inthelouvre.org

May 1, 2008

Today’s Booking Through Thursday question is: 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??

So I was grocery shopping when I got the call and had nothing with me but my wallet and passport (even though none of my family live outside the country and my passport is expired), and for some reason I didn’t even have my purse which always has some kind of reading or writing material in it. I can’t imagine going anywhere without that, even hypothetically, because I feel “naked” without it on my arm while I’m in public. (I’m also not sure why I don’t have my cell phone, since I just got a phone call. Perhaps, hypothetically, it is implanted in my brain, in which case I’m not sure where the issues of flying come in since I don’t know how to turn this new device to “flight mode.” Will the plane crash? Will my brain explode? I guess I’ll just have to find out.) But! Okay, so I’m sitting in an aiport feeling naked.

Well, the obvious solution is that I’ll grab a book from the airport bookstore. I’ve been trying to expand my reading horizons lately - I used to stick merely to “literary fiction” and historical novels, but this past few months I’ve read historical romance, mystery (a genre which I’ve come to love), more non-fiction (I read a lot of non-fiction in school, of course, but I’m not known to read it for pleasure), paranormal romance, and horror. Next on my list is a bit of time-travel, contemporary romance, and non-historical non-fiction because, come on, that’s cheating.

So perhaps I get up off my butt and march straight to the airport bookstore to pick up some mainstream fiction, or something like Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert about which I’ve heard nothing but good things. Perhaps I’ll even look into some James Patterson, because although I have never read any more than a single chapter (2 pages), I have nonetheless made it my mission to hate him for life. If all else fails, I guess I’d pick up Danielle Steele, because apparently everyone reads Danielle Steele.

Now to address the possibility that this question is meant to convey that there are no airport bookstores, that I’m sitting in the lobby waiting for my plane to arrive next to someone who is loudly snoring, sniffling, and threatening to put his feet too close for comfort, and there is no acceptable redemption from the situtation. In this case, I’d bide my time looking out the tall glass window-walls for glimpses of airplanes, traffic directors, luggage transporters, and the occassional official on important business. I am easy to please and since childhood have found the ongoings of an airport to be utterly fantastic. I wouldn’t fidget or complain, and I wouldn’t use the time to text message or telepathically contact any friends. I’d be content with the airplanes.

Reading other responses, I see that people would be too distracted by the hypothetical tragedy to worry about what to read or what to do, but personally, I require distraction while I wait. I’ve been in this situation several times recently (though I had time to pack, among other things, a laptop computer and several books) and have found that it does no good to sit in an airport and worry. That time would be better spent in another world following someone else’s story.

April 10, 2008

Today’s Booking Through Thursday question is: Pick up the nearest book. (I’m sure you must have one nearby.) Turn to page 123.

First of all, I just want to say that I’m not sure if I’m supposed to connect this based on what is happening in the book, but all the books currently right next to me are part of my TBR pile so I have no idea what’s going on in them! I’m going to take this as an opportunity to do some creative writing, so my “connection” is not in any way the plot of the book (and if it is, it must be magic because I totally winged it). (Actually, all the books that are next to the chair I’m currently sitting in are the ones that have newly come into my house and haven’t yet been entered into the Word file database I keep of all the books I own. I’m a little behind so it’s a large stack of books.)

What is the first sentence on the page?

“She ignored my question.”

What is the last sentence on the page?

“This neglect meant something far worse.”

Now… Connect them together… (And no you may not transcribe the entire page of the book - that’s cheating!)

She ignored my question. She was busy eating her muffin so ravenously, as if she had never eaten such a muffin before. It was cute, sweet, but I still wanted to know how she’d gotten to where she was. I looked at her intently, hoping to suggest my inquiry was serious and I was determined to know the answer, but her curiousity wasn’t restricted to the man sitting across from her.

Her eyes wandered around the cafe. Every time she experienced something, it was as if it were the first time she’d ever experienced anything like it - the muffin, the cafe, the people in it; even when I approached her and offered to buy her breakfast, she was taken aback. Had human kindness never touched her?

Her head whipped into my direction and she smiled one of those big, bright smiles that sooth even the most confused souls. Suddenly my question didn’t matter anymore and I only wanted to look into those almond-shaped beaming green eyes as they drank in my curiousity. I wanted to know everything about her, not just why she came here or what put her in the condition she was in when I found her. I wanted to know about her sixth grade teacher, her seventeenth birthday, her favorite magazine, what she did under the covers with a flashlight after her parents went to bed. I wanted to know if she enjoyed camping and whether or not she’d ever consider travelling to Chesire countryside with me to spend the night.

“What are you thinking?” she asked, her voice as comforting as her eyes. She rarely spoke, as shy as she was, but what came out where smooth, silky sounds that made one’s heart jump. Her head cocked to one side and her smile began to fade.

“Oh, nothing important,” I lied. I think we promised not to lie to each other when we met this morning, but I felt embarassed to tell her I was thinking of our future. Perhaps as far as she was concerned, we didn’t have a future past this breakfast.

“You look worried.” Her expression doubted me. I realized that she probably hadn’t even heard my question; how could such a sweet, genuine girl ignore someone this way?

I hesitated. “I’m in good shape,” I replied. I’m in good shape? What does that mean? I shook my head and lowered it down so that I was looking at the table. Sometimes a guy can say really dumb things in the presence of a beautiful girl.

“I can tell.” She smiled and then continued her observation of the room around us, apparently content with my answer. I averted my eyes from the table and looked towards the serving bar. A bit of a grin fell across my face; I couldn’t help it. She clearly had been looking and liked what she saw, and I couldn’t ignore the fact that I liked what I saw in her, too.

She scooted her chair closer to my side of the table and I wondered if I should have been noticing these things. I tend to read too much into small motions or changes in facial expressions and draw conclusions based on what I want to be happening. I tend to end up making a fool of myself based on these assumptions, but she did agree to breakfast, right? I still wondered if that was just for a free meal, if she would have agreed to anyone who’d asked. If this was a date, it was the weirdest date I’d ever been on. She couldn’t even make eye contact for more than a few minutes.

I tried to bring something light-hearted back into the conversation. “Hey, stranger, tell me your name.” I’d only just realized that she’d never told me, nor had I ever asked. We’d only been in each other’s company for an hour or so, so it wasn’t too terribly awful of us, but I suddenly felt it very important to ask her her name. I couldn’t keep thinking of her as “that girl who let me buy her breakfast;” I had to put a more suitable label to that face.

“M-my name?” she stuttered, surprised, and I also detected a hint of betrayal. I wondered if asking her name offended her, like in those old fairy tales where no one knows the true name of any of their friends, only nicknames provided as masks to cover up the true nature of the being. She stared at me almost in disgust, though only her eyes told what she was feeling. Her lips were still curved up and her posture hadn’t slumped. “Why would you want to know that?”

“Well,” I started, confused, “so I have something to call you by. Shall I always refer to you as ’stranger’?”

“I’m… perfectly okay with that.” She was uneasy. I’d made her uncomfortable by asking for something so simple as her name. “Can we change the subject, now? Ask me something else.”

This was not like her ignorance of my question. This neglect meant something far worse.

The book? Peony in Love by Lisa See. I got this from Random House a few weeks ago as a free copy, as I’m part of their Reader’s Circle. I don’t know anything about it. Also, I think it would be an interesting idea to take the first and last sentences of a chosen book (or chosen books) and write a short story out of what results.

April 3, 2008

Today’s Booking Through Thursday question is: 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, it really depends on who’s asking and where I am. It used to be the “classics” - Dickens, Twain, Tolstoy, Shelley, etc etc, no matter what. But when I started working at my current job, I started associating the word with what is contained in the actual “literature” section there. Anthologies, literary letters, books about authors or authors’ works, literary criticism, and so on. However, I only think of it this way at work. It has to be in that context, otherwise those sections are just what they are to me; they don’t belong under the “literature” heading.

Generally, though, now I suppose the word “literature” applies to “modern classics.” When I think of Dickens and those types of authors, I do think of the word “classics” (not to be confused with the word “classical,” which makes me think of Homer and Virgil and those fellows). I think of Gore Vidal, Kurt Vonnegut, Ray Bradbury, Annie Dillard, Ha Jin, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, etc. “Thinking” fiction, as I compared it to mainstream fiction in my most recent review of Once… by James Herbert. For lack of a better way to put it - it’s literary fiction.

I do read literature how I define it outside of work. The “read when I must” doesn’t really apply to me since I’m not in school or anything, but when I was in school, I did find I read a lot of literary-ish stuff, but in even amounts to the less literary stuff I read. I definitely read more literature at this point in my life than I ever have before.

March 27, 2008

Today’s Booking Through Thursday question is: While acknowledging that we can’t judge books by their covers, how much does the design of a book affect your reading enjoyment? Hardcover vs. softcover? Trade paperback vs. mass market paperback? Font? Illustrations? Etc.?

Well, I wouldn’t say cover art affects my reading enjoyment of books, but the other elements certainly do. I’ve read books with miniscule fonts slapped onto large pages - rather, I’ve struggled through books with miniscule fonts slapped onto large pages, mostly finding myself trying very hard to get into the story and yet wanting nothing more than to start a new book. I generally don’t like reading books with a lot of illustrations because I tend to get sucked into them and lose my place in the story (unless, of course, it’s a storybook); however (and possibly hypocritically), books that strive to have small illustrations at the beginning of each chapter, I feel, should have different illustrations which take some point from the theme or a detail in the chapter. For example, I’m currently reading a book which has a small picture of a castle at the beginning of each chapter. No fun! I want each picture to be different - a woman heading the chapter with the friendly neighbor woman who makes breakfast, a frighteningly skinny man heading the chapter with the creepy butler. Perhaps I don’t enjoy the story less because all the illustrations are the same, but I feel I would enjoy it that much more if they were different.

I’d be surprised to find out if different book formats didn’t affect someone’s enjoyment of a book. Most people seem to prefer certain things over other things - personally, I like trade paperbacks best. I really dislike reading hardcovers, but I will if I have to; and mass market paperbacks are fine but they can sometimes get too uncomfortable. You also often face the problem of tiny font, too many words, not much space, but they still managed to squish so many ideas onto one page. Trade paperbacks are comfortable, easy, and they sort of flop around. They remind me of bunny ears. Plus, you really have to try to crack the spines. I feel like I can’t open mass markets or hardcovers all the way while I’m reading because I don’t like cracked spines. Trade papers, however, open fully without that awful bone-cracking sound.

Now, as I said, book covers don’t affect my enjoyment of the book, but I’d like to close this meme by inserting the fact that I do often judge books by their covers and have been known to buy really crappy books with really awesome covers over really great books with terrible covers.

March 20, 2008

Today’s Booking Through Thursday question is: You’ve just reached the end of a book . . . what do you do now? Savor and muse over the book? Dive right into the next one? Go take the dog for a walk, the kids to the park, before even thinking about the next book you’re going to read? What?

(Obviously, there can be more than one answer, here–a book with a cliff-hanger is going to engender different reactions than a serene, stand-alone, but you get the idea!)

For the most part, I savor the moment. First, I have a bit of time to myself (I don’t consider reading time “time to myself” because I’m keeping in close company with the characters). After a bit of distance is placed between the immediate ending of the book, I start to think back on it as a whole. I find that if I try to think of the entire story right away, I focus on the ending too much and miss out on a lot of my musings towards the beginning or middle. (On that note, I sometimes keep track of my questions during a book by writing them down, and this would be the time to go back and see if any of them were answered.) In any case, after I feel like I’ve given the book enough justice to put it back on the bookshelf and stop flipping through/thinking of it, I start on the next book.

It’s a hard task for me to just put a book back on the bookshelf. It may seem odd (because it is), but I don’t like to put them away from my sight so quickly. I’d like for them to float around a little while in front of me, reminding me of the enriching story I’ve just gotten through or the favorite character who shared his life with me.

If, however, the book is part of a series, and assuming I’ve read the first one*, I’ll usually immediately pick up the next, if I can. This is whether or not there’s a cliffhanger; sometimes these books stand well enough on their own, but I’m so interested in the lives of the characters that I just must go on!

*Often times I find myself accidentally picking up a book in the middle of a series. This is due to some confusion in copyright date/republishing, the listing on the inside cover of the book, or incorrect website information. For example, I somehow got it through my head that Unsigned was the first book in Julie Kaewert’s Booklover mysteries. I got through it fine, albeit a bit confused, and now plan on going back to the first to start all over. Yes, it’s true, that was the fifth book in the series so I have a lot of catching up to do!

« Previous ·