Booking Through Thursday: Location etc.

This week's Booking Through Thursday question is about literary location:

In real estate, it’s all about location, location, location. But how about books? Does where a book is set affect your reading choices? Are you more or less likely to read books set in places you know or love?

This one made me think a bit. I guess I am more likely to choose books set in places I love (England, Paris, the Big Apple). But some of my favorite reads are set in foreign lands I've only visited in those books. And many faves are set in totally non-existent, imaginary places. So I suppose I'd have to say location really doesn't matter much when I'm choosing something to read.

I do, though, have a problem with books set in Texas. For some reason, even though I was born in Texas, live in Texas, and dearly love my home state, I find I have trouble enjoying books set here. Not that I dislike reading books set in Texas: I love just about anything by Larry McMurtry, and Edna Ferber's Giant is one of my all-time favorites. I think it may just be that I expect more from books set in Texas, since I know the state so well.

Booking Through Thursday: List

Wow, it's been QUITE a while since I checked in on Booking Through Thursday. I actually thought it had been discontinued, but for some reason it just wasn't showing up in my list of blogs to read. One of those instances of Blogger moving in mysterious ways, I guess.

Anyhoo.... Today's question is definitely a good one:

Do you keep a list of the books you’ve read? Books you want to read?

I was immediately intrigued -- mainly because that's actually the whole reason I got into book blogging in the first place, lo these many years ago. I thought of the blog as a sort of online book list and hoped it would help me keep track of the books I read -- and also help me remember what I thought about them. And to some extent, it's done that. (I suppose it would function a little more efficiently if I actually remembered to post reviews now and then. Hmmm?)

But I've always been an enthusiastic list-maker. So even before the internet and book blogging entered my life, I kept lists of books-read and books-to-read. I think I probably made my first book list right after I learned to write.

At the moment, I have several public lists -- the main ones at GoodReads and LibraryThing -- and a bunch of private lists filling up notebooks and private web pages. Yes, I know all that list-making steals time away from actual reading. But I'm too old to change my ways now.

Most recently, I've been struggling to come up with some way of keeping an efficient list of all the ARCs I need to read -- I keep losing track of publication dates and the order in which books should be read. So far, I haven't really found a satisfactory method of keeping track -- I'd appreciate any good suggestions.

Love this question, and I'll be interested to see how others respond to it.

Booking Through Thursday: Carrier

I haven't participated in BTT for quite a while. But this week's topic is an interesting one. Deb asks:

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.) 

Well, I don't exactly carry a book around with me when I'm at home -- but I'm never very far from one. I usually have books piled up on the coffee table and on my bedside table, since those are the two places I generally do most of my reading (I keep my iPad in one of those places, too). So I don't really need to carry them with me; they're just there.

Now when I go out -- that's another thing. I don't always have a "real" book with me when I'm out and about; but I do have the Kindle app on my iPhone, so I'm never without something to read. Until the battery needs recharging, anyway.

Booking Through Thursday: Plot or Characters?

This week BTT asks:

Which is more important when you read — the actual story or the characters? I’ve read books with great plots, but two-dimensional characters, and I’ve read multi-layered characters stuck in clunky stories, and I’m sure you have, too. So which would you rather focus on, if you couldn’t have both? 

To be honest, if a book doesn't have BOTH interesting characters and a good, solid plot, I'm not likely to stick with it for long. I want the whole package.

BUT, just to play along (and I'm sure I'm probably in the minority here), if a book lacks a good plot, I'll lose interest in it pretty quickly -- no matter how fascinating the characters might be. So I guess I'm a story person.

Reading in 2013 -- Faves and Not So Much

2013 was not a great year for me, when it comes to reading.  I only read 38 books during the year -- not very impressive, although that's actually more books than I read in 2012 (so I am improving my record).  I don't generally do end-of-year wrap-ups, but I just wanted to do a bit of stock-taking today.

I keep a "collection" of the books I read each year, over at Library Thing, with ratings for each book.  And looking at that, I see that of the 38 books I read in 2013, fourteen got at least a four-star rating.  And one -- Heroic Measures, by Jill Ciment -- got a full five stars and has gone on my list of all-time favorites.  It's a wonderful little book, and I'd still like to get a review posted one of these days.

Of the other four-star books, two really stand out in my memory -- The Shooting Party, by Isabel Colegate (a book that's been on my TBR list for many years, and was apparently one of the inspirations for TV's "Downton Abbey"), and Night Film, by Marisha Pessl.  The Pessl book was a real surprise: It was not something I expected to like so much; but it kept me up all night twice, until I got it read -- a definite good sign!

At the other end of the spectrum, there were actually a few books I didn't rate at all.  One of them was The Buddhist Catechism, by Henry Steel Olcott.  Nothing wrong with it -- it is what it is.  Just not a book I felt was rate-able.  The other two no-star books were Time Will Tell, by Donald Greig, and A Fearful Madness, by Julius Falconer.  I had trouble getting through both of those -- just not my cuppa, but don't let that put you off giving them a try.

Well, that's it for 2013.  I'll be giving that elusive 50-book goal another try in 2014.  Fingers crossed.

Booking Through Thursday: Best or Favorite?

I haven't played with BTT for a while, but this week's question caught my interest:

"Are 'best' and 'favorite' the same thing? If someone asked you 'What’s the best book you ever read?' would the answer be the same as for 'What’s your favorite?' "

And I guess I found it interesting mainly because I can't imagine being able to come up with a single "favorite" or a single "best" book.  If you asked me to name a favorite, we'd be here for hours.

Also, what's meant by best?  Best plot?  Best writing?  Most valuable lessons taught?  I can certainly recognize that many of my favorite books are not the most well-written books or the most morally uplifting -- in fact, many of them are really kinda trashy.  But I still love 'em.

While the "best book I ever read" would, I suppose, necessarily have to be a favorite, my favorite books are many and varied, and they do seem to change over time.  OK, that's clear as mud, right?  I guess my answer would be that to me, best and favorite are pretty much the same thing where books are concerned, but impossible to name. 

Booking Through Thursday: Summer Reading Redux

This week BTT asks:

Do your reading habits change in the summer? Do you take your books outside more? Do you curl up in the air conditioning? Do you read fluff instead of serious books? Are you too busy playing in the sun or gardening or whatever to read much at all?

I don't think my reading habits really change much during the summer months.  After looking back over my reading lists from the past few years, it looks like sometimes I read more during the summer months and sometimes less, so I'd say time of year doesn't significantly affect my bookish habits. And I'm not really the outdoor type, so I'm not likely to do a lot of my reading outside -- and anyway, the summers are much too hot here in central Texas to do much reading away from the air conditioning.  The only exception to that is when I'm at the beach.  But even then, the type of books I read doesn't change -- I read pretty much the same genres year-round.  So I guess you could say I'm decidedly set in my ways -- and too old to change now!

Booking Through Thursday: Ideal

This week, BTT wants to know about the ideal reading experience: location, sounds, clothing, etc.  Well, this is pretty close to my ideal....

Front porch, good book, gorgeous weather, baggy clothing, no bugs.  A nice cool drink would make it even better -- let's pretend the hubby is bringing one out any minute.  Life is good.

Booking Through Thursday: Returns

This week's BTT question/topic:

What book(s) do you find yourself going back to? Beloved children’s classics? Favorites from college? Something that touched you and just makes you long to visit? (Because, doesn’t everybody have at least one book they would like to curl up with, even if they don’t make a habit of rereading books? Even if they maybe don’t even have the time to visit and just think back longingly?)

Well, to be honest, the older I get, the less I'm tempted to "think back longingly" about any of the books I've read in the past -- there are just way too many books to be read, and WAY too little time left to read them!

But I'm certainly not opposed to re-reading, and I do have favorites that I've read more than once: Lewis Carroll's Alice books, Huckleberry Finn, Wuthering Heights, Orlando by Virginia Woolf, Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier, The Aspern Papers and The Turn of the Screw by Henry James, The Ox-bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark, Nabokov's Lolita, The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, and most of Barbara Pym's novels (actually, I can't think of anything by Pym that I haven't read more than once). Also The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody by Will Cuppy -- one of the funniest books ever written.  I'm sure there are others, but those are the ones that come to mind.

Booking Through Thursday: Sporting

This week, BTT asks a couple of sports-related questions:

1. Do you read books about sports? 
2. How about AT sporting events? (Kid’s soccer practice?)

And my answers are really pretty simple: No and No.

I do consider myself something of a sports fan -- I watch lots of sports on TV (mostly because the hubby watches them, but I enjoy them too).  But we VERY rarely attend live sporting events, so the second question really doesn't even apply in my case. 

And I hardly ever read a sports-related book, although one of my favorite "new finds" of recent years was The Longshot by Katie Kitamura, set in the world of mixed martial arts.  I would never have picked that one up if I hadn't been sent the ARC for review -- and I ended up really loving it.  So I guess that just shows how valuable a step out of your comfort zone can be.

Booking Through Thursday: On Loan

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?"

And I must say those questions are sending shivers down my spine. Lend my precious treasures?  Are you mad?

OK, just joking. Sort of.  Let me answer the last question first: Yes, of course, when you've borrowed a book (whether from a library or from another human entity), you should definitely make an effort to read the book quickly and return it as soon as possible.  That's only good manners, isn't it?

Do I lend books?  Yes, I do lend books, although there are some books I probably would think twice about handing over.  And there are some people I'd lend to more readily than others.  Don't think I'd ever try to enforce time limits, though -- that seems a little extreme (especially as I'm such a slow reader myself).

At the moment I don't have any books "out on loan," and I don't have any I've borrowed.  All the books around here belong to me (and the hubby, of course).  All mine, do you hear?  MINE!!!!

Not really related -- but this all reminds me a little of my childhood when I used to play librarian and lend out my books to my little cousin MB-B (she now has her very own blog) and force her to read them and return them on time.  And she really had to read them, too, because there was definitely going to be a quiz when she brought them back!

See -- I always had the soul of a librarian.

And maybe some wicked KGB genes.

Booking Through Thursday: Winter

This week, BTT asks about seasonal reading: "It’s the depth of winter here where I live right now … what books do you like to read when it’s snowy and white? What books do you read to evoke a real feeling of winter (good or bad)?"

Well, it's winter where I live right now, too.  Fortunately, though, here in Central Texas winter doesn't involve all those depths that other parts of the world suffer through. (Soooo glad to be done with all those depths!)

But whatever the weather, I really don't think my reading habits are much affected by seasons of the year.  I read pretty much the same sorts of thing year-round.  With the possible exception of those summer "beach reads," mostly I stick to the same genres and types of books, whether it's cold, warm, rainy or dry outside.  And I would never, never try to evoke a feeling of winter "(good or bad)" through my reading because....

I HATE WINTER!!!!!!!!!

Booking Through Thursday: Gifts

This week Booking Through Thursday asks: "do you like to give books as gifts?"

I've always thought that books make wonderful gifts, but there are just so many problems involved:  Will the giftee have already read this one?  Is it the right genre?  Do they prefer fiction?  Nonfiction?  Paperbacks?  Hardcover?  Have they sworn off print-on-paper in favor of all e-books all the time?

I do give gift cards for books: from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or local book shops (or Borders before they went boom).  Especially for the children on my gift lists -- I think it's really more fun to let them choose the books for themselves, anyway.

So, while I do like to give books as gifts, I hardly ever do it.

Booking Through Thursday: Contemplation

This week, BTT asks:

So … you’ve just finished reading a book. For the sake of the discussion, we’ll say it was everything a book should be—engaging, entertaining, interesting, thought-provoking. The kind you want to gush over. The question is—do you immediately move on to your next book? Or do you take time to contemplate this writerly masterpiece and all its associated thoughts/emotions/ideas for a while first?  

I guess I'm not very contemplative. At least, when it comes to reading matter. Since I've usually got two or three (or more) books going at any given time, I don't generally spend a lot of time contemplating each one as I finish it.

Not that I don't give some thought to the books I read, or discuss them with my husband and friends, or research other books by the same author.  I do.  But once I come to the end of a book, no matter how much I've enjoyed it -- I move on.

Booking Through Thursday: Records

This week, BTT asks about record-keeping:

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?

What a lovely question -- I'm so happy you asked!  List-making and reading have always been two of my favorite ways to pass the time, so you can be sure I've always kept lists of the books I've read.  In fact, a couple of years ago, I decided to put together a "life list" of all the books I've gone through since I first started reading, several centuries ago.  Seemed like a daunting task until I discovered I'd kept a pretty thorough record over the years -- most of my diaries have lists in the back, detailing my reading through the year, with titles and authors, and even (in some cases) dates when the book was read.  See -- I've always been a geek for record-keeping.

These days, I mostly use the internet to keep track of my reading: I keep a cumulative listing on my blog (see this year's pitiful list here), and also lists at LibraryThing and GoodReads.  (Also have a Shelfari account, but I haven't kept up with that one for a couple of years now.) And I guess the WHY would be just for my own amusement.  I know I'll enjoy the list in a few years' time -- I like being able to look back and see what I was reading each month. And, as I said, I'm a fiend for record-keeping and list-making, so mostly I do it for fun.

Booking Through Thursday: Guilty Pleasure

This week BTT asks: "What book(s) have you read that you’re secretly ashamed to admit?"

And I have to say I honestly don't think I'm ashamed of anything I've ever read. Some of it was probably a waste of time, but never shameful. I'm only embarrassed by the multitude of things I haven't read.

Booking Through Thursday: Quotable

This week BTT asks: "Do you have a favorite quote from a book?" And as a matter of fact, I do have some favorite quotes. In fact, I have hundreds of them! Possibly thousands! But don't worry -- I won't repeat them here.

Actually, a few years back, Booking Through Thursday asked a couple of similar questions about favorite opening and closing passages from books, and you can take a look at my answers here and here.

But for today's topic -- whenever anyone asks me about a favorite quote, one sentence always springs to mind:

Reader, I married him.

It's from Jane Eyre, and while it's not the absolute last line of the book (I believe it's the first sentence of the final chapter), I've always thought it really should be. It's such a wonderful way to bring one of the world's most romantic novels to a close.

Booking Through Thursday: Secondly

This week, BTT asks: "Favorite secondary characters? (Note the plural)."

Yes, I've got some.

But it's very late, and I've got to get some sleep tonight, so I only have time to mention one.

And actually, one of my absolute favorite literary characters is a secondary. Ariadne Oliver is a recurring character in several of Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot mystery novels. She's a wonderfully eccentric character -- an author of mystery novels herself, and Christie's alter ego. She frequently complains about her most famous creation, the Finnish detective Sven Hjerson, just as Christie was known to complain about her famous Belgian sleuth Poirot. Mrs. Oliver (apparently a widow, although we don't really learn much about her husband in the novels) appears in only seven of the books, and a few short stories. I've always wished Christie had seen fit to let her star in a few works of her own.

Booking Through Thursday: Live In

This week BTT asks: "If you had to choose to live within a novel, which would it be?" -- which is a very intriguing question for me at the moment. M and I are in the midst of our move from Virginia back to Texas, and I've been spending the last couple of weeks packing, packing, packing. Oh, and doing a little packing, too! And now we're just days away from hitting the road to follow the van (so to speak) on its way to our new abode.

Sooooo.... While I can't really think of any specific novel I'd like to live in, I really would appreciate the benefits of a teleporter right now -- something that would just scramble all the molecules of all the stuff we've got to move and then reassemble everything, 1500 miles away. And do the same with the hubby and me. So my new-environment-novel would probably have to be science fiction -- most likely one of the Star Trek books. Hey there, Scotty, fire up the old transporter and beam me home!

Booking Through Thursday: Changes

This week BTT asks about life-changing reads:

There have been books I loved, books that I fell in love with, and books that changed my life, and they’re not always the same nor mutually exclusive....Has a book ever inspired you to change anything in your life, fiction or non-fiction alike?

OK, I'm going to be lazy here (one of the few things I'm really good at). A couple of years ago, BTT asked almost this same question, so I'm just going to recycle the answer I posted back then. Here goes:

This week, BTT asks "Which Book Changed Your Life?" and at first I thought "that's easy – none of them." Many books have affected me in one way or another, but I really couldn't think of any that were noticeably life-changing.

But then I remembered a sunny spring day, many centuries ago on a planet far, far away. I was a senior in high school. It was lunchtime. And this tall skinny kid with long, Beatlesque hair, who I'd had my eye on for weeks, spent an entire half hour telling me the plot of a novel he'd read recently.

The book was How Awful About Allan, a fairly forgettable potboiler by Henry Farrell, the same writer who produced Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? I remember almost nothing at all about the plot of the book, but I certainly remember the young man who told it to me. Two years later I married him, and he's sitting in the next room right now drinking coffee and reading the newspaper.

So I guess my life really was changed by a book. And one I never even read!