Tuesday Thingers (hosted by The Boston Bibliophile)

I don’t seem to have a lot of books in common with the Legacy folks, and I think some of the numbers may be suspect. For example, I supposedly share 5 books with F. Scott Fitzgerald, but they’re all books he wrote, one is listed twice (Tender is the Night), and two are foreign-language translations of The Great Gatsby, which I’ve only read in English, so I think we really only share two books. It looks like duplicated listings in the legacy libraries are actually pretty common.

I seem to share the most (non-duplicated) books with Walker Percy, and it’s actually a pretty interesting mix:

I probably wouldn’t have even explored this LT feature if Marie hadn’t asked the question – as I’ve said before, I love the way I find out more about LibraryThing by participating in Tuesday Thingers!

Booking Through Thursday: Conditioning 

Heck, my books are rarely pristine even before I read them! The way they’re stacked up everywhere isn’t conducive to perfection.

I’m actually a reformed “dog-earer,” although I’ll sometimes resort to it if I just need to hold a place for a minute or two and don’t have something at hand to stick into the book – essentially, in an emergency. Ever since I discovered these bookmarks a few years ago, I always make sure I have a stock of them on hand, but if I’m caught short for some reason, I’ll slip a piece of paper in until I can get my hands on one. I’ve also been known to use a pen as a short-term placeholder, which I know isn’t good for the spines and I should probably try to stop doing, since pens are just a bit bulky. (Dog-earing might be preferable to that, now that I think about it.) I rarely bend the covers of my books all the way around; I have small hands, and that makes books too bulky for me, but the front covers usually do end up a bit curled by the time I’m finished reading anything.

It doesn’t bother me too much if other people dog-ear books, as long as they don’t tear the pages, but it does irritate me to find books splayed face-down on the table. I worked on breaking that habit even before I stopped dog-earing, but again, I do catch myself doing it in an emergency sometimes, such as having to drop a book to answer the phone. The kids have gotten the “we don’t treat books like that” speech when I’ve found their books left open that way (as I stick a bookmark in where they left off). I only find cracked spines to be a serious problem when they’ve affected the binding enough to loosen pages, but I think it’s best to try to prevent that up front.

I do try to be careful about this, but I read while eating, and I’m a bit of a klutz with food (and plenty of other things too, but let’s not get into that right now), so you can probably guess what happens sometimes. I’m not really bothered by it with my own books, but if the book is borrowed I feel guilty if anything lands on the pages, and I may offer to replace the book if it was especially unfortunate. (There’s one more reason I usually buy my books.)

What kind of condition are most of your books in – model home, or more lived-in?

Friday Fill-ins #96

1. My favorite food seasoning is cinnamon for sweet things, and garlic for savory ones. (I have no desire to eat anything that combines them both.)

2. Music is music to my ears.

3. Lucky is an adjective that rarely applies to me, so I think I appreciate it more when it does.

4. Keeping the promises I make is something I take very seriously (so I tend to hedge instead of making very many).

5. Many people seem to make up their minds about things without much regard for the facts. (It seems particularly noticeable during election season…)

6. A new sweater was the last thing I bought at the store.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to watching all the stuff on the DVR before we return it to the cable company, tomorrow my plans include getting the keys to our new home and Sunday, I want to pack, clean, and be ready for the movers when they arrive on Monday morning! (I am NOT looking forward to being offline from Saturday until some time Tuesday, but really, it’s not like I’ll have much time for it anyway!)
==================================
And here’s a little Halloween treat:

Subscribe to Blog via Email