Oh, there are many! Here is a partial list, drawn from books I’ve reviewed here:

Runaway, by Steve Simpson. This is the actually the worst book I’ve ever come across, ever.

Firefly Lane, by Kristin Hannah. This book wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t particularly good either. A bit of a waste of time.

My Stroke of Insight, by Jill Bolte Taylor. I know, I know, this book is about a heart-wrenching personal journey and mocking it surely makes me some kind of horrid shrew. Read the comments section if you don’t believe me!

It Starts with You!, by Julia J. Austin. It’s the kind of advice book that leaves you wanting to kill.

Atonement, by Ian McEwan. Brilliant prose, sucky plotting, left me angry.

Story of the Sand, by Mark B. Pickering. Another poorly written book that left me more frustrated than anything else.

Do you sense the theme here? Bad prose offends me. This is why.

Post from: She Reads Books

Btt: Unread

I would love to read any number of my childhood favourites as for the first time again, but I think that this is especially true for Enid Blyton’s Faraway Tree series. I had — still have, actually — The Folk of the Faraway Tree and The Magic Faraway Tree, and they both just delighted me beyond all reason.

It’s got everything: plucky English children, an Enchanted Wood, a giaganto tree which grows different fruits at different levels and is inhabited by people named things like Moon Face and The Saucepan Man and Dame Washalot. At the top of the tree there is a ladder leading into the clouds, and at the top of the latter there is a strange land, a new one every few days. There’s also a slide all the way through the tree, from the top right to the very bottom.

Apparently newer editions of these books have been somewhat sanitized, but I have the older text. The children are named things like Fanny and Dick, and there’s a character named Dame Slap who cheerfully administers corporal punishment to any child who crosses her path. Good times all round!

I still read these from time to time, but I would wish to be able to read them like the first time — to be able to recapture all of those delighted moments of what happens next?.

Post from: She Reads Books

BTT: A Second First Time

(And, this is a reading meme, so by rights the answer should be book-related, but hey, feel free to go wild and splurge on anything you like.)

I did get a refund this year, which was spent in its near entirety on my final tuition instalment for the year (and, um, ever, for that matter). Kind of a boring answer, but a true one — and I’m doing an English degree so I suppose it’s vaguely book related.

Now, speaking of an imaginary windfall I had to spend on book-related things: that would change everything! If it was a very large windfall, I’d build/buy me a house with a library in it, one just like the Hart House Library (click for photo, here too). It’d be all wood shelves and airy glass and couches and fireplaces. And books, of course, and maybe some handy things like paintings and globes and things — actually, I’ve written about this before.

So, first choice: library. If it were a smaller (but still substantial) windfall I would go on a mad shopping spree and top up my collections. I’d get the rest of Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin novels, and everything by Margaret Atwood and Robertson Davies and Shakespeare that I don’t already own. I’d buy books I’ve always wanted to read, and forget about the cost. And I’d also buy journals and writing paper, because I just plain love stationery.

A smaller windfall would just get put into my budget as book-buying money, and I’d spend it normally.

The one last thing is to donate it — well, not all of it, probably, but some. I know I’ve been greatly privileged with my education, and it’s good to pass that on to others!

Post from: She Reads Books

BTT: Windfall

National Library Week, eh? Well, it’s not coming up anytime soon in my part of the world — our library week is in October.

I was going to begin this post with a small admission:

Here’s a confession: I almost never use my public library. I think I’ve used the public library system about five or six times in the last, I dunno, six or seven or eight years.

… but then I went to the library yesterday, which throws off the whole count.  Talk about inconsistent, self.

I went to the public library quite often as a small child, and as a middle-schooler, and sort of fell off after that. Once I got to highschool, I found that the school library could adequately take care of all my book needs (and indeed, I once earned the school’s “Avid Reader” award because someone noticed how often I was checking books out).  And once I got to university, well, sheesh. Our library system is the fouth-largest in North America* and I have not once been unable to get a book I needed from the school system. So really, the public library system didn’t enter my mind for years. I got all my books from the university libraries, and did most of my studying there too.

* Actual numbers, from Wikipedia: The collections include more than 10 million bound volumes, 5.4 million microfilms, 70,000 serial titles and 1 million maps, films, graphics and sound recordings. Yup… that’s a lot of books.

Then back in December, I had a harrowing exam experience of which the end result was that I ended up spending several hours at a public library close to campus. And it was all delight, and I remembered, hey, I used to love the public library. And maybe I can again (actually, it would be an expedient thing, since I am graduating this term).

So to answer the question of how often I use the library, I would have to say: not very. Not very often, but slowly ramping up. Right now I use it most as study space, when I can’t be productive at home. And when I eventually lose my borrowing privileges at school (assuming that I don’t fork out for an alumni card, which, probably, I won’t) I’m sure that I’ll start borrowing more/at all as well.

Did your library habits change as you went through school?

Post from: She Reads Books

BTT: Library Week

How very appropriate as a question for me! I am smack in the middle of reorganizing all of my bookshelves, which previously fell under the “wherever it fits” system, often coupled with the “oh well, the floor is good enough” method of shelving. So the other day I did a book purge, and now I am attempting to reorganize everything. Step one was to take all of the non-book material off my shelves:

… which left me with nowhere to sleep, but shelves that looked something like this:

Now, of course, comes the difficult part: actually recategorizing and organizing everything. For now, I’m pulling books off the shelves one genre at a time and putting them in piles:

Right now my shelves are about halfway empty, and I still have some of the bigger genres to take off. Right now Canadian Lit and Mystery have two piles each; Science Fiction and Children’s Lit will probably run to three apiece. And once everything’s off, everything wil go back on again — but in a much more sensible fashion! I’ll be shelving by genre and then alphabetically by author within each genre. (Which means I don’t know how I’ll cope when I have to add books, but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it).

How do you arrange everything? Ever had to start over, like me?

Post from: She Reads Books

BTT: Book Storage

I read a handful of authors’ blogs, but usually the fact that they’re authors is only incidental to the fact that they are interesting, funny people who write well. Authors have the same chances as anyone at staying in my feed reader — but, like anyone else, if they bore or annoy me too often, I unsubscribe.

Does this happen, even though authors are supposed to be these shiny interesting people? Of course it does. There was a particular author whose blog I stopped reading recently, for example — I loved his book, but his blog was stupendously dull and didn’t allow comments. Gone! (And no, I will not tell you who that was).

That being said, here are some author blogs I enjoy very much:

Whatever (John Scalzi): You’re going to see this as a bit of a theme in this post, but John Scalzi is an author who posts about a heck of a lot more than books and writing and such. I like that; I think that sometimes book bloggers can be a little too topical, if you know what I mean, and what better way to break it up than by creating the Canonical Bacon Page or attempting to predict the next big internet meme? I was reading Scalzi’s blog long before I read any of his books, but I can tell you now that he is also a very good novelist.

WWdN(In Exile) (Wil Wheaton): Wil Wheaton is another dude whose blog I was reading long before I knew that he was an author or any of that. Wil blogs about lots of geeky, geeky things. I’ve read Just a Geek and it is very good indeed — and that didn’t surprise me in the least.

Emy’s Blog (Elizabeth Emerson Hancock): Okay, I would be lying if I told you that I’ve been reading this blog for a longer time than since this morning. Trish highlighted it in her BTT post, and so I went and read the post she linked to, and then I read a few more things, and then I thought “Hey, this lady is funny and smart! I should subscribe!”. And then I did. Maybe you should too.

Religion. Money. Politics. Sex. (Moriah Jovan): I started reading Moriah Jovan’s blog because somebody, somewhere, linked to her post about the perfect bookstore. And I thought that was genius, genius I tell you, and when I grow up and have a big bucket full of money, I will steal her idea and live happily ever after.

What is Stephen Harper Reading? (Yann Martel): Some of you might be wondering who Stephen Harper is, exactly? He’s the Prime Minister of Canada, and every Monday for as long as he is in power, Yann Martel sends him a book to read, with an accompanying cover letter that is always lucid and thoughtful and makes me wish that Martel was sending books to me instead of to Parliament Hill.

evany’s extended cake mix (Evany Thomas): Like, well, most of the authors on my list, Evany Thomas has published a book but talks about way more than that; she’s a diarist primarily, and her life seems interesting and relatively kooky. I haven’t read her book — The Secret Language of Sleep — because I think it’s probably more or less baloney, and anyway, I sleep alone. But if it’s like her blog, it’s probably still very good.

Should authors blog? Sure, if they want. Should they blog about more than ZOWIE  I WROTE A BOOK? Absolutely, unequivocably, yes. And that’s probably going to be more interesting, anyway.

Post from: She Reads Books

BTT: Authors Talking

I give books as gifts almost exclusively, with some exceptions depending on the person. This year, everyone in my family is getting a book or, in one case, books.

To everyone? Or only to select people?

Generally, almost everyone gets books, but not everyone gets books all of the time. I also make dolls and scarves and things — and sometimes find more creative gifts for the non-readers in my life. But I tend to be surrounded by bookish people, and so I tend to find books to be very appropriate gifts.

I like being able to find a book someone I know will love.

How do you feel about receiving books as gifts?

Thrilled! We do Christmas lists at my house, and all I had on my list was books (categorized and alphebetized, thankyewverymuch). And then my dad was all, “Don’t you want anything beside books?” and I was all, “I don’t understand what you mean.” So then I added some non-bookly things (stationery, crochet hooks, Nutella) — but they’re still vastly outnumbered.

Post from: She Reads Books

BTT: Book Generosity

Do you think reviewers are obligated to put up a good review of a book, even if they don’t like it? Have we come to a point where reviewers *need* to put up disclaimers to (hopefully) save themselves from being harassed by unhappy authors who get negative reviews?

Ha, I think we all know where this question is coming from.

Do I think that reviewers are obligated to review books positively, because they came for free? Absolutely not.

Should reviewers have to put up disclaimers explaining this? They shouldn’t have to, but it might be a wise decision anyway — just to have something in print to fall back on in case of nastiness.

I think that any author who is expecting positive reviews only because they put a lot of effort into writing something, or because they or their publicist spent money sending books out to people to review, is very inexperienced or deluded or both. Just because something took a lot of effort to create doesn’t mean it’s any good; just because something came for free into a reviewer’s house doesn’t mean it’s any good, either.

If our whole schtick as book bloggers/reviewers is to talk about the books we’ve read, good and bad and ugly, then we should be doing that in an honest fashion regardless of how we received individual books. And if you know that you can’t be objective about a book, because your bff wrote it, or you met the author and he is oh-so-nice and funny, or anything, your review should start with “This is a biased opinion because” and continue on from there. Or it shouldn’t be written.

I think that if we want to take ourselves seriously as a community, we have to be more than a marketing machine spewing always-positives. If a book sucks, I usually say so. And if a book is super amazingly good, I say so even louder.

Now, I’ve personally made the decision not to accept review books anymore. But I still will be reviewing the books I’m reading for school and for pleasure, and I will still be writing honest reviews. It’s an integrity thing, I think.

Post from: She Reads Books

BTT: Honesty

Even if you are a die-hard fan of the public library system, I’m betting you have at least ONE permanent resident of your bookshelves in your house. I’m betting that no real book-lover can go through life without owning at least one book. So … why that one? What made you buy the books that you actually own, even though your usual preference is to borrow and return them?

If you usually buy your books, tell me why. Why buy instead of borrow? Why shell out your hard-earned dollars for something you could get for free?

- – - – - -

I definitely most often buy books, or get them from BookMooch. I very occasionally borrow books for research from my university libraries, but I can’t even remember the last time I borrowed something from the public library.

I buy a lot of books because I need them for school, as they are on reading lists and suchlike. I’ve found it’s simply more convenient to have a copy that I can write in, if need be, and that I can throw around in my backpack without worrying overmuch because it belongs to someone else. So that’s one of the reasons I elect to purchase rather than borrow. I tend to abuse my books a bit, and it’s nice to know that I won’t be fined or frowned at for doing so!

I think the biggest thing otherwise is that I like to have books on hand. I re-read things a lot, and since I never know what mood will strike me, I have to be prepared! Besides, books are neat. I love being surrounded by words, and after a while, many of my editions start to feel like old friends. I like being able to lend books out to people — to have lots of resources when my mom or my brothers come to me and say, “I need a book to read.”

Plus, it’s hard to fit going to the library into my schedule. Well, actually, that’s not strictly true. If I really wanted to do it, I could. But I can’t be bothered. There are still loads of books in the house that I haven’t read, and so why go out of my way to reach inferior copies? Sure, sometimes I’ll end up buying a dud — but in that case, I can pass it along on BookMooch to someone who’d really like to read it.

I’m actually surprised when I run into people who are big library users. I’m all for libraries, but when it comes to borrowing books, I’m much more likely to grab them from friends.

Other than beginning-of-term buying, I don’t actually purchase books that often, so it’s not a huge problem fiscally. When I do go book hunting, I hit the second-hand and discount shops first; I hardly ever buy new anymore, and when I do, it’s usually not from a big box chain. I like supporting the little places in my neighbourhood — and when I can sometimes get 10 books for $20, why would I trade that in for one new trade paperback? Madness!

Storage can be a bigger problem. I have four bookcases in my bedroom, and they are each full and overflowing. From where I’m sitting I can see six other stacks of books, of varying sizes. These are mostly on the floor. I’m going to see if I can rearrange my room over the Christmas holidays to accomodate one more set of shelves. Because purging is out of the question, you know. (Addicted? Who, me?)

Perhaps one day I’ll start borrowing more, depending on where I live and how much room I have — but for the moment, books are cheap and plentiful and make me happy, and so I buy.

Visiting from Booking Through Thursday? If you like what you’ve read, why not subscribe?

Post from: She Reads Books

BTT: Why Buy?

I try not to break the spines of the books I read … but I don’t try that hard. I fold pages. I wrap the cover all the way around the book. I leave books open with things like table edges between their pages. I throw them into my knapsack, and when I take them out, I throw them on the floor. Sometimes they get stepped on. Or sat on. Sometimes I mark up my books, though only in pencil.

Come on. Books are things. Their outsides don’t really matter.

Post from: She Reads Books

BTT: Conditioning