Booking Through Thursday - Your Recommendation

This weeks question over at Booking Through Thursday is a simple one for me to answer:

If a friend asks you to recommend a really good book—good writing, good characters, good story—but with no other qualifications … what would you recommend? 

As far as I'm concerned, there is only one answer: The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien.

There's something for everyone, at least everyone who likes fiction, in this book. The world is so deep and fully realized - there are things mentioned which clearly have their own history, known to the characters, but not required for the story.

Consistency is well done throughout - Tolkien was even carefully checking the dates for the phases of the moon to make sure that the characters, separated were looking at the same moon on the same day.

The devil is in the details people say, and Tolkien put a lot of effort into making sure those details were all consistent throughout the story.

The same thing is true of the characters. They have depth, history and motivations which make them into real people who grab your interest and hold on to it until the last page is turned.

Personally, I love all the description, but I know some people have said there's too much of it. For me, it's that description that helps add the depth to the story - I can almost feel myself in Middle-Earth at times.

Tolkien knew language and how to use it, and that shows in every carefully chosen word in the book. Prose, poetry and song were all carefully written to best effect.

I could keep going for a while, but I won't. The Lord of the Rings has been my favorite book for about two decades now, and it shows.

Booking Through Thursday - Interview

Or, actually titled this week Interview part 2, but I didn't participate last week. Booking Through Thursday is a fun little thing that always has something to do with books and reading, even if only tangentially.

This week's question(s):
But enough about interviewing other people. It’s time I interviewed YOU.

1. What’s your favorite time of day to read?

Any time of the day I can manage it. Usually not first thing in the morning though - that's computer time to catch up on what's happened with my blog since the day before. On my breaks at work though, definitely.

2. Do you read during breakfast? (Assuming you eat breakfast.)

Sometimes I read, but not normally anymore. Breakfast is typically eaten in front of the tv, or occasionally at the computer.

3. What’s your favorite breakfast food? (Noting that breakfast foods can be eaten any time of day.)

That's a hard one to answer. I'm going to say either eggs or pancakes.

4. How many hours a day would you say you read?

One to two hours, I guess. Though I wish it were more a lot of the time.

5. Do you read more or less now than you did, say, 10 years ago?

Definitely less.

6. Do you consider yourself a speed reader?

Probably not. A fast reader, yes, but not a speed reader. And even that depends on the book I'm reading.

7. If you could have any superpower, what would it be?

Not something I've ever thought about really.

8. Do you carry a book with you everywhere you go?

More or less, yes. Definitely to work, and sometimes when I go elsewhere too. Almost certainly if I'm on my own.

9. What KIND of book?

Usually fiction (science fiction, fantasy or paranormal romance are typical). Other than that, does an e-book reader count?

10. How old were you when you got your first library card?

Pretty young, I think. Definitely a kid - I remember getting the Saddle Club books and the Thoroughbred series out on a regular basis.

11. What’s the oldest book you have in your collection? (Oldest physical copy? Longest in the collection? Oldest copyright?)

I'm just guessing here really but these are what I think the answers are:
For oldest physical copy, I suspect the answer is the Early English Text Society edition of the Ancrene Wisse edited by Tolkien.
Longest in the collection might be something like my copy of The Wishing Chair by Enid Blyton - I vaguely remember that book being read to me as a little kid.
Oldest copyright: I can't even guess. I've got copies of the original Nancy Drew novels, Cherry Ames etc, but also A Little Princess and The Secret Garden in my collection. There might be some others too.

12. Do you read in bed?

Of course! That's one of my favourite places to read.

13. Do you write in your books?

Not usually. Except in the cases of my old textbooks. Those ones I can bring myself to underline, and occasionally add margin notes - always done with a mechanical pencil! Interestingly, I'm finding that this little quirk doesn't hold true when it comes to e-books. Those I'm highlighting and adding notes all over the place in.

14. If you had one piece of advice to a new reader, what would it be?

Don't get discouraged. If a book isn't catching your interest and it's not required reading for some reason, feel free to put it down and try another book. Sometimes you'll come back to the book you put down and find yourself loving it later.

Booking Through Thursday - Categories

Booking Through Thursday is a fun weekly meme that's usually about books or reading in various ways. I don't participate every week, but I do try to most of the time. This week is one of the ones I'm going to answer:

Of the books you own, what’s the biggest category/genre?
Is this also the category that you actually read the most?

My book collection is actually split in two for the most part, and to be honest, I'm not sure which is the bigger: There's the science fiction and fantasy side of things, which is also the section I tend to revisit the most: Tolkien (these could almost be considered their own section as proven by the Tolkien collection list post, and the fact that a lot of the books are about Tolkien and his works), Mercedes Lackey, L.E. Modesitt, Elizabeth Moon, Jo Graham etc.

The other section may actually be bigger though: Non fiction history books - the more academic the better: These are mostly split between books about the Classical World (Romans and Greek), and those about the Medieval World, although there are a few on Egypt, mythology and the like as well. A lot of these are a legacy of a BA degree in history, but I keep adding to the collection as well. Thing is, I buy the books, but I don't seem to read them that often. Possibly because for these books I feel like I need to have a pencil and paper out at the same time. Despite not reading the history books, I'm always on the lookout for a new book to add to the collection for some funny reason.

I really don't know which book category is the bigger.

Booking Through Thursday - E-volution

Booking Through Thursday is a neat little meme about books and reading. I'm not a regular participant, it just depends on the question being asked each week, but this one looks neat.

The question this week has to do with e-readers:

E-readers like the Kindle and iPad are sweeping the nation … do you have one? Do you like it? Do you find it changes your reading/buying habits? If you don’t have one, do you plan to?

(And yes, e-readers and e-books do come up periodically, and yes, we’ve had similar questions in the past, but things change so quickly … it’s worth revisiting.) 

 I do have an e-reader, the Kobo WiFi edition to be specific and I love it. Although, I'm beginning to think I'd like to upgrade to the newest edition of the Kobo, the Vox. I love the battery life - long enough that I can read between three and five books typically and there's no glare to the screen so I can read outside too.

In terms of buying books, I don't think it's changed my habits too much - I'm something of a collector, so those series I already have in hardcopy I'm continuing to buy in actual paper: Mercedes Lackey for example, or Patricia Briggs Mercy Thompson series. Other series, such as the Midnight Breed series by Lara Adrian I'm buying for the Kobo.

Basically, I'm still buying a lot of books in paper form - those are an experience I'm not willing to give up - on the other hand, the convenience of the e-reader for travel is unparalleled.

I used to say that the e-reader was really only good for reading fiction, but now they've added (to the later models: the Touch and the Vox) the ability to jump to a footnote or an endnote and back to the text, and also to make your own notes. That change opens up so much more reading options in the non-fiction field, and is my primary reason for wanting to upgrade at some point in the future.

Booking Through Thursday - Queue

This week's Booking Through Thursday is made up of three simple questions:
What are you reading now?
Would you recommend it?
And what's next?

At the moment I'm reading Alice Hoffman's upcoming book The Dovekeepers. According to Amazon.com, it's due to be released on October 4th. The blurb is:

The Dovekeepers is Alice Hoffman’s most ambitious and mesmerizing novel, a tour de force of imagination and research, set in ancient Israel.
In 70 C.E., nine hundred Jews held out for months against armies of Romans on Masada, a mountain in the Judean desert. According to the ancient historian Josephus, two women and five children survived. Based on this tragic and iconic event, Hoffman’s novel is a spellbinding tale of four extraordinarily bold, resourceful, and sensuous women, each of whom has come to Masada by a different path. Yael’s mother died in childbirth, and her father, an expert assassin, never forgave her for that death. Revka, a village baker’s wife, watched the horrifically brutal murder of her daughter by Roman soldiers; she brings to Masada her young grandsons, rendered mute by what they have witnessed. Aziza is a warrior’s daughter, raised as a boy, a fearless rider and an expert marksman who finds passion with a fellow soldier. Shirah, born in Alexandria, is wise in the ways of ancient magic and medicine, a woman with uncanny insight and power.
The lives of these four complex and fiercely independent women intersect in the desperate days of the siege. All are dovekeepers, and all are also keeping secrets—about who they are, where they come from, who fathered them, and whom they love. The Dovekeepers is Alice Hoffman’s masterpiece.

 At the moment, I'm not that far into it yet, so the book hasn't completely grabbed onto me. On the other hand, that could be a bad sign that it's not going to. Still it's following on a read that I absolutely loved (Peony In Love by Lisa See), so The Dovekeepers has a bit of a tough act to follow. But, I want to read it - a couple of years ago I was able to see an exhibit on the Dead Sea Scrolls, so I want to read a bit more about the period, and I often find that reading a novel first helps.

For now, I'm going to say that yes, I would recommend it - to fans of historical fiction.

As for what's next? Why don't you suggest one for me? Here's my unread books list for this year. Books that are crossed out are in storage and therefore, not going to get read anytime soon - getting them out is more aggravation than I really want to think about any time soon. I'll make a choice from any suggestions I'm given.

Booking Through Thursday - Repeats

Booking Through Thursday is an interesting subject this week - and one I'm going to have a lot of trouble answering:

What’s the first book that you ever read more than once? (I’m assuming there’s at least one.)
What book have you read the most times? And–how many? 

Thinking back on it, I have to say, I really don't know. As far as I can remember, I've always been a re-reader, so there's a lot of kids books that could be the answer to the first question. Maybe one of the Enid Blyton books such as The Wishing Chair? Or, maybe to go with the answer to the second question, I should say the answer is The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien. I know I was seven or eight when I first read that book.

As for the second question, "Which book have you read the most times?" that's the easiest question to answer. No holds barred, the answer is The Lord of the Rings. It's my favourite all-time novel, and one I don't think I'll ever get tired of re-reading. Every time, I notice some new little detail. There's just so much that Tolkien has packed into the story.

The third question, that of how many times I have read it, is also impossible to answer with any accuracy. Suffice it to say, I'm on my third or fourth reading copy, having worn out the previous ones. I remember the Council of Elrond falling out of my first set of the books years and years ago.

Booking Through Thursday - Interactive

This is the question of the week over at the Booking Through Thursday blog:

With the advent (and growing popularity) of eBooks, I’m seeing more and more articles about how much “better” they can be, because they have the option to be interactive … videos, music, glossaries … all sorts of little extra goodies to help “enhance” your reading experience, rather like listening to the Director’s commentary on a DVD of your favorite movie.
How do you feel about that possibility? Does it excite you in a cutting-edge kind of way? Or does it chill you to the bone because that’s not what reading is ABOUT?

I've got mixed views on this subject actually. I'm expected to sell e-readers and e-books as well as paper books, and I love my e-reader. I also love my paper book collection (both hard and soft cover). To me the E-book popularity has its' advantages (and quite a few of them), such as the availability of titles. There's no more "not available in stores" or "sold out" on books that are e-books.

Also, some of the features that are available now - the built-in dictionary in the Kobo, for example are great, and the way it keeps track of page numbers in multiple books. At the same time though, the current generation of e-readers to my knowledge still have issues with things like footnotes/endnotes. That is one place where I'd like to have more interactivity.

For the most part though, the features mentioned in this question are ones that I can't see much use in - music, videos, etc (aside from say biographies of musicians, dancers, movies stars and the like). My own imagination is plenty good enough, at least for novels. The idea of glossaries that you can flip back and forth to easily is like properly done footnotes though. That's one I'd like to see.

The other thing I've found about e-books that I don't like is that once you've bought the book, you're stuck with it. If you don't like it after all, that's too bad. With paper books, you can pass them on - to a friend, or to a used book-store or the like. The latter is the one I do the most, and get a lot of books in return. All of which relates to something that MizB notes in her answer to the same question on her blog, Should Be Reading, about the eventual fate of used bookstores - something I hope never happens.

Booking through Thursday - Own or Borrow?

The question this week at Booking Through Thursday is "Do we prefer to own or borrow our books?" In detail:

All things being equal (money, space, etc), would you rather own copies of the books you read? Or borrow them?

My personal preference is to own the books. Once I've read a book, the odds seem to be that I'll re-read it if I really like it. Most of Mercedes Lackey's books, for example are books I've read at least five times apiece (and for some of those, I borrowed them that many times from the library).

These days, I've taken to borrowing with an eye to later buying (perhaps when the book comes out in paperback, or when I can afford the book). And, only one book at a time. When I borrow more from the library, none of the books get read at all. When it's just the one book, it's likely to get read right away. Some of the most recent examples of books I've borrowed include: Lover Unleashed and Kings of the North.

The problem with liking to own the books I read is my habit of thinking "this looks good", or "that'll be useful one day (with history books)", but then I keep reading the new releases rather than the books on my unread books list (a scary 170+ books list). So, what's the solution?

My guess is, it's to just keep on buying books.

Booking Through Thursday

Just what I needed to discover, another meme.

Anyway, the question being asked this week on Booking Through Thursday is stunningly appropriate for me right now.

When’s the last time you weeded out your library? Do you regularly keep it pared down to your reading essentials? Or does it blossom into something out of control the minute you turn your back, like a garden after a Spring rain?

Or do you simply not get rid of books? At all? (This would have described me for most of my life, by the way.)

And–when you DO weed out books from your collection (assuming that you do) …what do you do with them? Throw them away (gasp)? Donate them to a charity or used bookstore? SELL them to a used bookstore? Trade them on Paperback Book Swap or some other exchange program?

I'm trying to prune down my library right now (and not having too much luck at it either). I try to pare it down every now and again, taking a couple of boxes to the used bookstore two or three times a year. However, a move is likely coming up in my future, so I'm really trying to trim things down. Regardless, this line describes my library perfectly: "Or does it blossom into something out of control the minute you turn your back, like a garden after a Spring rain?"

I guess the way I go about getting rid of the books doesn't exactly help either. The bookstore gives me credit back, and I usually end up taking up to a box of books back home (generally it's fewer books than I took to the store though). Said used bookstore has a really good history section and an even better science fiction/fantasy one. Library discards go to who-ever will take them.

The other thing not helping is my tendency to buy books and then not read them. I keep going "I could get rid of this....but....but I haven't read it yet and it still looks interesting/could be useful/is by an author I love..." and the book ends up back on the shelf.