Booking Through Thursday: Mood Reading

This week, BTT asks:

Do you find that your mood affects the things you read? Like, if you’re in a bad mood, do you tend to indulge in reading that will support it or do you try to read things that will cheer you up? Do you pick different types of books on dreary, rainy days than you do on bright sunny ones?

For that matter, does your mood color what you’re reading, so that a funny book isn’t so funny or a serious one not so deep?

Mood reader? Well, I tend to read the same types and genres most of the time, whatever the weather or time of year. But when I'm really upset about something -- mad, sad, or worried -- I probably won't be reading much at all. Just dithering. Biting my nails, pacing the floor. Binging on chocolate chip cookies. Generally engaging in all sorts of very unattractive OCD behavior. Not reading.

So even though mood doesn't really affect what I read, it definitely affects how much I read.

Teaser Tuesdays: My Brilliant Career

This week my teaser lines come from the classic coming of age novel My Brilliant Career by Australian author Miles Franklin. Published in 1901, the book is the story of a young girl living in rural Australia in the 1890s, and was written by Franklin when she was just a teenager, for (she claimed) the amusement of her friends. In this snippet, the book's narrator Sybylla Melvyn is lamenting her fate as a young, ambitious, and impoverished female of the day:

Girls! girls! Those of you who have hearts, and therefore a wish for happiness, homes, and husbands by and by, never develop a reputation of being clever. It will put you out of the matrimonial running as effectually as though it had been circulated that you had leprosy.

I'm reading this on my iPad, so I'm not sure of page numbers, but the quote comes from Chapter Seven.


Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by mizB at Should Be Reading. If you'd like to read more teasers, or take part yourself, just head on over to her blog.

And please feel free to leave me a link to your Teaser Tuesday post in your comment here.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Teaser Tuesdays: The Children's Book

This week, my teaser lines come from The Children's Book, by A.S. Byatt. I've had this one for quite a while now and finally decided to jump in. It's a chunkster (nearly 700 pages), so I'm sure I'll be reading it for a long, loooong time. And since I've just now opened the book for the first time, I really don't know anything about this snippet, except that it appears on page 89:

Tom looked into his book. The story had advanced a page or two. A group of seekers were descending a dark tunnel -- they were the shadowless hero, a gold lizard the size of a terrier with garnet eyes, and a transparent, jellylike formless being who poured along the ground and constantly changed shape.

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by mizB at Should Be Reading. If you'd like to read more teasers, or take part yourself, just head on over to her blog.

And please feel free to leave me a link to your Teaser Tuesday post in your comment here.

Teaser Tuesdays: The Seance

This week my teaser lines come from The Seance by John Harwood:

...I was sitting up in bed reading when my grandmother came into the room and sat down in the chair beside me, looking exactly as she had when I was a little girl: the same elaborate black silk dress and tightly pinned white hair, the same familiar scent of lavender and violet water. The chair creaked as she settled herself in it, smiled at me and took up her work, just as if she had only been gone five minutes, rather than resting in Kensal Green Cemetery for the past fifteen years. (p.104)

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by mizB at Should Be Reading. If you'd like to read more teasers, or take part yourself, just head on over to her blog.

And please feel free to leave me a link to your Teaser Tuesday post in your comment here.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

It's been a few weeks since I posted a Monday Reading List, so it's probably going to look like I've been doing more reading than I actually have. My reading goal for the year was to read more books than I read last year (49), and it really looks like I'm not going to get there. But I have been doing a little better than I did earlier in the year, so I might at least end the year on a positive note after all.

• Recently Finished:
  Hallowe'en Party, Third Girl, and Mrs. McGinty's Dead, all by Agatha Christie. I've been on a sort of Christie binge the last couple of months. Hope to get some reviews posted this week.
  
  
  
  
• Reviews Posted (with links to reviews):
  The Fatal Touch. Conor Fitzgerald
  The Man in Lower Ten. Mary Roberts Rinehart
  The Killings at Badger's Drift. Caroline Graham
  
  
  
  
• Reading Now:
  Bid Time Return (aka: Somewhere in Time). Richard Matheson
  The Seance. John Harwood
  Wicked Autumn. G.M. Malliet
  
  
• Next Up:
  A couple of Library Thing Early Reviewer books,
  
  
  and something from my long-time TBR list:
  
  
  

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey. If you want to let the world know what books you're going to be reading this week, head on over to her blog and leave your link. It's also a great way to discover new books and new blogs.

11-11-11

November 11
Armistice Day
Remembrance Day
Veterans Day

Image of vintage postcard: Vintage Holiday Crafts.