Quick Before I Get Sidetrack'd

It hasn’t been a week very conducive to blogging (read: I couldn’t think of anything that seemed to be worth anyone’s time to read). Little and I made a trip to my parents’ house the first part of the week to visit with my brother, SIL, and nephews. We had lots of fun and enjoyed getting to spend time with my brother and his family; we don’t get to see them very often.

Anyway, since I don’t have much of interest to say right now, I will leave you with another meme about my Bookish tendencies (I’ve seen this one a few places including Rocks in My Dryer and Baseballs and Bows). I will be back next week and will, hopefully, have something worth saying.

Hardback or trade paperback or mass market paperback? trade paperback (paperbacks are much easier to read in bed)

Amazon or brick and mortar? usually bricks-and-mortar, I enjoy roaming the store with Matt; I use the library much more often than buying, though

Barnes & Noble or Borders? B&N because it is closer (Borders is about 30 minutes away); when we lived about equi-distant between them we visited both

Bookmark or dogear? bookmark (meaning whatever piece of paper, and occasionally a real bookmark, is at hand), dogeared books make me crazy

Alphabetize by author or alphabetize by title or random? not alphabetized, but not exactly random; our books are mostly grouped by genre (Christianity, literature, children’s, computing, etc.)

Keep, throw away, or sell? First, I must say that I can’t believe there are people out there who throw away perfectly good books. When we lived near a good used bookstore I would sell; mostly I try to only buy books that I would like to keep.

Keep dustjacket or toss it? Keep it – there is a reason that printers put dustjackets on books, the spine is usually too ugly to stand on our shelves.

Read with dustjacket or remove it? usually remove it, although occasionally I will leave it on to use as a bookmark

Short story or novel? I am all about novels

Collection (short stories by same author) or anthology (short stories by different authors)? If I read short stories they are usually collections

Harry Potter or Lemony Snicket? Harry Potter, definitely. I tried to read the first Lemony Snicket book and just couldn’t get interested.

Stop reading when tired or at chapter breaks? I try to make it to a chapter break (or at least a logical break in the story), but sometimes I read until I can’t hold my eyes open anymore

“It was a dark and stormy night� or “Once upon a time�? Either as long as it is a good story with good character development

Buy or Borrow? Both – if it is a book I want to keep or I can get it for a good price I’ll buy, usually I borrow from the library or a friend

New or used? Used most of the time

Buying choice: book reviews, recommendation or browse? All of the above, but I prefer to read on recommendation

Tidy ending or cliffhanger? Tidy ending

Morning reading, afternoon reading or nighttime reading? Anytime I can reading, but almost always before I fall asleep at night

Stand-alone or series? A lot of times I enjoy series because there is more room for character development, but most of the books I read are stand-alone

Favorite series? Anne of Green Gables or Chronicles of Narnia

Favorite children’s books? “Alexander and The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day”, “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs”, “Where the Wild Things Are” (I really like the illustrations), and “John, Paul, George, and Ben” (my newest fave)

Favorite book of which nobody else has heard? Wendell Berry’s Port William books

Favorite books read last year? Pride and Prejudice or Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen (I read these about once a year), favorite new book was probably The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffeneger

Favorite books of all time? Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Emma (are you noticing a trend?), Little Women, Bible (of course) – there are many that I really, really like, but these are probably the faves

Least favorite book you finished last year? I try to forget the bad ones as quickly as possible

What are you reading right now? The Mommy Manual by Barbara Curtis, The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning (very, very slowly), and I just finished Cider House Rules by John Irving (re-read)

What are you reading next? I have a huge “to read” list right now, so I’ll just have to wait and see what the library has on the shelves