15 Day Book Blogging Challenge: Day 1

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This little challenge has been making the rounds lately and it looks neat.  It's hosted by April at Good Books and Good Wine.  There isn't a set schedule and it's just for fun.  I won't be posting every day, more like every few days I should think.  Or maybe I will surprise you (and myself).


The first task is to make 15 book-related confessions.  I am going to have a hard time coming up with 15 confessions, but I'll try:
  1. I don't buy very many books anymore.  I  am too cheap, so when I do buy them I fret and worry about it.  Used books are easier, but not by a whole lot.  Recently I had some gift money at Amazon and it still took me a couple of weeks to decide what to get.  I usually only buy books if I know I want to own them forever, and I can't easily get them at the library.
  2. My TBR pile is thus relatively small, and heavily weighted with books I bought used years ago and never got to--or else books that I've picked up for no cost at all.  It's still there of course, and being added to because I buy Big Heavy Classics that take forever to read.  I'm excited about them and can't wait to get to them, but I can't read them all at once.
  3. Where my book acquisition mania gets triggered is at the library.  They are free, and I don't have to feel like I should read them, and I can take anything home whether it looks worthy or not.  I can easily collect more books than I can carry, and I go every week.  So my library bookshelf is always overfull.
  4. Ellie says she matches her bookmarks to her books.  Yep, I do that.  I love to collect bookmarks (free ones) and I have a pile of them, but what I consider a worthy bookmark is sometimes a little odd.  One of my favorites is an overdue notice postcard from about 1970, or my Catholic card of Father Serra.  I particularly treasure bookmarks from now-defunct bookstores I liked, such as Berkeley Book Consortium or Cody's.
  5. I used to be a terrible dog-ear-er, but I've cured myself with bookmarks.
  6. I am not very good at home dec, but that is OK because I can use bookshelves instead.  Or wall quilts.  Or book-themed wall quilts.
  7. I only like e-books when they are free, or practically free.
  8. I always have at least 3 books going at any given time.  I don't have very good focus and like to jump between books a lot.
  9. So when I go on a trip, even just overnight, even when I know I won't have time to read, I have to take about 4 books just in case (plus my tablet with 100+ e-books on it).  Then, when I get there, I'll see a totally different book and read that instead.  Yes, this is ridiculous.
  10. I'm not kidding that my focus is not so good.  It's probably a combination of Internet shallow-brain and mommy-brain, but I usually read for a fairly short time and often while doing something else.  My friend recently caught me putting a trash bag in the outside bin and reading a book at the same time, and thought it completely characteristic.  If I sit down on the couch and plan to read, I either fall asleep or jump up to do something within a few minutes.
  11. I have a tendency to lend books to anyone who comes along, and then I forget who I lent them to.  I really need one of those home library kits you buy with the cards and the record book, but it will never happen, because I wouldn't spend the money to buy such a thing.
  12. I also commit the accompanying sin of borrowing books that I then fail to read or return.  Luckily I don't do it very much, and most often when someone presses a book upon me.  And my one former college roommate says she forgives me for keeping that Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni book for ten years (I still have it, but she lives in Idaho so it's hard to give it back).
  13. My TBR pile may be relatively small, but my Amazon wishlist of books I want to read is way out of control.  Thus the Wishlist Challenge this year.
  14. My 13-year-old is now old enough to have read many of the same books that I love.  This is so great, you do not even know.  We have all these in-jokes now, especially about Diana Wynne Jones books.  Or about avocados--Daniel Pinkwater is big with us too.  My 10-year-old is not there yet, but don't worry...I'll get her.
  15. I don't really have a movie in my head when I read.  (Do you? Because I don't really know if other people always do.)  I sort of do, but it has much more to do with movement than with how things look.  I don't get a clear picture of each character and setting at all, more suggestions.  If a character is minutely described it doesn't stick that well.

Comments

  1. UnknownAugust 3, 2013 at 11:02 AM

    How funny--I decided to start this challenge today and then immediately saw this post. :) I do the same thing as your number 10--I read while checking the mail, walking to the bus...walking to school used to be my best reading time.

    ReplyDelete
  2. SongSeptember 11, 2013 at 4:26 AM

    I really should pay a visit to my library. It's been years and years!

    As to your point number 10...the picture is incredibly vivid in my mind. When characters are not given much of a physical description I have a wee bit of trouble....but then they always end up having physical personality. This is the first I've heard of someone who converts the reading into movements in their head. How does that work? It sounds interesting...

    ReplyDelete

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