Tuesday Thingers – questions for LibraryThing users from The Boston Bibliophile

Since the reason I started blogging in the first place was to keep a record of my reading (and to help me remember details about what I’d read), I do review nearly every book I read. If I accept a book or ARC from an author or publicist, I feel a responsibility to post a review after I read it – whenever that turns out to be – regardless of how much I liked or disliked it, because the prospect of a review is why they sent me a book in the first place. I review most of the books I read from my own collection too, but recently there haven’t been nearly as many of those. I might not review books I read for purely personal reasons – but you’ll never know about those, will you?

I usually start writing the review for my blog within a day of finishing a book, but I normally won’t post it till the next Thursday, since that’s my designated “book review day” unless I’m committed to a different day of the week for a blog tour. Once the post is up and I have a link, I’ll post that link on LT as my “review” – sadly, I am not exactly prompt about that part, and it might be several weeks later by the time I get around to it. I think I may start including an excerpt from the review in addition to the link, since that might be more likely to get people to click over and read the rest than the link itself. My blog posts are set to feed automatically to Twitter and Facebook, and one of these days I might actually get my act together and put the reviews on GoodReads – my maintenance over there lags way behind my LT library. I have yet to post a review on Amazon, and I really have no plans to start.

It’s either feast or famine with Teaser Tuesdays around here. I have five new arrivals this week – three came by mail, and two came from Borders.

Let’s start with the two books I actually laid out cash for this past weekend:

I waited to hear whom he was talking to, but there was no answer.
“Shay?” I said. “Are you okay?” (page 330)
 – Change of Heart, by Jodi Picoult (one of my favorite authors, but I only read her books in paperback – this one is just out!)

Neil had seen the way Apollo had been looking at Alice on the day of the filming. It wasn’t just admiring (which at least would have been understandable), it was predatory. (page 50)
 – Gods Behaving Badly, by Marie Phillips

These two came my way via the wish list I posted on Thanksgiving Day:

“C’mon, honey, sweet, nice and safe? If you wanted that you could get a puppy.” (page 109)
 – Most Likely You Go Your Way and I’ll Go Mine, by Ben Tanzer

I agreed. I’d been to three county fairs and a cow-milking contest, as we used to say in Ioway, but had never seen anything to top it. (page 98)
– My Seven Years in Captivity: Tails and Misadventures in the San Diego Zoo, by Bill Seaton

This arrived in the mail on Tuesday thanks to LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers Program:

Hajj Agha adjusted his blue-gray robes and invited us to sit down. Even he expected little to change with this election, he explained. (page 28)
– Honeymoon in Tehran: Two Years of Love and Danger in Iran, by Azadeh Moaveni

Have you added any books to your shelves lately? Tell me about them!

If any BTT players answer “yes” to #1, I will be very surprised! “Not enough time to read” is probably the #1 complaint among book bloggers, based on what I read on our blogs. That is, unless you count blog-reading as part of “reading,” as opposed to part of “blogging,” but even then the answer is most likely still “no.” I know I’ve talked before about how blogging – book blogging, and blogging in general – has cut into my reading time, so the answer for me is undoubtedly “no.”

But if I did magically have more reading time, I don’t think I’d use that time to read anything different, really. I would just be able to read more, period, because when I do have the time I’m actually a pretty fast reader. I’d probably take advantage of the time for more discretionary reading – as opposed to ARC, review-copy, and book-club reading – because the bulk of what’s in TBR Purgatory is still books I’ve bought myself, and they take a back seat to any books with a review or discussion obligation these days. (As I said in my Tuesday Thingers answer above, I’ll still review my own books too, but those reviews are primarily for myself.) Everything in TBRP can be found here.

What would you read if you had more time? And if you DO have enough time to read, please share your secrets – enquiring readers want to know!

Friday Fill-ins #102

A note from Janet:

1. Friends are the family you choose for yourself.

2. Mental health; it’s enough to drive you crazy.

3. I’m ready for my ship to come in.

4. Fresh-brewed is one of my favorite perfumes or aftershaves or smells.

5. The oldest ornament I have is the one I bought in Carmel in 1994 (it has the year on it, so I know).

6. Take some instant oatmeal, milk, and water, mix it all together and you have breakfast.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to spending the evening with my husband, tomorrow my plans include a visit from my mother-in-law and Sunday, I want to see The Boy have fun at his 9th birthday party!

My long-weekend plans developed a snare when the “check engine” light came on in my car on Thursday afternoon. I’ve had an oil leak that I’ve been meaning to have checked out, and apparently the time has come. We dropped my car off at the service center on Thursday evening and will be waiting for the verdict today…hope the damages won’t be too bad and the car isn’t held hostage for very long! But I don’t have to be back at work till Tuesday, so the timing could definitely have been worse. I hope your weekend doesn’t include any car problems!

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