!

If I'm headed somewhere where I plan on being busy, and I'm flying there, I'll just bring a couple of books for the flights and hope for the best.

And if I'm driving, I've learned that I can't really get any book reading done because either I'm driving or Scott is driving and I'm talking to him, so I'll stock up on audiobooks. We've been working our way through the Series of Unfortunate Events books, which are good because they're short and easy to take a break from when it's time for a pit stop. :)

Musing Mondays — Cold Weather Reads

Today's Musing Mondays question is, "What’s your favorite “cozy” book — and, by that, I’m meaning “curl-up-on-a-cold-day comfort read“? Or, if you don’t have a particular book, what genre do you most feel like reading when the weather starts to turn colder?"

I'm not sure I have any temperature-based reading habits... I mean, I definitely read more mysteries and such during September and October for the RIP Challenge, but that's not a personal temperature decision (and especially not with living in Florida now!)

But! I will say that if it's the kind of day where all I want to do is curl up with a good book and perhaps some hot chocolate, that book is probably going to be an easier read. I'm not generally one for reading long or difficult books in one sitting — I'd rather have time to digest everything — but I also don't want to curl up with too short a book and have to get up an hour later to find something else to read. So I would definitely pick something more like a classic mystery or YA or fantasy read, where I can float away to Bookland for a few hours without having to think about it too hard. :)

Musing Mondays — Book Club Picks

Today's Musing Mondays question is... "If your book group asked you to bring two (2) suggestions for group reads to your next meeting, what two books would you suggest? Why?"

What an excellent question! There have been rather a few things that I have read lately where I've been like, "Darn it! I should have waited and suggested this for my book club!" so this gives me a chance to recommend them to my delightful book club friends anyway. But just two? Let me think...

Okay, well, first is definitely Fingersmith, by Sarah Waters, not just because it's a fantabulous book. But mostly because of that. But also because I think there's a lot to discuss — there's the fact that it's Victorian-inspired, which invites comparisons galore, and there are the plot twists, which are well set up and well executed and can start a discussion or five on morals and ethics and getting what you've got coming and all sorts of other things.

The second... hmm. I'll go with The Black Minutes, by Martín Solares, because it's a book that really needs to be discussed. There's so much going on in that book that you can't possibly catch it all in one reading. It's also good for a book club because it's one of them foreign novels that people (including myself) don't tend to read, so you get to broaden the horizons of several readers all in one go!

But neither of these will be my next book club pick... unless I can't come up with something I haven't read by the time it's my turn to choose. :)

Musing Mondays — Characters

Today's Musing Mondays question is... "What makes you love / hate a character in a book?"

I imagine we're talking about characters we're supposed to like — what makes them good characters or awful characters we'd like to chuck out a window along with their books.

So in that case... my favorite characters are the ones that have a nice balance of wittiness, self-awareness, self-confidence, and knowledge. If they have a little more of one, or a little less of another, that's cool. But if they have too much or too little... that's when I dislike them. I am not a fan of the character that's always spouting off one-liners, unless they are self-aware enough to realize how silly they are. But once they get so self-aware that they are basically psychoanalyzing themselves on a regular basis? Count me out.

Musing Mondays — The Enablers

Today's Musing Mondays question is... "Where do you buy / get most of your books?"

I've mentioned probably a billion times that I don't buy many books, because I will only buy those that I've read and loved or that I've read and want to push to other people. But when I do buy books, I try to support the little guys. Sure, if I have a gift cert or something, I'll go to Borders or Barnes and Noble, because I like nothing better than free, but if I'm planning on spending my own money I definitely go indie.

I just recently moved 900 miles, so I'm still figuring out my way around the bookstores here in Jacksonville, but I have discovered two delightful shops already — Black Sheep Books, which is fairly close to my apartment, and Chamblin's Uptown, which is farther away downtown but comes with food! I've only made a book purchase at Black Sheep, but I can already tell it's going to be my new best friend for used book happiness, especially since the book I got there looked practically new for half the price. Love it.