Book meme

[chickenfeet]

From chiller, book meme (who could resist):

Hardback or trade paperback or mass market paperback?

I like fine bindings and even for standard editions i prefer the solidity of hardback. Mass market paperbacks feel icky and are hard to read with my ancient failing eyes.

Amazon or brick and mortar?

Both. I tend to use Amazon more as I am cheap and like discounts but I do patronise the local independent book store.

Barnes & Noble or Borders?

Neither. I am Canadian. In meatspace i use either WBBS if I am bargain hunting or Nicholas Hoare because it is such a nice store and is more attuned to my reading tastes than most.

Bookmark or dog-ear?

Bookmark all the way. Folding pages over is almost as evil as underlining and similar atrocities.

Alphabetise by author or alphabetise by title or random?

In principle by author within subject categories. In practice in pilkes all over the place. There are two more bookcases on order. I may eventually have to move out to make more room for books.

Keep, throw away, or sell?

Mostly keep. I do occasionally purge the trashier fiction and sometimes a favourite paperback title will be replaced with a better binding. In such cases the books go to Goodwill.

Keep dust jacket or toss it?

Keep until it gets too tatty.

Short story or novel?

Either, though to be honest I read at least ten times as much non-fiction as fiction.

Harry Potter or Lemony Snicket?

Yawn.

Stop reading when tired or at chapter breaks?

Or when I get to my stop or whatever really.

"It was a dark and stormy night" or "Once upon a time"?

Hwaet!

Buy or borrow?

Buy.

New or used?

Either.


Buying choice:

What does this mean? Choice of what?

Tidy ending or cliffhanger?

It all depends.

Morning reading, afternoon reading, or night-time reading?

Mostly night time because that's when I have free time. Also buses, subway, planes etc.

Stand-alone or series?

Either. Some of my favourite novels are series such as "A Dance to the Music of Time".

Favourite series?

See above.

Favourite children's book?

Maybe the Asterix books. Preferably in French.

Favourite book of which nobody else has heard?

This is kind of presumptious among such a well read lot as my FL. Marc Bloch's "Strange Defeat" perhaps. Most people haven't read much of EP Thompson's political writing and both "Writing by Candlelight" and "The Poverty of Theory" are good.

What are you reading right now?

Norman Naimark "The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation 1945-49". It's really good and recommended for anyone interested in the early phases of the Cold War.

What are you reading next?

Either Marc Bloch "The Historian's Craft" or Eva Kaul's "The Reign of the Phallus: Sexual Politics in Classical Athens".

Favorite book to re-read?

Quite a few actually. "War and Peace", "The Roads to Freedom" , anything by Zola. I really should reread some early Solzhenitsyn. I read "A Dance to the Music of Time" every couple of years.

Do you ever smell books?

Well yes,but I don't go out of my way to do it.

Comments

[okoshun.livejournal.com]

I *love* Nicholas Hoare. It has got to be one of my favourite bookstores to just go into and wander around looking at things. It's so hard not to walk out with hundreds of dollars of books.

[melted-snowball.livejournal.com]

While both are evil, underlining and highlighting are far, far more evil than dog-earing.

[a-d-medievalist.livejournal.com]

My teaching books I gloss and dog-ear all the time. You might try balancing the Kaul with some Sarah Pomeroy. She's really good.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

I have read some Pomeroy, "Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves". I liked it a lot. "Spartan Women" is on my Amazon wish list.

[dyddgu.livejournal.com]

I may eventually have to move out to make more room for books.

In the same boat as us, then. *looks at piles of books*

A retired librarian came in the other day, and took out what she called "the least underlined copy" of a book; she then recounted to me the day she'd caught someone red-handed underlining, and had placed them on a special desk in the middle of the library for all to see, and set him to rubbing out his handiwork.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

Quite right too. The offender should then have been flogged to death and beheaded.