Book Addiction Has Never Been So Pretty

My name is Sarah and I have a problem.
I buy books. A lot of books. I buy them used, new, paperback, hardcover, electronic. I don't discriminate. I try and read what I buy. I do. But sometimes I buy three books at once and I only make it through two before I go shopping again.  That's not to mention the times where I read a review and I can barely wait the three minutes it takes to one click buy the book on amazon. It's a sickness. My bank account hates me. I'm running out of room on my shelves.

The point I'm trying to make is that I have a ton of books that I haven't read. What's worse is that I have a ton of books that I'd forgotten that I own. I needed a way to organize my To Be Read list. Which is why when I saw this post on Book Riot I immediately texted my mom to see if she had any unused mason jars. Thankfully she had one.

The idea is that you write down all of the books you want to read and throw them in the jar (or whatever container you want, the mason jar looks nice in my room) and pick one out when you don't know what to read. So last night I spent way to much time going through my bookshelves writing down all of my unread books on colorful pieces of paper. It was a revealing exercise. Like I said before I have a lot of unread books.

After a two hours and a lot of reminiscing I'd made it through all my shelves.  Instead of being embarrassed by the number of unread books I have, I was actually quite proud of the number I have finished.  I split up my shelves by color. Classics in yellow, contemporary fiction in blue, the only sizable genre I read is historical fiction so that's in pink, and then the odds and ends (like nonfiction, young adult and fantasy) are in orange.

Had I done this months, or let's be real years, ago I'd have noticed some trends that would probably have saved me a lot of money. For starters I'll buy any classic so long as I don't already own it and think there is some slight chance in Athena's heaven that I'll ever get to it. Second, I need to stop buying historical fiction novels at rummage sales. Third, if I don't like an author once I'll be hesitant to try them again (There's no need for me to have four Zadie Smith novel's when I can barely make it a hundred pages into them). Lastly, while my young adult and nonfiction selves take up the least amount of space in my personal library they are also the ones with the highest percentage of finished books. Basically the lesson I learned was that if I'm not super into a genre I'm more critical of what I pick up. If I buy a memoir it's usually because I'm going to go home and read it that day. I should take that discipline and use it for the other sections of my library.

 

Now all my unread books are jumbled together in an antique mason jar. I officially can never say "I have nothing to read" as an excuse for well, not reading. My goal is to never go more than a day in between books. I'm hoping having everything color coded will allow me to find books I'm really in the mood for instead of forcing myself through Hemingway when all I really want is to read one of the many a killer thriller.  I think I'll draw from the jar at least every five books. That way I can still read what I want and make a dent in my personal library.  Here's hoping that this is a system I can stick with!

Do any of you have strategy for cutting down on unread books? What about ever growing TBR lists? I'm all ears!

If on a winter's night you read an article about Italo Calvino...

It seems like every year I take on a challenging read. It's not a personal goal I make for myself, but usually just something that happens along the course of 12 months. A few years ago it was to tackle Pynchon (The Crying of Lot 49 was all I could manage), 2012 was the year I finally battled through Anna Karenina. Last year all I wanted from myself was to rekindle my love of the written word. I did that, but along the way I discovered my unintentional goal - Italo Calvino.

I'd heard talk of If on a winter's night a traveler around the internet. it was apparently experience  a resurgence in the way that only a half forgotten classic could. It would appear in quotes on my tumblr, on a flavorwire list, or mentioned in a post by a favorite blogger. Me being, well me, fell in love with the idea of a book that's written half in first chapters of other lost books. Books about books are romantic, right? Not romance books, but in general they appeal to the bookish set.  Amazon told me it was 260 pages and I was in need of a new read, so 40 seconds later I was diving into it on my kindle.

I didn't know what I was getting myself into. What I thought was going to be an interesting second person story about a guy who was unfortunate enough to pick up a misprinted copy of If on a winter's night a traveler, and  punctuated with chapters that were more short story than plot points turned into an outright adventure through fictional countries, with rouge translators, publishing houses and a shut away author.

Even though I was always interested in actual plot (not always the first chapter stories) it was still hard to push through Calvino's novel. There was too much musing on the process of writing, and a few to many fantastical turns for me to stay in the realm of suspended disbelief.  It became a book I'd come back to when I had nothing else to read. I'd fight through five pages and then forget about it for months. This was no tome but I was treating it like one. It's the book that inspired me to write this post on ebooks. I couldn't easily flip back through the text to job my memory and found myself rereading chapters over and over again. 

I know that's a flaw with myself, not the text. At the same time if I'd been compelled to finish this 260 page novel in a timely fashion it wouldn't have been a problem. In the end I was enchanted by a gimmick - a dozen first chapters, a book about books. If on a winter's night a traveler didn't hold my attention, and therefore lost my affection.  Sorry Calvino, I promised I tried.

The Dinner - Herman Koch

The Dinner

Herman Koch

In a upscale restaurant in Amsterdam the Lohman family reunites for a very unique dining experience. Their dinner won't be filled with just mindless chit chat and long descriptions of courses.  No matter how many times they look over the menu or talk about the latest poll results it won't change the fact that their children have done something terrible, and that these two sets of parents will do anything to protect them.

I thought I knew what I was getting into when I started The Dinner. I didn't.  The book is split into different courses. With each one you learn more about the Lohman family, and the events that brought them all together. I should backtrack. The Lohman's are Serge, who is running for Prime Minister, his wife Babette, his frankly unstable brother Paul, and Paul's wife Claire.  I don't think it's too much of a spoiler to tell you that they're all awful people. At 320 pages The Dinner should be a breeze. The theme's are interesting - nature versus nurture, family and the crumbling of society - and they each play huge roles on almost every page. Only it's hard to be interesting in these concepts when every single person, from Paul to the wait staff are irritating. Not every narrator has to be likeable but at some point there should be a character you have some positive feelings for. Even a homeless woman who is described near the end of the novel barely gets more than pity from me. Really, these are not people you would ever want to be in line behind at Starbucks.

While I absolutely hated all of the main characters and a large chunk of the supporting ones I did enjoy a few things about The Dinner. For starters Paul is an incredibly unreliable narrator. Maybe that's why everyone comes off so bad? I'll let you decide that for yourself. The real trick here is that you don't discover exactly how skewed his perspective is until late in the novel when his backstory becomes important. The backstory was another thing I appreciated, even if it was a bit heavy handed.. Instead of large chunks of exposition you're treated to little scenes that really attempted to make these awful people feel real.

At the end of the day the story isn't enough to make up for all of the flaws working against Koch's novel. He set out to tackle some pretty big themes and just fell short of making anything stick.  Possibly the worst thing going against The Dinner is that I gave it three stars on goodreads. It's not bad enough to make me angry, or good enough for me to recommend. At the end of the day it's just taking up space on my Kindle.

Top Ten Tuesday - Bookish Resolutions

 Top Ten Bookish Resolutions

1. Pay More Attention to this Blog - I put in my personal resolutions that I would ideally post here at least once a week. I really love this community and it's a shame I come in and out so frequently.
2. Review EVERYTHING I Read -This was a problem for me last year, only about a third of the books I read got thoughtful reviews. I'd originally started reviewing so I could remember what I read, and after a year of barely doing it I discovered that I need that critical thinking to ingrain some texts into my memory.
3. Always Have a Book On Me - The latter half of 2013 was a whole lot of fun, but there were a lot of idle moment I could have enjoyed if I'd just kept a paperback or my kindle in my purse.
4. Go to More Author Events - They're fun, they're cheap, and usually you meet awesome people.
5. Work on My Twitter and Tumblr Presences - It's been a while since I've tweeted from my Bookish account, but I have recently been working on a sister Tumblr for this blog. It's mostly pictures and quotes right now but I'm excited to see how I can evolve it.
6. Enforce the Fifty Page Rule - For those of you not in the know, my fifty page rule states that I'll give a book, any book, fifty pages to grab my attention. After that if I'm not enjoying it or not sure I'm interested in the story I am free to toss it aside guilt free. When I don't enforce this rule I end up spending three months reading a 200 page novel.
7. Finish my Harry Potter Reread - Self explanatory, yeah?
8. Read Books Set in Far Away Places by Far Away People - Last year I focused on new releases, and learned that I'm pretty good at reading male and female authors evenly. This year I want' to broaden my horizons. The bookish world is so much more than white people in American and Europe writing about, well, America and Europe. I'm really excited for this resolutions. 
9. Read a Bit Every Day - It's been years since this has been a problem, but like I said, winter 2013 wasn't the best time of my bookish life. This year I've already thrown myself into more books than I did for all of November and December. That just started by telling myself 'Hey, you actually like doing this so do it.' The internet and DVR will always be there for me and at least a half an hour of reading can calm me down and brighten my mood.
10. Have Fun - This is one of my resolutions every year. This blog should never feel like a chore and the books I'm reading shouldn't feel like homework. Life is too short to make my favorite hobby into an obligation.

Happy 2014 Everyone. I've got a feeling it's going to be a great year!

Reading Challange

I'm not usually one for reading challenges. I like to be free to read whatever I want whenever I want. I'm kind of selfish like that. However I did come across the European Reading Challenge and decided, hey it's a new year, I should try some new things. I should be able to make it through at least 3 qualifying books.  So here I go. 2014. The year I do my first reading challenge. Go team!

2013 in Review

I spent New Year's Day watching sports with a head cold, my car broke down, work was crazy. These are my lame excuse for not getting up my 2013 in Review post in a timely manner. They're not great excuses.  I'll try to do better in 2014.
Anyway, 2013 was a big year for me. I changed jobs, moved,  went to new places, and read some great books. Since this blog is dedicated to the latter here's my list of books read in 2013.

1. David Mitchell: Back Story - Mitchell
2. Beautiful Creatures - Garcia/Stohl
3. Office Girl - Meno
4. Where'd You Go, Bernadette - Semple
5. Sweet Tooth - McEwan
6. Fanfarlo - Baudelaire*
7. Beautiful Darkness - Garcia/Stohl
8. The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg - Twain*
9. Beautiful Chaos - Garcia/Stohl
10. Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald - Fowler
11. Beautiful Redemption - Garcia/Stohl
12. Tenth of December - Saunders
13. The Casual Vacancy - Rowling
14. The Devil - Tolstoy*
15 The Aviators Wife - Benjamin
16. Pride & Prejudice - Austen
17. 1984 - Orwell
18. The Little Prince - Saint-Exupery
19. A Map of Tulsa - Lytal
20. Looking for Alaska - Green
21. The Horla - Da Maupassant*
22. The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards - Jansma
23. The Alienist - De Assis*
24. Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls - Sedaris
25. The Fun Parts - Sipste
26. How the Two Ivan's Quarreled - Gogol*
27. Inferno - Brown
28. Vile Bodies - Waugh
29. American Gods - Gaiman
30. The Ocean at the End of the Lane - Gaiman
31. An Abundance of Katherines - Green
32. The White Princess - Gregory
33. The Love Affairs of Nathanial P- Waldman
34. The Distracted Preacher - Hardy*
35. The Last Runaway - Cheavlier
36. Dispatch from the Future - Stein
37. The Kite Runner - Hosseini
38. The Cookoo's Calling - Galbraith/Rowling
39. The Enchantress Returns (Land of Stories #2) - Colfer
40.  Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone - Rowling
41. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - Rowling
42. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - Rowling
43. Fortunately, The Milk - Gaiman
44. If on a winter's night a traveler - Calvino
45. The Snow Queen - Anderson*

My original goal was to read 30 books, and to focus on newer releases. I accomplished both and am quite proud of the results, especially since I let my reading habits fall by the wayside this winter.

I hope to read more in 2014 and to make more time for all of you readers. Hope everyone has enjoyed the new year so far!

My New Problem with eBooks

2013 has been a year of ebooks. I'm speaking from personal experience. A third of the books I've read this year have been kindle reads. I'm not here to complain, lament the state of publishing, or whine about the decline of the physical book.  I love my kindle. It's there for me when I really want to read a tome that is too heavy to jam into my purse. It's perfect for when I'm looking for a new book and don't want to change out of my pajamas. Plus I've had mine signed by Neil Gaiman and I think that's pretty awesome. What I'm getting at is that I've had some truly magical reading moments with ebooks this year.

But I've noticed a problem.

The other night I was making goodreads shelves for all the years I've had this blog. I thought it would be a torturous process. I've always been a reader but it wasn't until I really started taking blogging seriously that I kept track of how many books I was going through and goodreads wasn't the first site* I used to cateloge my growing collection.

I found pretty quickly that while I only had a vague memory of some plots -2009 and 2010 were years ago - I had vivid memories of reading each book I archived. Some were simple, just me lying in my first apartment tearing through The Heights just so I could finish it and return it to the Library. Others were whole scenes, like reading The Boy in Striped Pajamas and pausing to rant to my roommate about how upset I was that I was crying over a children's book.  There were books I read on trains, and some on my patio in the summer sun. There were instant favorites and quite a few that I read only out of obligation. At the end of the day, well, at the end of 2013, I still have a perfect memory of each and every one of these books.

This probably isn't unique to me. However I've found that even looking at my list of books from this year I don't have those same warm memories. I'm finding this problem more with books I read on my kindle. Those books actually needed to resonate with me as stories to be memorable. I can gush about American Gods and The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards, but Vile Bodies and The Fun Parts? Not so much. Even some of my least favorite books of this year still send me down memory lane so long as I have a real copy of it. I can remember sitting in the break room finishing Office Girl but there's a handful of eBooks that are lost to me.

I saw a post a few years ago that talked about how the biggest threat ebooks posed to that readers life was a library that would never see a post Kindle age, one where every hardcover that they owned was published before 2011. That's a real concern for me, but I've discovered it's for another reason. I need a physical book for some of these memories to set. For me that's enough of a reason to spend an extra few dollars on bound paper.

What about you guys? Are you finding your relationship with ebooks is any different from the one you had with paper? Let me know!

 

*Does anyone still use Librarything?