f morsie reads

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Booking Through Thursday - Beginnings

What are your favourite first sentences from books? Is there a book that you liked specially because of its first sentence? Or a book, perhaps that you didn’t like but still remember simply because of the first line?

For me, there is one truly memorable first line:
"Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."
- One Hundred Years of Solitude
It is one first line that really sticks with me.

It was also the first line of one of my college application essays. When I was applying to college, one of the essay options for the University of Chicago was an improv piece. We were given a number of different things that we had to incorporate into the essay (I can't remember them all off the top of my head, but one was The Complete Works of Shakespeare) including that line. It was a wonderful challenge and the fact that the school had an essay option like that left no doubt in my mind that Chicago was my first choice school.

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posted by karen! @ 8:56 PM   5 comments

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Booking Through Thursday - Vacation Spots

Do you buy books while on vacation/holiday?
Do you have favorite bookstores that you only get to visit while away on a trip?
What/Where are they?

An interesting set of questions. Do I buy books while on vacation? Yes, sometimes. Usually when I run out of things to read on my trip. When that happens I'll buy wherever I can (big box stores, airport bookshops, etc). I do like to browse independent and used book stores when I happen across them while I'm on vacation, but those visits are usually spur-of-the-moment rather than planned.

That being said, one of my favorite bookstores is the Seminary Co-op in Hyde Park (home of University of Chicago, my alma mater). I'm still a member and I try to visit every time I go to Chicago.

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posted by karen! @ 3:25 PM   1 comments

Monday, July 14, 2008

Belated Booking Through Thursday - Doomsday

This week's question:
One of my favorite bookstores burned down last weekend, and while I only got to visit there while I was on vacation, it made me stop and think.
What would you do if, all of a sudden, your favorite source of books was unavailable?
Whether it’s a local book shop, your town library, or an internet shop... what would you do if, suddenly, they were out of business? Devastatingly, and with no warning? Where would you go for books instead? What would you do? If it was a local business you would try to help out the owners? Would you just calmly start buying from some other store? Visit the library in the next town instead? Would it be devastating? Or just a blip in your reading habit?

I haven't been buying (or checking out from the library) very many books simply because I have accumulated such a cache of to-be-read books since I joined BookCrossing in 2005. So, this question, isn't terribly relevant to me at the moment: I'd simply go on reading the books I have already (and that'd keep me busy for quite a while). I do enjoy browsing in bookstores and I do buy books as presents, but usually I've been buying from places online (Amazon, half.com) or in local used or discount bookstores when I have had to buy books for gifts or as must-haves.

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posted by karen! @ 12:29 PM   0 comments

Thursday, July 03, 2008

Booking Through Thursday - Holidays

It’s a holiday weekend here in the U.S., so let’s keep today’s question simple–What are you reading? Anything special? Any particularly juicy summer reading?

These are the books that I'm currently reading: I'll probably read a bit of most of them over the weekend and maybe even finish one or two. I also have Happy for No Reason, a self-helpy type book that I requested through interlibary loan. I'll probably skim through it this weekend as well.

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posted by karen! @ 9:01 AM   4 comments

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Booking Through Thursday -

This week's question:
What, in your opinion, is the definition of a “reader.” A person who indiscriminately reads everything in sight? A person who reads BOOKS? A person who reads, period, no matter what it is?... Or, more specific? Like the specific person who’s reading something you wrote?

This isn't something I spend a lot of time pondering, but I guess my definition isn't terribly specific. A reader to me is one who reads, irregardless of what they read or how often. The OED says "one who reads or peruses" (2.a.). That seems spot-on to me.


Last week's question:
Think about your favorite authors, your favorite books... what is it about them that makes you love them above all the other authors you’ve read? The stories? The characters? The way they appear to relish the taste of words on the tongue? The way they’re unafraid to show the nitty-gritty of life? How they sweep you off to a new, distant place? What is it about those books and authors that makes them resonate with you in ways that other, perfectly good books and authors do not?

I don't think there is one specific thing that makes me love one book over another. I like different books for different reasons. For example, I like Jasper Fforde (author of the Thursday Next and Nursery Crimes books) because I am in awe of his imagination, while I love The God of Small Things because of Roy's writing (among other things) and Zahrah the Windseeker because of its story and how the world the author created relates to and illuminates our own. Some books I like because of how atmospheric they are, others I like because of the story itself, still others because I relate so well to the protagonist. I like some books because they distract me from my everyday life and others because they seem authentic. I like some books because of their exotic settings and others because I feel at home in their stories. So, really, it depends.

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posted by karen! @ 1:06 PM   2 comments

Friday, June 13, 2008

Booking Through Thursday to Friday - Clubbing

A day late...

Have you ever been a member of a book club? How did your group choose the next book and who would lead discussion?

Yes! I'd always wanted to be in a book club so I helped found a book club at work in 2006. We don't have one set person who leads our discussions each month. I usually try to get us started talking and then just let the discussion run its course. As for choosing books, we vote. I pull together a large voting list, divided by genre, based on suggestions from book club members, then I open up the voting to all library staff members (since everyone is welcome to come). Using the results of the voting, I schedule the books so that we read a different genre each month. Making a concerted effort to read a variety of genres is good for all of us. It helps us to branch out and it also makes the club a bit more inclusive and occasionally we do have someone come to a meeting just because we are reading a genre or book s/he is interested in.


Do you feel more or less likely to appreciate books if you are obliged to read them for book groups rather than choosing them of your own free will? Does knowing they are going to be read as part of a group affect the reading experience?

I don't think that the fact that a book is "assigned" (whether for book club or school or review) makes me more or less likely to appreciate it. In fact, I think that I force myself to be even more open-minded with assigned books (since in many cases I may be reading books I wouldn't chose on my own). I do think I probably do pay a bit more attention to assigned books, read them more thoughtfully, because I know I'll be having to discuss or write about them.

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posted by karen! @ 8:51 AM   1 comments

Thursday, June 05, 2008

Booking Through Thursday - Trends

Have your book-tastes changed over the years? More fiction? Less? Books that are darker and more serious? Lighter and more frivolous? Challenging? Easy? How-to books over novels? Mysteries over Romance?

Like most people, I go through phases, but let me try to think of some generalities.

When I was younger, living with my parents, I read a lot more fantasy than I do now. That's because my dad is a huge fantasy reader so I had easy access to both his books and his recommendations.

I read more nonfiction now than I have in the past (not including assigned readings in college and grad school). Part of that is because I live with a nonfiction reader and get must-read recommendations from him and part of that is because I make more of an effort to read nonfiction for pleasure (like making sure that every other "book of the month" is nonfiction).

At the end of the month I'll post a list of all the books I've read so far this calendar year (if you are dying to know sooner rather than later, you can see the list on my bookcrossing profile page). But in general it seems that I naturally try to balance more serious and literary reads with lighter (dare I say "fluffy") reads.

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posted by karen! @ 10:01 AM   0 comments

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Booking Through Thursday - Manual Labor Redux

Scenario: You’ve just bought some complicated gadget home... do you read the accompanying documentation? Or not?
Do you ever read manuals?
How-to books?
Self-help guides?
Anything at all?

Do I read the documentation that comes with the products I buy? Sometimes, but I rarely read every single word. I check to make sure I know how the thing works and I'll look up specific details, but I've never found documentation that was so compelling that I needed to read it completely.

Do I ever read manuals? Sometimes. As necessary.

How-to books? I have read them, but I don't do so very often.

Self-help guides? Rarely.

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posted by karen! @ 12:48 PM   2 comments

Thursday, May 08, 2008

Booking Through Thursday - Manual Labor

Writing guides, grammar books, punctuation how-tos... do you read them? Not read them? How many writing books, grammar books, dictionaries–-if any-–do you have in your library?

I can't say exactly how many since I don't have all my books cataloged in LibraryThing yet.

Let's see... I have style guides, Struck & White and Chicago (yes, I bought the new edition as soon as it came out) as well as APA (required for grad school) and MLA.

I also have dictionaries, lots of them. Bilingual dictionaries: French/English, Spanish/English, German/English, Modern Greek/English (I think we also have a Latin/English dictionary kicking around the apartment). I have a "collegiate" English dictionary (I think) sitting on my desk at home. I know I have at least one other in storage as I distinctly remember raiding my grandpa's bookcases. I have a wonderful, monstrous German dictionary that I got when I was working on my translation project and a lovely children's German dictionary with illustrations. I also have at least one thesaurus.

I do have a copy of Eats, Shoots and Leaves, but I've never gotten around to reading it. And, I know I have at least one other book like it, though the title is escaping me right now.

As for reading them... the reference books I use for reference. I also like using the OED online and dictionary.com/thesaurus.com for quick checks. I'm more interesting in reading about the history of them, like Simon Winchester's books on the development of the OED (particularly The Meaning of Everything).

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posted by karen! @ 9:31 AM   3 comments

Thursday, May 01, 2008

Booking Through Thursday - Mayday!

Quick! It’s an emergency! You just got an urgent call about a family emergency and had to rush to the airport with barely time to grab your wallet and your passport. But now, you’re stuck at the airport with nothing to read. What do you do?

That's easy, I'd head over to the bookshop in the terminal and pick out something that looks interesting. Occasionally when traveling I'll misjudge the amount I'll read in the course of a trip and have to pick up another book to make it through the trip home. I've picked up some interesting reads that way. Two that I remember offhand are The Friday Night Knitting Club (see this post) and Mirage by Soheir Khashoggi, which I picked up over a long connection in Philly, I believe.

Now, if I'm in a little dinky airport without terminals let alone bookshops I'd just have to make do with people watching in the airport and the airline magazines (gotta love those crossword puzzles) in the plane at least until my connection at a bigger airport.

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posted by karen! @ 9:08 AM   3 comments

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Booking Through Thursday - Springing

Do your reading habits change in the Spring? Do you read gardening books? Even if you don’t have a garden? More light fiction than during the Winter? Less? Travel books? Light paperbacks you can stick in a knapsack?
Or do you pretty much read the same kinds of things in the Spring as you do the rest of the year?

My reading habits are pretty much the same all year round. I'm sure there may be subtle differences in my choices, but there's nothing specific that I can pin-point to answer this question. In the Spring, however, I have a strong urge to break out my folding chair and go read outside.

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posted by karen! @ 8:41 AM   3 comments

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Booking Through Thursday - Vocabulary

I’ve always wondered what other people do when they come across a word/phrase that they’ve never heard before. I mean, do they jot it down on paper so they can look it up later, or do they stop reading to look it up on the dictionary/google it or do they just continue reading and forget about the word?

All of the above, actually, but more often than not I'll continue reading with every intention of looking up the word later only to forget.

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posted by karen! @ 1:07 PM   1 comments

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Booking Through Thursday - Writing Challenge

- Pick up the nearest book. (I’m sure you must have one nearby.)
- Turn to page 123.
- What is the first sentence on the page?
- The last sentence on the page?
- Now... connect them together (And no, you may not transcribe the entire page of the book–that’s cheating!)

I'm not sure that it's technically the nearest book (bound volumes of Archivaria, anyone?), but I have Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón in my bag. I'll be posting about it tomorrow.

1st full sentence from page 123 -
"We went down to the cabinet and opened the top drawer."

last full sentence from page 123 -
"His suit wouldn't have fetched more than ten pesetas in the Encantes Flea Market, but he made up for it with a gaudy tie of tropical colors."

Connecting -
We went down to the cabinet and opened the top drawer. Inside was the key we were looking for, the key to the closet door. When we finally managed to open the door, we were surprised by what we found. The noises we'd heard were coming from a middle-aged man bound and gagged. He was perched precariously on a stool amid the musty furs. His suit wouldn't have fetched more than ten pesetas in the Encantes Flea Market, but he made up for it with a gaudy tie of tropical colors.

(After reading some of the other posts for today's BTT, I thought I'd better mention that my "connection" has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual story. I was just trying to bring the two sentences together).

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posted by karen! @ 8:52 AM   3 comments

Thursday, April 03, 2008

Booking Through Thursday - Lit-Ra-Chur

I've been skipping the Booking Through Thursday questions quite a bit lately because I haven't been particularly inspired by the questions (and some of them have seemed redundant). In any case, I'm going to make an effort to get back into the meme especially since I haven't been posting as regularly as usual.

- When somebody mentions "literature," what’s the first thing you think of? (Dickens? Tolstoy? Shakespeare?)
- Do you read "literature" (however you define it) for pleasure? Or is it something that you read only when you must?

Well, the answer to question #2 is "yes, I do read literature for pleasure". I was a comparative literature major after all.

As for question #1 - I honestly don't know. There are so many different kinds of literature that there isn't one thing that pops into my mind when I hear the word. Oh, I know... maybe book... :)

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posted by karen! @ 11:16 AM   5 comments

Monday, March 03, 2008

belatedly Booking Through Thursday

I need to catch up a bit with Booking Through Thursday since I've managed to blow off it off the past two weeks.

Format: All other things (like price and storage space) being equal, given a choice in a perfect world, would you rather have paperbacks in your library? Or hardcovers? And why?

I answered a version of this question as part of Eva's Reading Meme (see this post). If the question is really and truly about format, I have to admit that I have mixed feelings. Some books I'd rather have in hardcover, but generally I like trade paperbacks for everyday reading (I really can't abide mass-markets and those tall mass-markets even more. I hate how easy it is to break their spines).

Heroine: Who is your favorite female lead character? And why?

This is a difficult question for me because whenever I actually set out to pick a favorite character I end up choosing a protagonist of one of my favorite books. That leads me to wonder whether I chose that character because I like him or her in and of his- or herself or simply because he or she happens to play a big part in one of my favorite books. So, I guess my real answer is "I don't know". There are a lot of female characters that I like, but I'm not sure that I'd ever be able to pin down a favorite.

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posted by karen! @ 5:07 PM   0 comments

Thursday, February 07, 2008

Booking Through Thursday - But, Enough About Books

What else do you do with your leisure to pass the time? Walk the dog? Knit? Run marathons? Construct grandfather clocks? Collect eggshells?

I do knit (I started last year), though I try to combine the two hobbies by knitting while listening to audio books and reading knitting books. I adore Ravelry and think it is a fantastic resource.

I'm also into BookCrossing, a book tracking site (here's my bookshelf). I do lots of BookCrossing-related stuff and attend meet-ups in Oakville, ON (monthly) and Rochester, NY (occasionally).

Russell and I play lots of board games, particularly eurogames. We're on Board Game Geek where you can see our game collection (the war games are all Russell's). We also cycle when the weather is good and participate in the Ride for Roswell every year.

I also volunteer for Youth for Understanding, the exchange organization through which I went to Germany when I was in high school. I support international students, do interviews of American students applying to the program and potential host families, and I just became certified to give specialized training to other volunteers.

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posted by karen! @ 9:58 AM   10 comments

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Booking Through Thursday - Huh?

What's your favorite book that nobody else has heard of? You know, not Little Women or Huckleberry Finn, not the latest best-seller . . . whether they’ve read them or not, everybody "knows" those books. I’m talking about the best book that, when you tell people that you love it, they go, "Huh? Never heard of it?"

Going back to my first ever post on this blog, you can see that I count a number of books that many people haven't heard of among my favorites (like The Book of Laughter and Forgetting for example).

An unknown book that I frequently recommend to others is Zahrah and the Windseeker by Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu (read my review here).

Another title that always got the "huh" was Das Leben ist eine Karawanserei, hat zwei Türen, aus einer kam ich rein, aus der anderen ging ich raus by Emine Sevgi Özdamar (I wrote about this book in my bachelor's thesis - yeah, comparative literature!) and I have to say that I was completely shocked when I saw it listed among the 1,001 books you must read before you die. Not because it isn't a fantastic book, but because it's so obscure (the English edition is published by a university press).

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posted by karen! @ 4:13 PM   6 comments

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Booking Through Thursday - Let's Review

How much do reviews (good and bad) affect your choice of reading? If you see a bad review of a book you wanted to read, do you still read it? If you see a good review of a book you're sure you won't like, do you change your mind and give the book a try?

In general I'd say that reviews have some affect on my choice of reading, but not terribly much because what you like and what you don't like is really a matter of taste. A reviewer could say absolutely wonderful things about a book, but I might not enjoy reading it. Similarly, I might love a book that a reviewer thought was horrible.

If I see a negative review of a book I want to read, I'll probably still read the book anyway (unless the review is written by someone whose taste I trust implicitly). If I see a really positive review written of a book I'm not sure about by someone I trust, I'm more likely to pick it up. In a way, letting reviews affect your choice of reading is like getting recommendations from people you know. You are going to check out the books recommended to you by a friend who has similar tastes, where you just might smile and nod at the recommendations of someone else.

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posted by karen! @ 4:33 PM   3 comments

Monday, January 14, 2008

(Belated) Booking Through Thursday - May I introduce...

I've been traveling since Thursday and only just got back (a day later than planned) so this'll be a quickie.

1. How did you come across your favorite author(s)? Recommended by a friend? Stumbled across at a bookstore? A book given to you as a gift?
2. Was it love at first sight? Or did the love affair evolve over a long acquaintance?

I have to say that it varies for me. For example, my love affair with Kundera began in college when my favorite professor taught a class focused exclusively on his writing. Studying comparative literature, you can imagine that I discovered quite a few authors I've come to know and love during college. I received the first Harry Potter book as a gift (before the craze). Other authors have been recommended to me by friends or my parents (both have always saved books for me that they thought I'd like). I've also discovered some fabulous authors through bookcrossing (Paul Auster for one; I can't believe I hadn't read him before).

Since I'm tired from the trip (I spent over 10 hours today in JFK), I'm going to skip question number two.

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posted by karen! @ 7:42 PM   1 comments

Thursday, January 03, 2008

Booking Through Thursday - Anticipation

What new books are you looking forward to most in 2008? Something new being published this year? Something you got as a gift for the holidays? Anything in particular that you're planning to read in 2008 that you're looking forward to? A classic, or maybe a best-seller from 2007 that you're waiting to appear in paperback?

Hmm... this is a hard one. I haven't really thought too much about what I'll be reading in 2008. I'm sure I'll read quite a few (my goal is to read 175), but I usually play it by ear (excepting review assignments, of course, which I try to read sooner rather than later; things went to pot in the second half of this year, but I'm getting back on track now).

Well, I'm looking forward to the publication of More Big Girl Knits in April, for the patterns more than anything else.

Of books that are gathering dust around the house, I'm planning on reading some Orhan Pamuk novels (I have The Black Book, My Name is Red, and The White Castle on Mt. TBR), some of the titles from the Myths Series (I have five unread at the moment), and The Illustrated Jane Eyre. I also want to read a good number of the bookcrossing books that are hanging around (at least 50!) so that they can continue their journeys.

I'm also curious about what books we'll be reading for my book club this year (beyond this month's, which has already been assigned). Voting for selections is going on now and I'll be compiling the results into our 2008/2009 reading list mid-month.

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posted by karen! @ 3:16 PM   3 comments