15 Day Book Blogger Challenge: Days fourteen and fifteen

Day 14: What are your deal breakers?

What will make me put a book straight back on the shelf without a second glance?

• Stories about adultery/affairs. Especially if the book is from the point of view of the person having the affair. I'd find it very difficult to respect such a protagonist or have any sympathy for them.
• Narrators describing their appearance in the mirror. "I stare into the glass, and a twenty-something year old woman looks back at me, her brown straight hair framing a round face with an overlarge nose, and eyes that were somewhere between blue and grey." Bleugh! No one thinks like that. It's lazy writing, and it shows that the first thing the writer wants you to know about your heroine (and it's always a woman) is every last detail of what she looks like, because that's the most important thing about a female lead. Don't ever do that. Ever.
• Telling, not showing. I have a thing called the "Danielle Steel test," where I pick up a book, open it at random, and see how far I can read without wanting to hurl it across the room. Generally this is due to descriptions such as: "Jane thought that Kevin was being very unfair." "Sarah might not show it but really she was very fond of her sister." "James wished he could control his temper." Show me, then. Make me believe it.
• Multi-volume novels. Trilogies are in vogue at the moment, particularly in the teen fantasy genre, but I wonder how many are necessary, and how many could, with a bit of editing, be condensed into a single book. If I begin a story, I want to see it through to the end - but if I'm not sure whether I'll like it or not, and if I have to wait three years to reach the end, I'll think twice about whether I'm prepared to commit to the story. I'd prefer series which are one book = one story; related and in order, sure, but which work as stand-alone novels. This one is a difficult thing to categorise, though, because there are some really engrossing series out there, which are worth the years of commitment. (Harry Potter, A Song of Ice and Fire, The Hunger Games.) But if I've read a hundred books since the last installment of the Fairypocolypse Chronicles, will I still care enough to carry on with book 2?
• Books with grey and black minimalist covers, usually featuring ribbons, jewellery, rippling fabric or the like.  You know the ones. It's not prudishness on my part - it's boredom. Less is more.

Day 15: Who are your book blogging mentors?

Anna, Ginger and Smash have been very influential when I found myself becoming involved in the book blogging community, in particular as adult readers of YA fiction. They have run some great regular features, discussion posts and memes, and inspired me to think up new ideas for the blog aside from just the book reviews. (I hadn't actually visited Smash Attack Reads in a while: it now appears to be a collaborative blog with not one but FOUR fantastic bloggers.) Meanwhile, Ellie and Hanna have a more informal approach to blogging, with eclectic mixtures of book reviews and personal posts, which have encouraged me to be more relaxed about blogging even if I don't feel inspired to write a structured review. Rants and reading-journal-format posts also make great blogging. And I've only recently started following Laura and Sarah, whose reviews have inspired me to want to take out my credit card and buy ALL the books.

15 Day Book Blogger Challenge: Day Thirteen

Day 13: Describe one underappreciated book EVERYONE should read.

This is a difficult one. Everyone? I am well aware how different everyone's reading tastes are, so instead I will offer two.

Tell The Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt quietly slipped into the bookshops and libraries earlier this year with the minimum of fuss, but really deserves to have been noticed. It's a quiet sort of story about a teenage girl coming to terms with the death of her beloved uncle. It is a thoughtful, very honest story about family, loneliness, art, unrequited love and growing up, with a family portrait as the centrepiece.

Redshirts by John Scalzi is a must-read for Star Trek fans, or indeed anyone familiar with the trope of the expendable extra whose only function in a story is to die horribly in order to give a sense of peril to the plot. This is their story. The tagline on the front cover reads: "They were expendable... until they started comparing notes."

Warning: this book causes idiotic giggling. Read in public at your own peril! Redshirts is a wonderful parody, "recursive and meta" and completely annihilates the Fourth Wall. I'm not sure if it's objectively good, or whether I enjoyed it because I stumbled upon it at the same time I found myself inadvertantly and bewilderedly falling in love with Star Trek, but it is very clever and the most fun I've had from a book in a long time.

15-Day Book Blogging Challenge: Day Eleven

Day 11: Show off! 5 of your best blog posts!

1. The 50 Greatest Harry Potter Moments.

This one is what it says on the tin. My definitive top fifty moments from the entire series, both books and movies - but if I've forgotten one of your favourite scenes, lines or characters, let me know!

2. When Children's Books Were Two-And-Sixpence

An old post from the days before I actually had more than a couple of followers, before I'd found a book blogging community. In which I rant about kids' classic books being updated for a modern audience.

3: Adults: Why do you read YA?

From 2010, I wrote this post shortly after I'd rediscovered that teen fiction was not all shallow fluff. Also contains pictures of me as a scrawny teenager for you to laugh at.

4. Theatre: Much Ado About Nothing

A review of William Shakespeare's comedy, as performed in London by a certain Mr D. Tennant and Ms C. Tate. Be warned: contains fangirling.

5. V for Vendetta

A review in my very occasional "Graphic Novel Novice" series, this review compares book and film, setting the book against the context in which it was written, and how the different versions of the story complement each other.

15 Day Book Blogging Challenge: Days Nine and Ten

Day 9: Why do you blog about books?

Quite honestly, I blog about books, because most people get tired of me talking about my latest read long before I'm finished with the topic. My English Literature degree taught me how to analyse books, take them apart and study the bits, and believe it or not, this actually enhanced my enjoyment of reading, rather than destroying it. But if I try talking about symbolism, symmetry, foreshadowing, themes, tropes and archetypes as an answer to "what are you reading?" my average acquaintance's eyes start to glaze over. I think fondly of the summer after Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was published, talking for hours with my friend Hannah (another English major) analysing Snape's every action and searching the text with a fine-tooth comb to try to puzzle out the mystery of his motives. But such friends, such conversations, are quite few and far-between, here on the Isle of Wight.

I used to haunt the Lord of the Rings forums, which were great for discussing the works of J R R Tolkien, but less so for Anne of Green Gables or Enid Blyton. I'd find forums, but the posts might be one sentence long, updated maybe once a month. I wanted to talk in depth about Rilla of Ingleside but also Twilight, and also about Neil Gaiman; I had my feet in many fanbases that did not overlap. So I set up the blog, in the hope that other people would find my posts and contribute to the discussion. And when writing blog posts, I can edit my thoughts as I write and so, I hope, my reviews make a bit more sense than my incoherent and rambling fangirling.

Day 10: How do you choose what to read next?

Quite simply, I read whatever I'm in the mood for at the time. My to-read pile has quite a variety of genres: non-fiction, romance, thriller, horror, science fiction and fantasy, as well as the hundreds of books on my shelves. If I have a library book due back, or if I've had a book borrowed from a friend for too long, I'll read that. I don't very often accept free books from authors or publishers, because I don't want reading to become a chore. I'd rather have the freedom to read what I want, when I want, and decide whether or not I have enough to say about it to make it worthwhile reviewing.

15-Day Book Blogging Challenge: Day Eight

Day 8: Quick! Write 15 bullet points of things that appeal to you on blogs.

1. Personal replies to comments. Always good to be listened to and have ongoing conversations
2. Discussion posts about themes, genres, characters, reading habits, etc. etc.
3. Wide variety of books reviewed - old, new, different genres, different age groups... surprise me.
4. Well-written content: correct spelling and grammar, and intelligent discussion of the books reviewed. I'm not asking for a thesis, just an idea of why you liked or didn't like a particular read.
5. Pictures! Give me something pretty to look at. 
6. Blogs that are quick to load and don't make my computer freeze up. My laptop, Ruby, needs to be treated gently, and so I won't visit your site if it crashes the internet every time I try to read it. 
7. Book-to-film comparisons. Is the book always better, or only nearly always?
8. Non-book-related posts, whether that be personal updates, film reviews, shoe collection analysis, crafty creations or beautiful baking. I like to get to know the blogger as well as their reading taste.
9. Rants - whether about feminism or web etiquette or whether the word "indescribable" should be banished from every writer's vocabulary, it's great that people are passionate about things, whether I agree or disagree with the points made.
10. Features, posts or styles that are unique to this particular blogger; not just the same memes and reviews that can be found on a hundred other blogs. (N.b. Memes are great starting points, and I particularly love the Top Ten Tuesdays, but I think your blog benefits from using them sparingly and mixing them with original content.)
11. Theme weeks or months: for example a week of Jane Austen posts, Women in Science Fiction and Fantasy, LGBT in teen literature or Round the World in Eighty Books. (Feel free to swipe any of these feature ideas for your own blogs.)
12. Geekery! Science fiction, fantasy, comic books... a well-placed Princess Bride, Firefly or Star Trek reference will go a long way in making me like you. Geekery combined with handcrafts, doubly so.
13. Likewise, a love of Anne of Green Gables will pretty much guarantee that I will love you forever. Especially if you mention the lesser-known, later books in the series. 
14. Twitter! It's certainly not essential, but it gives me another way to connect with a blogger and get to know them as a person.
15. Bloggers who don't take blogging too seriously. Who do it because they just can't shut up about books, and if anyone from the book industry takes an interest, then that's just a bonus. Book-lovers who want to connect with other book-lovers.

15 Day Book Blogging Challenge: Day Six

Day 6: Describe how you shop for books.

As I wrote on my first post of this challenge, there is a certain art to book shopping, and it's not just about getting the best bargains - although I would be lying if I said I didn't take advantage of a good bargain. Considering that my job is to sell books, you could say that part of my brain is constantly book-shopping, keeping an eye out for a good read, and knowing when is the best time to buy a certain title because of special offers, staff discounts and limited-period money-off coupons. However, you can't browse for books in your own workplace, because you know exactly what is where, so I am known in the rival bookshop across the road, which has a bigger range than we do.

And if I visit another town, I simply have to visit their bookshops, and hopefully not come home empty-handed. I like to buy something we don't sell in our shop, something unusual or new - or old.

I avoid Amazon like the plague, and if a book is unavailable in shops, I'd rather order it instore for full price even than going onto the same shop's website. I'd rather support a physical bookstore than its online equivalent. Also, I don't buy books in supermarkets. I think I've been deterred by all the customers coming in and whining, "It's cheaper in Tesco/on Amazon," and vowed never again. Bookshops all the way!

15 Day Blogging Challenge: Day Five

Apologies for the delayed update. Unfortunately my laptop is being repaired at present, so I'm having to borrow the computers of friendsandrelations for valuable internetting. I miss my computer.

Day 5: Recommend a tear-jerker.

First of all I was going to go with The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, being the most recent book to require tissues, but that's perhaps too obvious, and no doubt you have all read it already. So instead I will go with the book that caused me to, literally, sit up all night reading through tears: Rilla of Ingleside by Lucy Maud Montgomery.

The final book in the Anne of Green Gables series is quite a departure from the rest of the books, and devastating for many reasons. By this time, Anne Shirley has been happily married to Gilbert Blythe for over twenty years, and has six grown-up or teenage children. But it is 1914, and the world is about to change forever with the outbreak of the First World War.

As you might guess from the title, Anne Shirley is not the focus of this novel. She is always there, but in the background, while the novel concentrates on her children, especially fifteen-year-old Rilla, and nineteen-year-old Walter.

Rilla is a very bittersweet read, especially if you think back to the beginning of Anne's tale as the ever-optimistic, imaginative redhead in a timeless village community. The war brings Anne and the Blythe family into the real world, and reality hits hard. How can Anne's story end with such heartbreak and devastation? But Rilla is an outstanding piece of writing, a contemporary study of World War 1 from the point of view of those left behind, the families who had to watch from afar, to carry on with life and hope that their loved ones would return. It also works as a stand-alone novel. It helps to have read the previous books in the series, but it is not essential.

15 Day Book Blogging Challenge: Day Four

Day 4: What was the last book you've thrown across the room?

That's an easy one: XO by Jeffery Deaver. It was not a great book - a pretty good thriller story, with an interesting premise, twists and turns galore, though not very well written. (There was a lot of telling, not showing, "she thought," "he remembered," that sort of thing.) But there was one point where Mr Deaver made us think something terrible had happened. It's a crime thriller, lots of terrible things happen, but there was one particular event that took things to a new level of awful, the killer crossing the Moral Event Horizon.

Except he didn't. Deaver was trolling us all along. And I fell for it. And the book fell out of my hand to the other side of the garden, where it ended up covered in grass stains. Um, oops?

15 Day Book Blogging Challenge: Day Three

Day 3: Who is your blogging BFF?

It's got to be Ellie the bookshop girl. Her blog is fun and informal, a mixture of book reviews, personal posts (with photos and funny gifs) and ranting about the grim reality behind the romantic ideal of running your very own bookshop. Tragically, not all bookshop customers are kindred spirits, folks!

Ellie's the only blogger I've met in real life, when I visited the Peak District earlier this year, and bought up a huge bag of books from her shop. She's just as lovely in real life as she comes across in her blog, and it's great to meet someone for the first time and feel like you've known them forever. (And she makes my book-buying habits look positively saintly!)

15 Day Book Blogger Challenge: Day Two

Day Two: What is your bedtime reading ritual?

I wouldn't say I have a regular ritual when it comes to reading before bed. What I like to do is get ready for bed early, and spend half an hour or an hour winding down and reading - but more often, I will be on the internet right up until bedtime, or beyond, and then wonder why I can't get to sleep. Or watch one more episode of whichever boxset I'm working my way through. If I'm not looking forward to the next day, then I try to delay it as long as possible - you can tell I'm not in a good place if I'm sitting up till 1AM knitting, while my mind is worrying away. All terrible habits, because if I'm not sleeping, then it all just gets worse and worse.

And, as Ned Stark would remind us, Winter Is Coming. It's not August yet, Katie, you say, looking at me with a concerned and perplexed expression. But I work in retail, specifically bookselling, and already the Christmas annuals have started coming in. I swear it gets earlier every year. The autumn and winter are always difficult for me, so I have promised myself that I can reread Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, the ultimate in comfort reading. I intend to get back into the habit of having an early night and reading a chapter or so before I go to sleep, to help me to wind down and relax - and if I allow myself to read these books only at bedtime, that might be more of an incentive to actually get into a routine.

15 Day Book Blogger Challenge: Day One/ Bout of Books

Hi everyone. Apologies for the lack of updates recently. There are some reviews due: Dorothy Koomson's latest book, The Rose Petal Beach, and the latest installment in Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Edgar Wright's "Cornetto" movie trilogy: World's End, but they are still in note form or lost in the labyrinth of my brain. They are coming, though!

It seems I've only just finished the last readathon, but Bout of Books 8.0 kicks off in just under three weeks, on Monday 19th August. The rules are the same as before: read as much as you can, when you can, where you can, and blog about it. I have been very busy buying up ALL THE BOOKS in the last couple of months, so I really, really, need to read as many as possible before unread books take over my house completely.

The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda @ On a Book Bender and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, August 19th and runs through Sunday, August 25th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure, and the only reading competition is between you and your usual number of books read in a week. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 8.0 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. - From the Bout of Books team.

In the meantime, I've signed up for the 15-day Book Blogger Challenge, as hosted by Good Books, Good Wine, my aim to complete the 15 blog posts before the beginning of Bout of Books. 

Day One: 15 book-related confessions

1. I really ought to buy an e-reader, but can't stand the thought of it. Yes, my book piles are taking over my room, I acquire them faster than I cull them, and shelf space is a thing of the past. But as far as I'm concerned, book-buying is an art. It involves the leisurely perusals of the bookshops (if I visit a different city, it is a matter of principle to check out their Waterstone's,) the bond with the bookseller who raves about your favourite author with you, tells you without looking the author of that book you can't quite remember, the coming away from town with a bag of books, a guilty conscience but a sense of immense satisfaction. You can't replicate that with a click of a button. 

2. Maybe I am just a hoarder of books. I love their physical presence, how they look on my shelves (erm, and stacked in every corner so I can never find what I'm looking for!) 

3. There are lots of my books I will probably never read again. I acquire them so fast, that there is little time for rereading - only the absolute favourites get reread, and the occasional one I liked the first time around. But I hang onto them, most of them, because I don't know which that "occasional one" will be until I want to read it again.

4. I'm getting impatient for my friend's 3-year-old twins to learn to read. My other friend tells her it's okay, that just because I was known as "Katie Who Can Read" before I started school, doesn't mean that there is anything wrong with them if they can't read until they're 4 or 5, or that they won't become book lovers. She was a late reader and is as much a devourer of books as I am. I have to be reminded of this when my brain wants to shout at them, Just hurry up and read already! (I suspect I am a terrible person.)

5. I genuinely believe that reading makes you a better person. It engages your imagination and empathy, so that you understand how people might think, feel and react, who have had different experiences, different personalities, different lives. Reading a book helps you to understand what it might be like to be the person you might have nothing to do with if you met them in real life. 

6. I am a compulsive book-buyer. This is probably not an original confession on this challenge. I try very hard to restrain myself. I have given up buying books for Lent, I have given myself a limited book budget, I have tried all sorts of things, but once I start buying ALL THE BOOKS, I find it very difficult to stop. I've been quite restrained for the first 5 months of this year, but in the last 2 months, I have acquired, mostly bought but some borrowed or given to me, over thirty books. 

7. I think someone should set up a home for shabby books. Some of my books have suffered by either being dropped in the bath, being carried around in my bag all day every day, having ink spilled on them, and in one instance, grass-stained from being chucked across the garden. I don't always treat my books very well, but if they are single-read books, they are in no condition to be resold, even in a charity shop. But I can't just throw them in the bin. I cannot do it.

8. I have three copies of Anne of Green Gables. One is the large hardback two-in-one given to me for my 8th birthday by my parents. Then, there is a nice 100th-anniversary paperback, which fits in a handbag. Then there is a Puffin Classics, tattered, second-hand edition, for reading in the bath. If I get any more, then I will have to start collecting in earnest, and because of a competitive streak in my nature, will feel obliged to match Hanna's Pride and Prejudice collection.

9. Sometimes I am almost scared to start a book I've been waiting a long time for, or a reread of an old favourite. It's like, if I don't savour the reading experience, if I don't enjoy it enough, if I don't read it in the right place, at the right time, it will be RUINED FOREVER. You only read a book for the first time once, so you have to make the experience perfect. (But the rereading? Silly Katie.)

10. I still have all my old Enid Blytons in a box under my bed. When I was in my early teens, I retired them up to the loft, but a couple of years later I had to retrieve them to reread Five on a Treasure Island, and I know I will never be able to part with them. On a related note...

11. I really hate the modern editions of Enid Blyton's books. Not only have they been updated to change shillings to pounds, but the covers are ghastly. I much prefer the style from when I first started reading them.

 

1990s

2010s

12. I don't like the phrase "TBR (To be read) Pile." I prefer to say "To-read." Because for me, the journey is as important as the destination - the reading experience, not just reaching the end.

13. For me, romance is a thing to be endured for the sake of the story. Possibly I am bitter and jaded, but I don't very often get mushy over characters falling in love. "Shipping" and "OTPs" leave me cold - mostly. There are exceptions, however.

14. If I see someone reading on a bus, train or other public place, I will not rest until I know what they're reading. That is the other reason I don't like e-readers.

15. I wrote my first "novel" at the age of ten. It was called "First Time At Abbey School," and was a blatant rip-off of Malory Towers. I wrote it in pencil in a green Lion King exercise book, and probably ought to type it up for posterity, before the pencil fades to be illegible.