Booking Through Thursday: Non-Reader Reactions

What do non-reader friends think about your reading habits? Do they understand? Are they sympathetic? Or are they always trying to get you to “get your nose out of that book?”

I think all things have to be in a balance.  And while I do enjoy getting lost in a book (or tv show or movie or any form of pop culture entertainment), I try not to let that come before relationships with friends, family or the cats.  (Though the cats do enjoy when I read and have a lap they can curl up in which the reading is occurring!)   I think my family and friends understand my loving of reading and support it.

This time of year, I just don’t see how you can’t go to the pool without at least packing a book in the bag (or your e-reader) along with the towel, sunglasses and sunscreen.  Poolside (or beach reading if you’re there) is one of the great pleasures of summer!

And I use the library so much that I figure I’m getting my fair share out of it as well as the fair share of people who don’t read as much or don’t use the library!

Booking Through Thursday: Magazines

What magazines do you subscribe to? Personal ones? Professional ones?

Or do you only/mostly pick up your periodicals at the newsstand?

How do you feel about digital editions versus print?

Do you save the old copies after you read them? Or promptly recycle them?

Right now, I’ve only got a subscription to Entertainment Weekly. In the past, I’ve had subscriptions to Sports Illustrated and I used to collect Doctor Who Magazine back in the day. With the rise of the Internet, I found my collecting of DWM dwindled because I could find most of the news reported on the pages at various places on-line. I also found (this was during the wilderness years) that the features on the classic serials and actors were getting a bit repetitive since (at the time) there were no new stories headed our way. I did enjoy the reviews though. I also have subscriptions to the free portions of certain sci-fi and genre magazines that will give you a sample of a short story each month.

Some magazines I’ll keep a copy of after I’ve read them (or read what I want to out of them) while others I’ll recycle or give to my local friends of the library.

Part of me likes the digital editions — EW makes theirs fun and takes advantage of digital bells and whistles — while another part of me enjoys having the actual edition. The advantage of the digital versions is they don’t pile up around the house. Instead they just pile up on your e-reader.

Booking Through Thursday: Poetry

It seems like I’m always asking about actual books … but what about poetry? Do you read it? Write it? Like it? Not like it? Do you prefer song lyrics? (Because we can all agree there’s a relation between poems and lyrics, right?)

I enjoy poetry, though I probably don’t read as much of it as I should.   I always enjoy Garrison Keillor’s poems that he writes and/or performs on A Prairie Home Companion.

I enjoy poetry that can make me laugh or smile.   This may be why I enjoy the song stylings of Ray Stevens and Weird Al as much as I do.

Booking Through Thursday: Books With You

Do you carry a book around with you? Inside the house? Whenever you go out? Always, everywhere, it’s practically glued to your fingers?

(And yes, digital books very much DO count as long as you’re spending time reading on your Kindle or iPad and not just loading them with books that you never actually read.)

With the Kindle app on my phone, I can have a book with me everywhere I go. And the best part is that as long as I’ve updated to the cloud on my various devices, I can start in the same place I left off no matter which device I’m using. That’s a very cool feature.

I tend to have a paperback with me somewhere as well for most places I go. You never know when you might have time to read something!

Booking Through Thursday: Shelf Space

Two part question:

In an ideal world, what kind of book cases would you have? Built-ins? Barrister ones with glass doors? The cheapest you could find so you could have lots of them?

And … what kind of bookcases do you REALLY have?

Someday when I win the lottery and built my mansion, I intend to have a library with full, built in shelves that will, most likely, be stuffed to the gills with books that I love. Or at least the books that I intend to read at some point in my lifetime.

As for now, I’ve got stand alone bookcases that aren’t the cheapest around, but have been picked up at various points over the years — from family, garage sales, etc. And yes, they have tons of books of them — both that I’ve loved and some I’m waiting to read.

Booking Through Thursday: Cover

Hardcovers or paperbacks?

Not to sound like a broken record here, but it depends.

Some of it can depend on the length of the book. In some cases, a huge book can be difficult to hold while reading for the first hundred or so pages and the last hundred or so pages if it’s a hardcover. This happened a few years ago while reading Stephen Kings’ 11/22/63. Or the recent entry in the Song of Fire and Ice series. Those were a couple of books I found myself wishing came with a digital copy when you purchased the hardcover.

There are some books that I like to have in hardcover to sit on my shelf.

And I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again. Hardcover or softcover, I really wish that publishers wouldn’t change the cover design of a series of books mid-way through the run. I like having the spines or covers look similar while sitting on my shelf.

I do like paperbacks for their affordability and the ease with which I can carry them in a backpack or brief case if I’m traveling or taking it to work.  But I’m a bit more cautious with my paperbacks (and hardcovers), trying to not break the spine.   Part of this is so that if I want to re-read at a later date, the pages won’t all fall out.  I picked up a used paperback of the Friends of the Library table for a quarter recently and it’s spine was fairly bent.  And as I was looking at it, pondering whether to move it up the TBR list, I noticed that some of the spine was so bent and cracked that the pages in the middle are in danger of coming undone!   Grrr!!!!

Booking Through Thursday: Collections

Do you prefer to read collections that are all of works by the same author? Or collections by different writers? Consistency or variety?

It kind of depends on my mood.

If it’s a collection of stories by a favorite author, I’m content and happy to read them all. But one of the fun things about a short story collection is the chance to meet new authors or to have a little variety in my reading without necessarily having the commitment of a full novel.

Booking Through Thursday: Love Stories

No, no, I’m not asking if you like romances … what I want to know is what is it about stories that you love? Is it the stories themselves? The people? The plot twists?

It depends on the story really.

For example, Elizabeth George’s Lynley and Havers novels.  I love the mysteries and how well George can construct a mystery, but I will admit that part of me looks forward to each new installment to catch up with the characters I’ve come to know and love over the course of the series.

There are other books that I just enjoy the story or the writing style.

So, it all depends on the story.

Booking Through Thursday: Scary

What’s the scariest book you’ve ever read?

I vividly recall reading Stephen King’s Cujo as a teenager and being utterly riveted and unnerved by it, especially the last third of the novel when two of our heroes are trapped in a car with the rabid Cujo outside, trying desperately to get at them.   King created such a palate in my mind that I’ve never gone anywhere near the movie version of the book.  One reason is that I am not sure it could EVER be as terrifying and unnerving as the novel was.  And the other reason is that I’m worried that it MIGHT somehow be as terrifying and unnerving as the novel was.

I few years ago, I wondered if and how the novel would hold up for scaring me.   So, I checked out the audio book from my local library and listened to it. (Review here, if you’re interested)  Twenty years later, it still had the same impact on me.

King has written a lot of other scary and unnerving books, but it’s this one that really got under my skin the most.

Booking Through Thursday: A Family Affair

Do other people in your family also like to read? Or are you in this on your own?

My wife and I are both avid readers — in fact, she reads more than I do, if you can believe it.

We both come from families who are strong readers — our parents enjoy reading and so do our siblings.

Now, if only we could get our nieces and nephew to be as excited about reading as we are. We try to bribe them each summer to read a set number of books and then get a treat by hanging out with their favorite aunt and uncle. So far, it’s worked once but not in subsequent years.