Tuesday Thingers: Tagging

This week's topic for the Tuesday Thingers group is about using tags in your Library Thing library. Wendi asks:

Do you tag? If so, do you tag for your own purposes (make lists, sort, clouds, etc)? Do you tag to help classify a book (historical fiction, self-help, sci-fi, mystery, etc)? What is the most helpful thing for you about tagging?

First of all, about that connection between tags and Early Reviewer books ("the more you tag your books, the more likely you are to snag a similar Early Reviewer book"). Well, I had a similar theory when I first signed up with the Early Reviewers program – I figured if I could just hit on the right system of tagging, or the right number of tags, it would help me get more of the books I was interested in. And I still believe that tags play a part in the sacred "algorithm" (well, I think the people in charge say they do, anyway), but several of the books I've gotten have been from genres that don't really "fit" with my library, if you're just judging by my tags. And I've also noticed that people who use few or no tags for their collections still seem to receive their share of ER books. So I think tags are probably a help, but many other things figure in the overall decision.

But I do use tags. Lots of tags. Over four hundred different tags. Mostly I use broad classifications like "American literature" or "Mysteries" or "Science Fiction." But I use smaller and more focused groupings, too – like "Prehistory," "Poirot," and "Pop-up Books." I'm pretty sure every book in my LT library has at least one tag attached to it, and most have more than one. I like tagging because it allows me to sort my books by category if I want to do that, but also because I'm able to tell at a glance how many books of various genres I have in my collection – and anyone looking at my library can see that, too. And that sort of serves as my bookish introduction to the rest of the LT world.

Tuesday Thingers is hosted by Wendi of Wendi's Book Corner. If you'd like to see more or participate yourself, head on over to her blog and leave a comment.

Teaser Tuesdays: A Little Illumination

So far this week I've finished one book and started two more. The book I've just managed to wade through is The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. I don't mean that to sound negative – I did enjoy the book, just found it hard to keep reading. For some reason, it's taken me several weeks to finish. So right now I've got about four books going, which is fairly normal in my case.

My teasers this week come from Jill Ciment's new novel Heroic Measures. I haven't gotten very far into it, but I can tell you it's about an older couple, living in New York City and preparing to sell the apartment they've lived in for many years. This snippet is about the husband, Alex, an artist whose latest works are illuminated manuscripts:

As monks once illustrated the Bible with gold leaf and devotion, he is illuminating the seven-hundred-and-fifty-page file that the FBI had kept on Ruth and him during the heyday of the cold war. Initial showings of the manuscript pages have garnered him just enough attention from the art world to offer promise, though at his age, he isn't exactly sure what promise means anymore. [p. 31]

Alex is seventy-eight years old, so I suppose I can understand his skepticism about any potential fame that might be staring him in the face. But it's never too late to court success, of course. Alex should take my advice and just remember Helen Hooven Santmyer. She was 88 when her most famous work And Ladies of the Club was published and became a best-seller in 1984. So you see, there's hope for all of us aging artists, even if we haven't had our fifteen minutes yet.


Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by mizB17 at Should Be Reading. If you'd like to read more teasers, or participate yourself, head on over to her blog. And these are the rules: Grab your current read; Let the book fall open to a random page. Share with us two (2) "teaser" sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12. You also need to share the title of the book that you're getting your "teaser" from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given! Please avoid spoilers!

Friday Finds: 10 July 2009

Here are my finds for this week. Actually, for the last couple of weeks – didn't post any finds last Friday, since the hubby and I were away for the weekend. I first read about Heroic Measures in a recent New York Times Book Review. I'm not sure exactly where I discovered the other three, although I'm thinking Shelf Awareness is a good bet for The Rapture and possibly for the others as well.

• The Fate of Katherine Carr, by Thomas H. Cook
• Heroic Measures: A Novel, by Jill Ciment
• Name to a Face, by Robert Goddard
• The Rapture, by Liz Jensen

I believe they're all "out," except for The Rapture which is scheduled to be released in early August.


Friday Finds is a weekly event hosted by mizb17 at Should Be Reading. Participants are asked to share with other bloggers about the new-to-you books found during the week – books you either want to add to your TBR (to be read) list, or that you just heard about that sounded interesting.

What An Animal! Challenge: The Wrap-Up

The What An Animal! Challenge ended June 30, and I've let ten whole days go by without writing my wrap-up post. I really didn't forget about it – just haven't felt very energetic the last few days because of a bad cold. But I don't want to let the month get too much farther along without putting this one to bed.

The Challenge began one year ago, on July 1, 2008, and participants were to read at least six books that fulfilled any of these requirements:

an animal in the title of the book; an animal on the cover of the book; an animal that plays a major role in the book; a main character that is or turns into an animal (define that however you like).

This was a fun challenge. Even though I didn't read as many books as I thought I might, I managed to read my six and enjoyed every one of them. I still need to review a couple of the books – thought I'd done it already, but I see now I still have some work to do. Will try to get that done in the next few days. For right now, though, here's what I read, with links to reviews:

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon
Moon Tiger. Penelope Lively [review to come]
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. Robert C. O'Brien
Rest In Pieces: A Mrs. Murphy Mystery, by Rita Mae Brown [review to come]
To Dance with the White Dog. Terry Kay
Wish You Were Here: A Mrs. Murphy Mystery, by Rita Mae Brown

A few of the titles might need a bit of explanation. For anyone not familiar with the Rita Mae Brown's Mrs. Murphy series – Mrs. Murphy is a pet cat who helps her owner solve mysteries. I'm slowly making my way through the series, and the challenge gave me the perfect reason to read a couple more of those. Also, the "moon tiger" in the title of Penelope Lively's novel doesn't refer to an actual tiger – it's the name for a kind of candle-like lamp that burns itself away as it provides light.

All of the books were great reads. And one of them, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, has been on my TBR list since way back in the '70s when it first appeared. Can't imagine why in the world it took me so long to get around to it. But my favorite of the six was definitely Mark Haddon's Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. In fact, it's going on my list of all-time favorite books. If you haven't read it yet, you're missing a great experience. In fact, just sitting here thinking about it is making me want to start it all over again.

I want to thank Kristi of Passion for the Page for hosting the challenge, and all the other participants for making it happen. Now I just have to make up my mind about signing up for What An Animal! II.

Booking Through Thursday: Curse of the Unread?

This week's Booking Through Thursday topic comes from The Toddled Dredge (via K for Kat), and it's about that ever-expanding To-Be-Read list:

So here today I present to you an Unread Books Challenge. Give me the list or take a picture of all the books you have stacked on your bedside table, hidden under the bed or standing in your shelf – the books you have not read, but keep meaning to. The books that begin to weigh on your mind. The books that make you cover your ears in conversation and say, 'No! Don’t give me another book to read! I can’t finish the ones I have!'

Gosh, what a request! List or show a photo of "the books you have not read, but keep meaning to." Such an innocent-sounding request, too.

But since I "keep meaning to" read just about every book ever written, that would take in an awful lot of books! OK, that's an exaggeration. But just in my own home library, there are hundreds of books I haven't read, but would like to get around to reading someday. And I have an actual physical TBR list that has now expanded to two volumes of spiral-bound 3-subject-size notebook space. You guys don't really want to wade through that, and I'm not going to spend the day photographing all those tomes.

And none of these books weigh on my mind. I love adding books to my list. Even though I know it would take me two or three lifetimes to read them all, I have no qualms whatsoever about throwing one more book onto the must-read pile. You'll never catch me saying anything like "Don't give me another book to read!" My sentiment would more likely be "I can't finish the ones I have! What the hell – bring on a few more new ones!"

However, in the spirit of playing along, here's a photo of me with a few of those books – some I've read, and others I haven't yet but fully intend to read someday. Yes, I know it's blurry. I think that has something to do with the wine my hubby was drinking when he snapped it. Yes, I know the place is a mess, but it was taken on a Sunday and we have a "day of rest" policy at our place on Sundays (guess you could say I'm religious about my relaxation).

Tuesday Thingers: Too Much Networking?

This week's topic for the Tuesday Thingers group is all about social networking:

How do you feel about social networking sites? Do you have any you like more than others? Are there any you don't like? Do you have any that you don't associate with your blogs and/or book reviewing? If you could only belong to one of these sites, which one would it be and why?

Well, I guess I should start off by saying that I don't really consider Library Thing a social networking site, although I know that technically it is one. I first joined LT in order to have a way to catalogue all my books, and that's still how I see it – mainly. I do have a few discussion groups I follow, although I don't often post any messages (yes, I'm one of those famous "lurkers"). The only one I'm really active in is the 50 Book Challenge discussion group – it allows me to keep track of the books I read, and even post little mini-reviews, without worrying too much about how other people are going to react.

I'd be very upset if I had to give up LT. As I say, I love their cataloguing feature – I believe it's the best on the Internet. So I suppose if I had to pick just one site to continue with, LT would be it.

I do have accounts with Facebook, Good Reads, My Space, Shelfari, and Twitter. But of all those the only one I really use with any regularity is Good Reads: I use it to keep track of books I've actually read and books I want to read, whether or not they're actually in my library. Of course, when I started doing this, LT hadn't yet come up with their "Collections" feature. Now that they have, I can list books I don't own as "read but unowned" or "to be read" or "wish list"; so I suppose there's really no reason to keep up with the two separate accounts. But there are a few discussion groups at Good Reads I keep up with, so for the time being I'm going to keep things as is.

And all the other sites? Well, I've always found Shelfari a little awkward. I do like the look of all my books on those virtual "shelves," but the site just seems difficult to maneuver around in. I joined Twitter because I had heard that sometimes publishers give away free books there; but so far, no free books have materialized – and I rarely do any tweeting.

I signed up with My Space several years ago because I had found Grace Slick's My Space page, and had to be a member to look at all the info there. I played with my own account for a while, but soon realized it wasn't anything I'd ever be interested in. Still have the account, but I haven't signed in for months now. I find Facebook a little more interesting, although again, I haven't really looked at my account there for a couple of months. I guess I just assume that if anyone wants to contact me, they'll use email or leave a comment on one of my blogs, since that's probably the surest way of getting my attention. I know it says terrible things about my character, but I have to admit that when all is said and done, I'm just more of a blogger than a social networker.

Tuesday Thingers is hosted by Wendi of Wendi's Book Corner. If you'd like to see more or participate yourself, head on over to her blog and leave a comment.

Teaser Tuesdays: A Brief Editorial Moment

This week I'm getting back to a book I started a month ago in early June, Dance of Death by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. I think I'm developing an addiction to their Pendergast thrillers. This snippet is from page 139 of the paperback edition. I know it's more than two lines; and, yes, I know cheaters never win.

"With his high, soft voice and effeminate mannerisms, Davies might look to the uninitiated like a pushover. But Smithback had learned that this was not the case. You didn't get to be an editor at the Times without at least a few pints of barracuda blood coursing through your veins. But his delivery was so mild it sometimes took a moment to realize you'd just been disemboweled."

Well, I've known some editors who were perfectly lovely people, but then they weren't working at the Times (New York or London).

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by mizB17 at Should Be Reading. If you'd like to read more teasers, or participate yourself, head on over to her blog. And these are the rules: Grab your current read; Let the book fall open to a random page. Share with us two (2) "teaser" sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12. You also need to share the title of the book that you're getting your "teaser" from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given! Please avoid spoilers!