Do you find yourself forming trends in your reading? Is this a conscience act, influenced by either your own interests or current publishing fads?
I like variety in my reading, so I don’t tend to follow trends, although recently I’ve noticed I’m reading quite a lot of crime fiction. This hasn’t been a conscious decision – it’s just happened. I read whatever takes my fancy at the time.
Do you feel disappointed when the covers don’t match the story? Have you ever been completely misled by a book cover?
As I wrote in last week’s Monday Musings the book cover doesn’t have much effect on me when I’m deciding whether to buy a book. It has even less effect once I’ve started to read it because I just don’t see the cover. In fact sometimes I’ve hardly looked at the cover and couldn’t say what was on it. I can’t think of an example where I’ve been misled by the cover.
Today’s MUSING MONDAYS post is about book covers…
We all know the old adage about not judging a book by it’s cover, but just how much sway does a book cover have when it comes to your choice of book – whether buying or borrowing? Are there any books you’ve bought based on the cover alone?
The book cover doesn’t have much effect on me when I’m deciding whether to buy a book. If I know the author or am looking for a specific title I take no notice of the cover. If I’m browsing then it’s the title that attracts me more often than than the cover and I’ll look at books even if the covers aren’t to my taste. If it has an attractive cover that’s a plus. Above all it’s the content I go by not the cover, so if the blurb reads well, plus the opening pages then I’ll pick that book.
If I’m at the library I have a slightly different approach and it’s there that I’ll sometimes just go for an attractive cover as a sort of “mystery” buy, without checking the content. Sometimes this works and other times it’s a complete failure.
Today’s MUSING MONDAYS post is about library company…
Who, if anyone usually accompanies you to the library? Is it somewhere you go alone? Or is it a regular outing with family or friends? Which do you prefer?
My library visits are either with family or alone. As a child I went with my mother and when I was old enough I started to go by myself. My first full-time job was as a librarian so then I used to bring books home with me. Later I took my son with me and now my husband sometimes come with me.
I have no preference – if I’m with others we split up in the library to browse and meet up when we’ve chosen our books anyway so it really doesn’t make any difference.
Today’s MUSING MONDAYS post is about mid-year reading…
Now that we’ve come to the middle of the year, what do you think of your 2009 reading so far? Read anything interesting that you’d like to share? Any outstanding favourites?
I’ve read some very good books this year so far. The list is in the tab labelled Books Read at the top of my blog. There have been just a few that were disappointing but a lot that I thought were excellent including these (in no particular order). Click on the titles to go to my reviews:
Today’s MUSING MONDAYS post is about library borrowing…
Do you restrict yourself on how many books you take out from the library at a time? Do you borrow books if you already have some out? Do you always reborrow books you don’t get to?
I don’t restrict my borrowing – the library does that for me! We’re allowed to borrow up to 15 items, but as my husband doesn’t use up his allocation I can have more using his ticket. But right now I’ve only got 14 books out. I’ve been trying to catch up reading from my own unread books, but the library is so convenient (ten minutes away by car) that I usually visit once a fortnight or so. I don’t wait until I’ve read all the books I have on loan but each time I go I take some books back and usually bring home more than I returned.
What is so good about borrowing books is that I can look at them in more detail that in a bookshop. Sometimes if I really like a book I’ll then buy a copy. If I haven’t read a book before it’s due back, sometimes that’s because I’ve decided not to read it and then I return it. Other times it’s because I haven’t got round to it, so I renew it. I can renew books on-line up to four times, provided no one else has reserved it, after that you have to take the book and have it re-issued. If someone has reserved it you can reserve it again without charge – pretty good really.
Today’s MUSING MONDAYS post is about award winning books…
Do you feel compelled to read prize-winning (Giller/Booker/Pulitzer etc) books? Why, or why not? Is there, perhaps, one particular award that you favour? (question courtesy of MizB)
I don’t feel at all compelled to read prize-winning books – interested yes, but not compelled. For years the only prize I followed was the Booker, but I’ve only read a few of the winners and shortlisted authors, so it hasn’t really had much impact on my reading.
Recently I’ve become interested in the Orange Prize for Fiction. When I saw a list of all the books long-listed between 1996 and 2009 on Kimbofo’s blog Reading Matters I realised that I’ve read 26 of them – not many but more than I would have thought.
I didn’t read any of them because they were longlisted or prize winners, in fact I was completely unaware of that when I read them. I read them because they attracted me, either because I’d read other books by the authors or because I thought they looked good.
The ones I’ve read are shown in bold and the hyperlinks take you to my reviews. The other books are books I own that I haven’t read yet.
Alice Sebold The Lovely Bones
Anita Shreve The Weight of Water – shortlist
Ann Patchett Bel Canto – winner
Ann Patchett The Magician’s Assistant – shortlist
Anne Enright The Gathering
Anne Tyler Digging to America
Audrey Niffenegger The Time Traveler’s Wife
Barbara Kingsolver The Poisonwood Bible – shortlist
Beryl Bainbridge Master Georgie
Carol Shields Unless – shortlist
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Half of a Yellow Sun – winner
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Purple Hibiscus – shortlist
Hilary Mantel Beyond Black – shortlist
Jane Gardam Old Filth – shortlist
Jane Harris The Observations – shortlist
Joyce Carol Oates Middle Age
Joyce Carol Oates The Falls
Kate Atkinson Case Histories
Kiran Desai The Inheritance of Loss – shortlist
Lily Prior La Cucina
Linda Grant The Clothes on Their Backs
Louise Welsh The Cutting Room
Margaret Atwood Alias Grace – shortlist
Margaret Atwood Oryx and Crake – shortlist
Margaret Atwood The Blind Assassin – shortlist
Margaret Forster Over
Marilynne Robinson Gilead
Marina Lewycka A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian – shortlist
Pat Barker The Ghost Road
Rachel Cusk Arlington Park - shortlist
Sadie Jones The Outcast
Samantha Harvey The Wilderness
Siri Hustvedt What I Loved
Stef Penney The Tenderness of Wolves
Sue Gee The Mysteries of Glass
Tracy Chevalier Girl with a Pearl Earring
Valerie Martin Property – winner
Zadie Smith On Beauty – winner
Today’s MUSING MONDAYS post is about reading time…
Do you have a set reading time (before bed, perhaps)? Do you read more at night or during the day? Is there a day of the week, perhaps, that you set aside to catch up on reading?
My main time for reading is first thing in the morning, including reading blogs. I also read at night but not for long as I usually fall asleep very quickly once I’ve started to read. I now have more time for reading in the mornings than I used to when I went to work full-time and could only snatch half an hour or so. I used to read at lunchtime at work but now I’m at home I don’t. Sometimes, I read for a while in the evening when there’s nothing on TV that I want to watch.
I take a book with me most places, especially when I’m waiting for a doctor’s or dentist’s appointment so that I have something to occupy my mind. Last week I went with my husband for an eye appointment at the local hospital and we had to wait 2 hours – lovely reading time! (It was a good job I went with him as he was unable to drive home – his eyes were all out of focus due to the drops they put in. Thankfully the doctor said his eyes are OK!)
How much time (or how many pages) do you give a book that you aren’t really enjoying before you’ll set it aside? If you’re reading it for a book group discussion, or for review, will you give it more of a chance then, say, a book you’re reading for your own interest? Why, or why not?
I don’t have a set rule about how many pages I read before giving up on a book. It all depends on the book. If it’s awful I may give up after a few pages, but if it’s so-so I’ll carry on reading for say 50 -100 pages before stopping. There aren’t many books I don’t finish and even if I’m not keen on I’ll skim through it to see if it gets any better. Sometimes my frame of mind and the book don’t meet and if I leave a book for a while then pick it up again I’ll get on better with it. The rest of the book may be much better than the beginning. On the other hand it’s disappointing when the first part of a book is really good and the rest isn’t.
If I’m reading a book that has been sent to me to review then I do finish it, because I don’t think it’s fair to write about a book when I haven’t read all of it. For a book group discussion I may persevere a bit longer than usual, but I wouldn’t feel bad about abandoning the book if I really didn’t like it.
Today’s MUSING MONDAYS post is about early reading…
Do you remember how you developed a love for reading? Was it from a particular person, or person(s)? Do you remember any books that you read, or were read to you, as a young child? (question courtesy of Diane)
My love of reading comes from my parents. My father always read me a bedtime story and would make up stories of his own to tell me. My mother always had a book on the go and she took me to the local branch library, which was a small library with both children’s and adults’ books all in one room. This was before I started school, but according to my parents I could read by myself then.
I don’t remember learning to read and I don’t remember a time when I didn’t have books. My parents bought me books each birthday and Christmas and so did my aunties and uncles. Some of the earliest books I remember being read to me are a book of nursery rhymes and a book about Teddy Robinson. When I was a bit older I read the Noddy books and then other Enid Blyton books and fairy tales I loved those. I loved the Flower Fairy books too. I don’t have any of my orginal Flower Fairy books, but I’m delighted to see they’re still in print. There are many more now than when I was little and you can get the Flower Fairies Complete Collection of all eight original books – “Spring”, “Summer”, “Autumn”, “Winter”, “Wayside”, “Garden”, “Alphabet”, and “Trees” .
