Buying, reading, and so forth

Feb 08, 2007

• Hardback or trade paperback or mass market paperback? Hardback or trade paperback if they're on sale or in the used bookstore; mass market paperback otherwise.
• Amazon or brick and mortar? Local neighborhood bookstore if they have it, Powell's if it's hard to find, Amazon if Powell's doesn't have it or can't get it.
• Barnes & Noble or Borders? There is no Borders close to where I live, so the times I wander into a mall bookstore, it's always a B&N.
• Bookmark or dog-ear? Bookmark. I use bookmarks, business cards, receipts...but not string. Not after trying that once, then coming home to Ursa lying on the living room floor wrapped in my former bookmark (and the book lying facedown on the floor, pages bent, place lost.)
• Alphabetize by author or alphabetize by title or random? Alphabetize by author, then by title within the author's section. (And anal-retentive has a hyphen.)
• Keep, throw away, or sell? If they're good, keep. If they're not good, sell or give to a friend.
• Keep dustjacket or toss it? Keep them, for storage purposes.
• Read with dustjacket or remove it? Remove them, but keep the really good ones. When I'm reading my hardbacks, I use a generic fabric dustcover to keep from wallering the book itself. The dustcovers are too slick, though - while I have most of them, I find myself setting them aside after the first twenty or forty pages.
• Short story or novel? Most of my books are novels. I tend to prefer novels because I can spend longer in that universe.
• Collection (short stories by same author) or anthology (short stories by different authors)? I've had better luck with anthologies. I'll get anthologies based on subject matter, or because I recognize the names of several of the contributing authors. I don't own too many short story collections, though I have bought the short stories of C J Cherryh, David Brin, Orson Scott Card, and Robert J. Sawyer.
• Harry Potter or Lemony Snicket? No. Just...no. These books have been wildly popular, but I'm not interested in either of them.
• Stop reading when tired or at chapter breaks? Since I most often read at night, I stop when I'm tired. If I'm really close to a chapter break, or a "scene change", I'll keep going until that point.
• "It was a dark and stormy night" or "Once upon a time"? Once upon a dark and stormy time, it was night.
• Buy or borrow? If it's a recommendation from a friend and I've never read anything by that author, I will see if I can borrow. Otherwise, buy.
• New or used? Either is fine. I admit to checking used book stores to see if a particular book was especially disliked, though: many many many copies of the same book, especially if they all look nearly new, can indicate a disappointment.
• Buying choice: book reviews, recommendation or browse? Browse, recommendation, review. I often browse and find new authors based on the subject matter, overall story as described, and a random sampling. When I find a book I think I might like, I'll open the book at random, find a good starting point, and read a few paragraphs. If those few paragraphs don't really make an impression, I'll try a few other places just to make sure it isn't the place I randomly chose. Recommendations from people who share my reading tastes are fairly trusted - though it really really helps if I know that person, and can factor in their own tastes (a dear friend of mine loves urban fantasy, but it most often leaves me cold. Fortunately, he knows *my* tastes in turn and hasn't recommended any urban fantasy in years.) Random book reviews, such as those found on Amazon...I find those of limited use. People either don't know how to write reviews that allow me to judge how I'll react to the book (excerpts! give me excerpts!), or they write reviews that only say “I loved it” or “I hated it”. Yes, I know it isn't a thesis; but support your argument a little, willya?
• Tidy ending or cliffhanger? Tidy ending. If it's part of a short series and it's obvious that this isn't the final book, I've got no problem with cliffhangers. Many authors produce trilogies so that they can sell books, produce output rapidly, reach a larger audience, and actually...you know...pay the bills. But I dislike it when a book will appear to close off one plot but leave several secondary and tertiary plots obviously unresolved. Life continues. 'Happily ever after' is just code for 'The bedtime story's over now, go to sleep or I'll duct tape you to the bed'. Writers should be able to find more stories to tell about their characters without requiring that everyone from the previous chapter come along for the ride. (Maybe this is why I love those authors who set books in a sprawling universe. If I read every single book, I get the little extra thrill of seeing a passing mention to events in another book I've read. If I don't read every single book, my enjoyment of the books I *do* read won't be any less.)
• Morning reading, afternoon reading or nighttime reading? Nighttime. I read every night before bed, as a way to wind down. I also read on weekends (morning, noon, night, oh-dark-thirty...who cares, it's a weekend and I'm reading!)
• Standalone or series? Either.
• Favorite series? Ahhhhh...
• Favorite book of which nobody else has heard? I don't know. I do know that when I was housemates with a dear friend of mine, we had to mark our respective book and CD collections so that we'd know to whom a copy belonged. We used the colored-dot stickers: I used green, he used white. There was a *lot* of overlap! (Ten years later, I'm still occasionally opening a book and seeing a green dot sticker fall out.)
• Favorite books read last year? Child of a Rainless Year, by Jane Lindskold. Probably some others, but I'll have to check when I'm home. (Le Job has a dulling effect on my brain.)
• Favorite books of all time? Title Deleted for Security Reasons, by Ed Bolme (satire set in the Paranoia RPG universe), Foreigner by C J Cherryh, My Enemy My Ally by Diane Duane, Brother to Dragons Companion to Owls by Jane Lindskold, The Man Behind the Rubber Mask by Robert Llewellyn

Ganked from Kim.

Keywords: | memes | books |
Posted by Laughing Muse • 373 views • Share this link • Newer • Older