Tuesday Thingers: questions for LibraryThing users, hosted at Wendi’s Book Corner

This week, our question is inspired by all the group threads that are dedicated to finding the next great book to review.

In order review books on your blog – you’ve got to GET books!

My Answer: I started this blog to review the books I read. At the time, and for almost a year after, it barely occurred to me that I would get these books anywhere other than at the bookstore! I was chosen to participate in a few MotherTalk Blog Tours during that time, but other than that, any books I blogged about came from my own shelves – some recent additions, some long-term residents. I noticed some book bloggers mention that they received books for review from authors and publishers, but I didn’t really know how they made that happen.

I’ve learned a bit about the system since then, and I keep the books I receive specifically “for review” in a separate stack. These usually come to me via e-mail offers from publicists and authors, and a few have been “luck of the draw” awards through LT’s Early Reviewers Program. I have rarely initiated a direct request for a review book, and I don’t see myself doing so unless I have an existing connection to the author – that’s just my personality. However, the vast majority of the books in my house are still those I’ve bought myself, and I still review them, too.

I set up my books on LibraryThing with the intent of using that as my sole book tracker, and it was mostly to keep up with the books I owned but hadn’t yet read. I immediately enter new books with a “TBR” tag, and add a “review copy” tag if the book was sent to me for that purpose.

Do you have any sort of TBR tracking system?

TEASER TUESDAYS asks you to:

• Grab your current read.
  Let the book fall open to a random page.
  Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
  You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!
  Please avoid spoilers!

This book actually precedes the one I reviewed here yesterday – I bought this copy a couple of weeks ago.

“Confronting hardship together didn’t magically turn your relationship, or your life for that matter, into Casablanca. Struggle, it turned out, is about as romantic as leprosy.” (page 191)
– Lipstick Jihad: A Memoir of Growing up Iranian in America and American in Iran, by Azadeh Moaveni

I have recently arrived in Oyster Shores, Washington, where I am getting to know the Grey sisters of True Colors, the latest novel by Kristin Hannah.

It’s Friday – where are you?

I recently got new bookshelves for my room, and I’m just loving them. Spent the afternoon putting up my books and sharing it on my blog . One of my friends asked a question and I thought it would be a great BTT question. So from Tina & myself, we’d like to know “How do you arrange your books on your shelves? Is it by author, by genre, or you just put it where it falls on?”

Some people have the impression that I’m an organized person. This is not entirely correct. I’m organized when I have to be. I put appointments on my calendar; I keep a to-do list for work projects; I make a grocery list for shopping. My books don’t fall into the “have to be organized” category, but they’re not in complete chaos, either.

One of the nicest things about our townhouse is the built-in cabinet in the upstairs hallway, which I quickly snapped up for book storage. Books that I’ve already read -“keepers” and “keep-for-now” books (those are books that I haven’t gotten around to donating to Friends of the Library yet) – are on the upper shelves, and TBR books are on the lower ones, which are easier for me to reach. Most of the TBR books up there are fiction. The only problem with this storage area is that the cabinet doors are solid, so I can’t easily see which books are in there.

My husband and I each have a bookcase downstairs as well, and nearly everything in mine is TBR – that’s the official location of “TBR Purgatory.” I usually set my bookcase up with alternating shelves of fiction and nonfiction, but I think they’ve gotten a little mixed up recently. Other than that, the books are in no particular order, although if I have multiple books by one author, I do try to keep those together (assuming I’m paying attention). Come to think of it, I think that’s actually part of what’s caused the fiction/nonfiction mix-ups on the shelves lately – I have both flavors from a few authors.

Books that I have received specifically for review are kept in a stack on one of the end tables so they don’t get lost in the TBR shuffle.

I’d like to think that if I had more space for my books, they’d be more organized, but I’m probably kidding myself. However, since most of the time I’m browsing my shelves rather than searching for a specific title, the looseness of the system works for me. How about you – are your books in strict order, or literally piled up around you?

1-3 are courtesy of Mar this week.

1. Give me a good book and a cup of coffee and I’ll spend a very pleasant morning.

2. Whenever my Internet connection gets spazzy, I get annoyed.

3. I wish my dog could actually tell me what she wants, instead of just staring at me like I’m supposed to know.

4. The tuxedo chocolate birthday cake we had at work on Thursday was the last thing I ate that was utterly delicious.

5. To live in this world takes peace, love, and understanding (and what’s so funny ’bout that?)

6. Other than this one, Booking Through Thursday is the last blog I commented on (it’s #4 of the 5 blogs where I need to leave links to this post – now, I’m done!).

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to doing as little as possible, tomorrow my plans include an appointment at the eye doctor and Sunday, I want to get started on our taxes! (And we plan to test-drive a couple of cars, since we will definitely be replacing Tall Paul’s. The insurance verdict is in, and his car is officially history.)

Have a safe weekend!

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