TBIF: Thank Blog It’s Friday! This week in memes and books

Musing Mondays, hosted at Just One More Page: “Re-reads”


Musing Mondays (BIG)Today’s MUSING MONDAYS post is about books and reading…
Have you ever finished a book, then turned around and immediately re-read it? Why? What book(s)? (question courtesy of MizB)

It’s been a while since I’ve re-read anything. There are books that I’ve read two or three or four times, but there’s usually some space – at least a year, sometimes much longer – between readings. I can really only think of one exception in the last several years: I read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix twice within the first month it came out. Book #5 remains my favorite in the series. That’s partly for the story itself, which I think has more depth and development than any of the books that preceded it, but it’s also because of how J. K. Rowling characterized Harry this time around. When Order of the Phoenix was first published, it hadn’t been too many years since I’d lived with a conflicted, complicated, angry 15-year-old boy myself – Rowling nailed it, and it continues to stick with me.

Have you ever done an instant re-read?


Tuesday Thingers, hosted at Wendi’s Book Corner: “Reviews”


Wendi says:
I found entering reviews, or at least finding where to enter reviews, very confusing when I first joined Library Thing because I expected a link on the book page that said “Add Your Review HERE” or some such thing. It probably took me over half an hour to find the instructions. SO – for those who aren’t as familiar, when you add a book to your library, when you click on the book, a page comes up and on the left hand side of the screen will be some links. To add your review (and other information) you want to select the link for “Edit Book.” Once on the new screen, you can scroll down a bit and add your star-rating (if you want), your review, and any other information you want.

There is also a link provided when you add a book to your library that says “Show Quick Edit” and if you select that, you can “Click to Review” and star your book, but beware – I tested it with the word “test” tonight and it saved it, but I spent a few hours not too long ago, adding all my recent books and reviews, and it never saved the reviews (yes – I clicked save!). 🙂 So be sure and test it to make sure it is really saving your review.

Questions: Do you add your reviews to the books you add to your library? If so, do you put your full review on there, or a quick review (one – two paragraphs)? Do you find other people’s reviews helpful? Do you know of any other ways to enter your reviews (other than Edit Book, or Quick Edit)?

My Answer: I’ve added reviews to the LT records for most of the books I’ve reviewed on my blog; so far, I’ve posted 76 reviews to the 590 books currently listed there. Granted, 192 of those books are tagged “to be read,” so their reviews are “to be written,” and I’ve listed a lot of books that I read in the many years pre-dating the blog too – those will probably never have reviews added.

I post my reviews on my blog first. Once they’re up, I’ll post an excerpt on the book record in LT; usually, I’ll paste in a couple of paragraphs, then add “Read more” with a link to the full review. Since I occasionally see blog traffic coming from LibraryThing, I guess that people must click through sometimes. As for other people’s reviews, I’m more likely to check them out when I first add a book to LT – which happens when I acquire the book, not when I’m reviewing it – than when I’m working on my own review.

And yes, I do know another way to enter reviews! A few weeks ago, when the Thinger was “re-style your library,” I added a column for my reviews. I had thought it would be nice to be able to see them on the “your books” page, but it turns out that you can double-click on the “review” cell and edit it to enter the review right there. That’s a nice surprise, and a handy shortcut!


Booking Through Thursday: “Gluttony”

btt button


Mariel suggested this week’s question:
Book Gluttony! Are your eyes bigger than your book belly? Do you have a habit of buying up books far quicker than you could possibly read them? Have you had to curb your book buying habits until you can catch up with yourself? Or are you a controlled buyer, only purchasing books when you have run out of things to read?

“…(O)nly purchasing books when you have run out of things to read?” I can’t even understand that concept.

You may recall one of my comments in response to last week’s Musing Monday question about “TBR Anxiety”:

I do sometimes get a bit nervous over how many unread books I have waiting around – will there ever be enough time to get to them all, especially considering that I add to the pile faster than I subtract from it? The irony of this question is that this situation arises from another source of book-related anxiety – running out of things to read. I’m not sure I’ve really calmed that one yet, despite the current population report from TBR Purgatory.

When it comes to books, I definitely have a serious case of Stockpile Syndrome. Since books sent to me for review rarely exceed more than 10% of my total TBR collection, and the number of books I currently have tagged as “to be read” is approaching 200 (!), it’s safe to say that most of the books around my house are probably books that I bought for myself. Considering that people rarely give me books as gifts because they’re afraid I might already have them, it’s apparent that being a “controlled buyer” has never occurred to me as far as books are concerned. At this point, I’m not sure I’ll ever get over the dread of running out of books to read – but I’m not sure I want to, either.

I do make a good effort to give up buying books during Lent – some years a better effort than others, to be honest – and that does give me six weeks or so to make a dent in the stacks. Aside from that, I’m more likely to back off my bookstore habits for budgetary reasons than for something as relatively minor as a two-year backlog of TBR books.

Without a doubt, I am guilty of the deadly sin of book gluttony – but I remain unrepentant!

Book Gluttons (Not) Anonymous – are you a member too?


Friday Fill-ins #124

ffi

This week, Janet chose quotes having to do with spring, but left them open to completion with whatever we want.

1. If we had no winter we’d need another excuse to drink hot chocolate in front of the fireplace.

2. The nonsensical things that people do remain a perpetual astonishment (which is pretty astonishing itself, come to think of it).

3. If I had my life to live over I’d probably make the same mistakes, unless I could take the knowledge from this life with me.

4. Jack Bauer can save the world inside of four and twenty hours.

5. If you’ve never been thrilled, try riding a roller coaster (but you might just get queasy).

6. To be interested in the changing seasons you would have to live somewhere that’s not Florida (or Southern California, for that matter).

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to a relaxed evening after an unexpected day off, tomorrow my plans include a morning at the beach, where my husband will be participating in a sand-castle-building competition, and Sunday, I want to enjoy seeing Star Trek with Tall Paul and our Trekkiest friends!

After a hectic couple of weeks at the office, my boss told me to take today off, so I’m having a surprise three-day weekend! Hope you have some fun planned for your weekend, no matter how many days long it is!

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 2,318 other subscribers

12 comments

  1. Marie – I’ve had a hectic few weeks with a couple of audits going on at work, and when I finished a big chunk of work yesterday, my boss told me to take today off. Who would argue with that :-)?

  2. I’m totally a book glutton – if the pile on my bedside table falls over, it will KILL me.

    I rarely do an instant re-read, but I’m contemplating it. I just finished The Quincunx, which I quite liked, but I feel like I missed a whole lot of detail and that re-reading it would be warranted and gratifying.

  3. Magpie – Heh. That’s why I can’t keep all of mine in just one pile :-).

    I can certainly see an immediate or short-term re-reading making sense in a case like that. I wasn’t familiar with the book you mentioned, so I looked it up; it definitely sounds like one that would be worth another go-round.

    Gautami – My reasons for not re-reading much are about the same as yours :-).

    Jess – Well, the office has called once, but it’s been pretty nice overall :-).

  4. ROFLMAO! Your answer to #4 really made me smile 🙂

    I saw Star Trek last week…enjoyed it very much!

  5. A sand castle building tournament? That sounds cool and difficult. Hope it goes well!

    I’m surprised you guys haven’t seen Star Trek yet. I figured you’d go the first weekend. I want to see it, but I’ll probably have to go alone. 🙂

  6. I love the term Stockpile Syndrome! I’ve never heard that before, but I think I’ve got a terminal case of it. LOL! I also cannot relate to the concept of only buying a book when I have nothing else to read. I do what I can to ensure that I am never, ever, in that situation. I don’t know if one way is morally superior to the other or not, but I’m glad that I am the way that I am. Imagine finishing a book. It’s too late to go to a bookstore and you have nothing else to read. I would absolutely die.

  7. Janet – I rather liked that one :-). Glad you did too! And I think we’re going to like Star Trek as well.

    Mike – The competition was part of the local Corporate Games. Paul’s team came in third in their division, but I think they were robbed. I may post a picture next week.

    We had the kids during Star Trek‘s opening weekend. Katie (age 14) has no desire to see it (!!), and Paul wants to check it out before deciding if it’s OK for Spencer (age 9). Besides, Paul and his best friend have been Trekkers since before they met in high school, so they almost have to see it together :-).

    Jennifer (Literate Housewife) – Thanks to Michelle Richmond for that very useful term, because it definitely describes my approach to book acquisition too :-)!

  8. I can count on one hand the number of books I have re-read. I don’t do it very often and never after having just read the book. There are books I would like to come back to one day, but for now, I’m content reading books I haven’t had a chance to get to before.

    I don’t post all of my reviews on LT, but quite a few of them I do. For awhile there, I was going back and adding reviews from old journals (pre-blog days), but I haven’t had time to do that in a while.

    Stockpile Syndrome . . . Yes, I probably can say I have that when it comes to books. 🙂

    You mean I’m supposed to restrict my hot chocolate drinking to winter? 😉 We so rarely use our fireplace, even in the winter.

    Jack Bauer is pretty amazing. LOL

    I hope you are enjoying your weekend and enjoy Star Trek. Do post a photo from the sand castle competition!

  9. Wendy (Literary Feline) – Based on what I know about your TBR collection, you may indeed have a serious case of Stockpile Syndrome :-)!

    I re-read books much more often when I was a kid and teen than I have as an adult.

    Maybe it’s because I’m a coffee drinker year-round (and I know you’re not), but hot chocolate does tend to be a cold-weather thing for me. And we haven’t used our fireplace at all yet :-).

    The sand sculpture contest had a theme: “Feats of Courage.” Tall Paul’s subject was a mouse standing up to a lion. He did the sketch for it and a lot of the detail on the sculpture itself – I enjoyed seeing his art training at work (although his degree is in illustration, not sculpture). I haven’t uploaded the pictures yet, but if I got some good ones, I’ll put one or two up here :-).