Sunday, March 11, 2007

A delightful book meme

I found this over at Rocks In My Dryer and could not resist. I had planned on a cranky post about how much I hate that Daylight Savings time starts tomorrow but I will spare you my incoherent rants and instead inform you about my book habits.

Hardback or trade paperback or mass market paperback?
Hardback when I know that I want to add it to my library, otherwise paperback so if I hate it I don't feel bad about the money spent

Amazon or brick and mortar? Nothing beats the experience of wandering through aisles of books and picking them up to read a few pages here and there so I am defiantly a brick and mortar person in general.

Barnes & Noble or Borders? Borders, I have a lot of fond memories of going there with my parents who would let us each pick out a book. It was a treat for our family which shows how into reading my whole family is.

Bookmark or dog ear? Sadly it is all too often dog ear but I have been quite adept at finding objects around me to serve as book marks

Alphabetize by author or alphabetize by title or random? My library is alphabetized by author (is there really any other way to do it?) and also broken up according to subject (non fiction, fiction, religious ect.) if I was able to do the Dewey decimal system I would.

Keep, throw away, or sell? Keep when my husband will let me and space allows, sell or give away. It would be a desecration to throw away a perfectly good book.

Keep dust jacket or toss it? Keep, the book just seems more complete with it.

Read with dust jacket or remove it? Off! It drives my father and husband up the wall but I just can't read a book with a loose dust jacket on it.

Short story or novel? It depends on my mood. I will go from reading thick tomes to just wanting some short stories. Lately short stories have been the bigger part of my reading since that is all I have time to read.

Collection (short stories by same author) or anthology (short stories by different authors)?
Again it depends on my mood, but I think that I tend towards collections since that is what I have the most of in my own library

Harry Potter or Lemony Snicket? I have to go with Harry Potter on this one. We have both but I think that I much prefer the writing style of JK Rowlings

Stop reading when tired or at chapter breaks? When tired or when child wakes from a nap.

“It was a dark and stormy night” or “Once upon a time”? A little of both preferably in the same book.

Buy or Borrow? Borrow since we do not have the space to accommodate the library of my dreams.

New or used? Used all the way baby, unless it is a new series (like Harry Potter) and I must read it right now. There is just something bewitching about a book with a past. I adore the smell of a used book too. It is one of my dreams to one day own a used book store.

Buying choice: book reviews, recommendation or browse? Browse mostly. I tend to look for books by authors that I have already read but I am not adverse to just randomly picking out a book based on the cover illustration alone. I have been taking a lot of recommendations from Orson Scott Card from his review column of late and that man really know how to pick great books.

Tidy ending or cliffhanger? I tend more towards the middle ground. A kind of tidy ending with a bit of unresolved stuff so that I can imagine more of the story. I do not like too many hanging bits though which is what drove me nuts with the Series of Unfortunate Events.

Morning reading, afternoon reading or nighttime reading? Any time I can get time to sit down and read.

Stand-alone or series? Series, series and more series.

Favorite children's book? Anne of Green Gables hands down. There is just something about the whole series that spoke to me.

Favorite book of which nobody else has heard?
Shoot, I am betting that a good portion of my library is pretty obscure to most of my readers.

Favorite books read last year?
I can't even remember all the books that I read last year. I need to start keeping track of them better.

Favorite books of all time? Pride and Prejudice, I try and reread this one quite frequently.

Least favorite book you finished last year? It was a stinker called Darcy's Story. I got it as light reading for when Evan was in the hospital with his surgery. It is supposed to parallel P and P but from Darcey's POV. I hated it. Anyone that wants it is welcome to it as it is just collecting dust now.

What are you reading right now? The High King by Lloyd Alexander. It is the end of a really nice fantasy series written for younger readers. A friend lent the series to me so that I could get a chance to read some of the children's literature that I seem to have missed out on.

What are you reading next? Well I have some books on ideas of games to play with preschoolers that I have been meaning to read but I am not sure if I will be in the mood for them. I have also been wanting to read The Origin Of Species by Charles Darwin. I am very much into biology and Darwin is a huge figure in biology so I figure that I should at least attempt to read this book.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

That was an awesome Book Meme! Time permitting I am going to have to do this one!

Dog earing - tsk tsk! hehe! People that would break the spine of a book would make me cringe and cry! Books are friends!

Tracy said...

Very interesting! I read, when time permits, although I do not have anything on the go right now. I, too, love Anne of Green Gables. I guess since I'm from the Maritimes (NS ... and Anne was from PEI), I found that kind of exciting .. I know, I know, I'm a little wierd like that :p.

And I, also, cannot read a book with the dust jacket on it. I can't stand it flapping it around and getting in my way. But I make sure I put it back on when I finish the book :)!

Happy reading!

Anonymous said...

Awesome Meme - I might have to steal this one soon :)

I LOVE the Chronicle of Prydain - I grew up on those books and have read them at least 5 times a piece. The character developement is astounding and the story line compelling. I could go on forever about those books, and the author. :)

Magpie said...

Fun, thanks. May do this myself soon.

Maddy said...

Whilst books are friends, paperbacks are about the same price as a glossy magazine these days......or at least that's what I tell myself as I snap the spine!
Sorry guys