Guru, you may regret asking this question…

Musing Monday is hosted by Becca of Just One More Page. Pop over and read lots of interesting comments & post your own. This week book-blogger Becca asks ...

Do you have an account with an online book database site (LibraryThing, Shelfari, GoodReads etc)? If so, do you have a preference? Do you use it for - your own record keeping? finding new books to read? social networking?

When I started blogging it was all about getting a handle on what I have read, am reading, want to read. As you know I found a whole world of fun and new friends, and my blogging became more about  the subject of reading. All this is a long way of saying that yes I have Shelfari & GoodReads accounts because I found myself distracted from my original purpose on my blog.

I loved Shelfari when I started and made it my TBR shelf on my sidebar but, because I’m not really fantastic oat the blogging thing, I found the functionality annoying so I tried Goodreads. Again, was overwhelmed by the amount of stuff I don’t know. I’d love to try LibraryThing, i see it on so many of your blogs and it looks REALLY interesting, but with two failures under my belt am a bit gun-shy (not to mention time-poor). 

And…. to come full circle my recent post listing what I've read this year on WeRead satisfied my desire for all the things for which I originally started this blog. My plan is to do reviews for all my 2009 reads to add to this post and to do another listing all the books I’ve read. This is fairly ambitious (for me) so maybe when I’ve got that done I’ll book the guru up for another intensive lesson and venture out beyond my blogging comfort-zone.

pop quiz

BTT is a long running bookish meme. To join in pop over and read the 100's of interesting comments.

Try this quick quiz…

Reading something frivolous? Or something serious? Serious

Paperbacks? Or hardcovers? Paperbacks

Fiction? Or Nonfiction? Fiction

Poetry? Or Prose? Prose

Biographies? Or Autobiographies? neither

History? Or Historical Fiction? both

Series? Or Stand-alones? both (series for fantasy especially)

Classics? Or best-sellers? classics

Lurid, fruity prose? Or straight-forward, basic prose? none of these, but I do like quirky or lyrical prose

Plots? Or Stream-of-Consciousness? plot please

Long books? Or Short? both

Illustrated? Or Non-illustrated? usually non

Borrowed? Or Owned? owned

New? Or Used? both

Cover detracttion

Musing Monday is hosted by Becca of Just One More Page. Pop over and read lots of interesting comments & post your own. This week betoken Becca asks about book covers…again.

As a follow up to last week’s question, Melody asked about when book covers do not match the story. Do you feel disappointed when the cover’s don’t match the story? Have you ever been completely misled by a book cover?

I suppose I do look to the cover to betoken the story and yes I do feel betrayed if the story doesn’t live up to the jacket. As I rarely buy solely based on the cover it’s not a huge problem.

I thought this Twilight cover was interesting or even arresting, was disappointed by the story but I didn't buy it for the cover I bought it for bookclub so it doesn’t count .

 

This cover of To Kill a Mockingbird does nothing for me but I know the book so have it in my collection for the story not the cover, it might be a pity if others are not drawn to it because of the cover… probably a new snazzier one out now anyway.

I’ve picked up some historical fiction by the cover but the blurb usually gives the game away, it it’s a bit Mills & Boonish (not that there’s anything wrong with that) I’ll put it back. Likewise some SF have covers that sometime don’t match the blurb. So while I’m sometimes attracted to books I then reject I don’t think I’ve ever been completely misled by a cover, I’m to precious with my money to buy anything unless I’m fairly certain.

One book I would not have read by the cover alone is The Time Traveller’s Wife. This, to me, very ordinary cover put me off but I was nagged into ignoring the cover AND the  promise of ‘romance’ in the blurb by Becca and since have recommended it to others, because she was right (again), it is fantastic.

In short I read books based on much more than the cover.

2009

January

• When Christ and His Saints Slept Sharon Penman
• Time and Chance Sharon Penman
• Middlesex Jeffrey Eugenides

February

• The Devil’s Brood Sharon Penman (unfinished)
• Friday Night Knitting Club Kate Jacobs
• Night Fall Isaac Asimov

March

• Little Women Louisa May Alscott
• March Geraldine Brooks
• Tales of the Unexpected Roald Dahl (unfinished)

April

• To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee
• The Handmaid’s Tale Margaret Attwood
• Kiss Kiss Roald Dahl (unfinished)

May

• The God of Small Things Arundhati Roy
• Disquiet Julia Leigh
• Freda: A Biography of Freda Whitlam Noelene Martin
• Mrs Dalloway Virginia Wolfe (unfinished)

June

• Twilight Stephanie Meyers
• The Time Traveller’s Wife Audrey Niffenegger
• Making Glass Beads Cindy Jenkins

July

• The Best Thing Margo Lanagan
• Good Omens Neil Gamon/Terry Pratchett
• Northern Lights Phillip Pullman
• The Time Traveller's Wife Audrey Niffenegger

August

• Earth Abides George Stewart
• Girl with a Pearl Earring Tracy Chevalier

September

• Romulous my Father Raimond Gaita
• Fahrenheir 451 Ray Bradbury

October

• Cold Skin Stephen Herrick
• the Slap Christos Tsiolkas

November

• The Boy in the Strippied Pyjamas John Boyne

December

• A Christmas Carol Charles Dickens

Time Traveller’s Wife

• The Time Traveller’s Wife Audrey Niffenegger 
• pp 546
• Genre: Romance, SF, Speculative
• Tone: quirky, self deprecating love story
• Rating: DDG
• Fav Line: Clare” "It's hard being left behind. I wait for Henry, not knowing where he is, wondering if he's okay. It's hard to be the one who stays."
• Synopsis: Henry De Tamble suffers from a genetic disorder that causes unpredictable, involuntary time displacements – forward and backward of his own time-line. He just ends up in a different time; disoriented, hungry and naked. He starts this adventurous lifestyle at five years old, it sounds great to have this potential but the logistics of arriving some other time with none of the basics – food, clothing, shelter mean that this is a life only viable for someone young and fit. Henry’s great fear is that something will happen to his feet that will prevent him from running – a thing you have to be very good at to survive his kind of life.

  He meets Clare when he’s 28. He’s never seen her before but she’s known him since she was a little girl finding him, a grown man, naked, hiding in the bushes near her home. Confused? You’ll have to read it, it is well worth picking up, you’ll read the first chapter and be totally hooked!

What do I think?

Described in the blurb as an ‘unconventional love story’ it was the ‘unconventional’ that attracted me. I find it very curious that this book was Niffenegger’s response to her own lacklustre love life, a metaphor for her failed romances.

Genre-wise it’s been placed in both romance, science fiction but I read it as speculative fiction because that’s what interests me. The premise: a man with a genetic disorder that makes time travelling an unpredictable part of his life falls in love, marries and is accepted as ‘normal’ within his circle of friends and acquaintances intrigued me.

I love the structure, alternating first person perspectives following Henry and Clare as they make sense of their lives. Each new section is dated giving the ages of Henry (which can vary according to ‘when’ he is) and Clare. I can’t imagine how Niffenegger plotted this story or kept all the time-lines in her mind. You may feel tempted to keep track of what’s happening and when (I did) so for example when Henry is ‘chrono-displacing’ (the name of his disorder) you know something about what’s happening in Clare’s timeline.

Henry runs into himself when he travels too...I love it...the idea of his older self being the one who explains to his five year old self what’s happening when he time travels and how to cope with it is fantastic. This is refreshingly original from a speculative point of view, this is a world where you can meet yourself without dissolving as in so many other time travelling narratives (think Back to the Future).

Henry is a runner, he needs it to help him manage his stress levels (stress is a trigger for time travelling). If he wants to stay in Clare’s present for something special like their wedding- day from example he needs to run every day. Henry’s demise is foregounded when he explains to Clare how important his running is to him, it makes his return from one ‘trip’ with frostbitten feet amazingly poignant.

I know it’s Friday but…

BTT is a long running bookish meme. To join in pop over and read the 100's of interesting comments.

Following up from last week’s question ...Do you keep all your unread books together, like books in a waiting room? Or are they scattered throughout your shelves, mingling like party-goers waiting for the host to come along?

So I’m late…again…but to be fair I thought it was Thursday! As you can see from last weeks BBT post my bedroom is also my TBR waiting-room. New books arrive and usually go to the top of the pile on my bedside bookshelf, often pushing one/some off the bottom and onto a shelf further away, but still insight of my bed.

This is called, in my own twisted way, moving to the back of the bus. Sometimes I feel sorry for those moved to the back of the bus and sometimes I’ll retrieve one for reading purely on the basis that it was once a treasure.

Since I’ve been slack in the looking for work department my book buying has slowed down (a bit, really it has, honest) so I haven’t moved any to the back of the bus for a while. Also, since I finished uni, I’ve been reading off the ‘one-day-books’ pile, so it’s easy to keep all my unreads in my bedroom the problem is the shelves that they move to once read are chockers and MGM has vetoed new shelves!

cover attraction + blurb attraction = purchase

Musing Monday is hosted by Becca of Just One More Page. Pop over and read lots of interesting comments & post your own. This week bijou Becca asks about book covers…

We all know the old adage about not judging a book by it’s cover, but just how much sway does a book cover have when it comes to your choice of book – whether buying or borrowing? Are there any books you’ve bought based on the cover alone?

Let’s face it publishers have taken a leaf out of Mother Nature’s book, designing their covers with the express aim of attracting unsuspecting prey. One of my favourite memes is Marcia’s cover attraction over at The Printed Page. Each Wednesday the most amazing artwork is posted by Marcia and those participating in the meme but Marcia’s gorgeous blog is covered in covers - I like visiting her blog just to look at them.

While I’ll pick up one book and not another, based solely on the cover, I rarely buy that way. If the blurb matches the cover in the way of attraction I’ll go for it but I’m often disappointed when the blurb doesn’t match the potential in the cover.

A quick scan of my bookshelves revealed something interesting, most of my books were chosen for their renown; award winners, classics from the cannon, authors of repute… the only books I can acknowledge as true cover attractions are fantasy books.

Amongst others these standout because I knew nothing about them before I bought them and was completely engrossed from page one, for all of them.

 The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant by Stephen Donaldson

 

 

 

 

The Belgariad by David Eddings

 

 

The Saga of the Exiles by Juliann May