15 Things About Books, Reading, and Me
Dec
'07
1. I’m one of those people who think, “you only live once!” and thus does things based on that particular philosophy. In other words, I don’t feel like I have time to re-read books. For a while I re-read the Lord of the Rings books every year (or so), and I’ve certainly read Matilda so many times that I could almost recite the chapter titles, but since I graduated college I’ve learned that I’d rather spend my time visiting the exciting adventures in a new world than getting comfy and dull in an old one.
2. There are a lot of books in my parents basement which, according to them, I devoured often and plenty when I was small. I don’t remember any of them except those illustrated by Tomie dePaola. (I swear that I never read Nancy Drew and my mom did admit that I wasn’t really interested, but she claims that I read anything they’d give me.)
3. In elementary school, when asked, I would always say my favorite genre was “biography.” To this day, I still don’t understand why that was always my answer, as the only biography I had read was something on Bill Clinton when we were doing projects on the candidates for presidency. Clearly, my favorite genre was actualy historical fiction, as Catherine, Called Birdy and The Midwife’s Apprentice were my favorite books.
4. In seventh grade I started reading For Whom the Bell Tolls and I didn’t really understand what was going on. Now I recollect very clearly what was going on, but I ended about halfway through and have yet to pick it up once again. I don’t have any idea why I remember and understand the book so clearly now.
5. The only book series I have ever been so insanely into and willing to pay advanced money for was the Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede. I read the first three books and asked Borders to call me the MOMENT the fourth book came out, but they never did. They were supposed to reserve a copy for me. Being of young mind, I forgot all about it until recently when the books started showing up at my place of work.
6. When I was little I used to collect bookmarks. I wanted them ALL. Now I take the free ones for “art” when I get it into my brain that I’m going to make book-related art (but really I never do), and use reciepts, toilet paper, envelopes, and other various household items as bookmarks.
On that note, once someone brought in a copy of one of those Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader books for trade at my work, and it had several pieces of toilet paper stuck inside it. They were probably bookmarks, but at the time of this event my first thought was much less pleasant than that and I wanted to reject it on general principle.
On another note, when you leave things in your books that you bring in for trade at used bookstores, sometimes the employees want to keep your stuff, especially if you have really shiny awesome bookmarks. You should probably be a little more careful.
7. I find it strange when people write things like “my librarians never believed that I read that many books” because my librarians didn’t actually care. I would go to the library, read some books there, check some out, bring them back, and the only interaction between the librarian and I was “please,” “thank you,” and “have a good day.”
8. I am the princess who felt the pea - or the book, as it were. When I was in middle school, I would keep “grown up” books under my mattress because I thought my parents would disapprove and take them away from me. They weren’t naughty grown up books; they just weren’t young adult. My parents, in reality, would have been encouraging if they noticed at all, but I still was afraid they’d take away my books.
9. I have to avoid bookstores sometimes because I am broke. It sucks to work in one for this reason, but I still love the job. I cannot enter a bookstore and leave empty handed, and I’m not talking about sidelines or gift cards.
10. Sometimes Richard talks to me while I’m reading and five minutes after I’m done I poke my head up and ask him questions which were all answered by whatever it was he was talking about while I was reading.
11. I am always sad to put down a book even if I disliked it, like how I disliked On the Road but kept reading it thinking that maybe, maybe it would start to go somewhere, to get interesting, to be funny, to throw me into oblivion. I got up to a moment where my home state was mentioned and it was still so boring that I routinely collapsed into seizures. (I’m just kidding about the seizures, but I would often collapse.) Usually when Virginia is mentioned in a book it perks up my interest more, thinking, “Have I been to this place? Should I now go since it was mentioned in this book? I wonder what it looks like! And yes, I know exactly what he means about the weather.” I wish all books could be wonderful, but then I suppose they wouldn’t be wonderful at all, would they?
12. I remember there was one Christmas in the town house that I really, really wanted to watch Little Women because I had just finished the book for the umpteenth time, and my mom offered to teach my brother and I how to slow dance. Whenever I see a copy of Little Women or if a thought of the book crosses my mind, I’m immediately taken back to this Christmas which is lighted in my memory by a colorful Christmas tree and a warm fireplace fire.
13. I won’t go into an actual number, but suffice to say that I do not have enough bookshelves to hold my books. In fact, I hardly have enough apartment to hold my books.
14. Non-fiction is not a genre I tend to stay away from; however, it seems that most of my non-fiction interests lie in those which are about the conception of books, living with books, writing books, reading books, or working with books.
15. I don’t usually read books based on recommendations because I find that I don’t usually like the books that were recommended. The only times this has ever been successful were with Patrick Süskind’s non-Perfume books and Kurt Vonnegut. Both were recommended by the same person.
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Yay you did the meme! I AM REALLY HAPPY. I love this project.
re: #3 I remember I told everyone when I was younger that my favorite genre was mystery. I’m not sure why because I definitely didn’t read the Nancy Drew books until way later, and I can’t remember any other mysteries. My child brain was weird!
Dec
'07
My kids felt the same way about the Enchanted Forest Chronicles. My daughter even wrote a fan letter!
Thanks for joining the graphic novels challenge. I didn’t see a way to leave a comment on your challenges page, so I figured I’d say so here. Also! I love the Bookworms Carnival button you made! I didn’t know about it. May I add it to my collection of buttons on the carnival page for others to use?
Dec
'07