Mailbox Monday, hosted at The Printed Page

Thanks to Jessica Lee at Penguin Group USA, I received a review copy of What to Read When: The Books and Stories to Read With Your Child – and All The Best Times to Read Them by Pam Allyn. The book will be in stores in a couple of weeks, and I’m looking forward to checking out this guide to family reading; I suspect that it could have a lot of appeal to the readers and parents who visit here.

As you know, I gave up buying books for Lent, but I took advantage of the “Sunday loophole” last weekend in order to snap up a book from my wishlist for only $5! Thanks to someone (sorry I can’t remember who!) for Tweeting that publisher Leapfrog Press – which puts two featured titles on sale for $5 every month, plus reduced shipping – had Losing Kei by Suzanne Kamata as one of the March specials. I ordered it last Sunday morning, and it arrived in this Tuesday’s mail.

And for the record, I went to Borders this past Saturday to look for a couple of books for birthday gifts for my dad – and I left with only birthday gifts for my dad! (Buying books for other people during Lent is another loophole, but it’s a self-created one.)

What’s new on your bookshelf?

Questions (yes – there are a bunch – answer one or two . . . or all of them!): What is your favorite book (yes – this may be a hard one!!)? Is your favorite book listed in your LT library? If it is listed, do you have anything special in the tags or comments section? Have you looked to see if you can add any information to the Common Knowledge? AND a little off topic, do you find that your 5-starred books are consistent with your favorites, and is your favorite a 5-star rated book in your library? How have others rated your favorite book? 🙂

My Answer(s):
“What is your favorite book?” is such a hard question I refuse to answer it outright – there will always be a qualifier. I could tell you my favorite book of this year so far (The Uncommon Reader), or last (The Year of Fog). I could tell you my favorite book when I was ten (Little Women), or in college (East of Eden), or during my early thirties (Brightness Falls, by Jay McInerney). I could tell you my favorite Harry Potter book (Order of the Phoenix). I could even tell you my favorite book by a particular favorite author. My point is that I can break down my favorite books in all sorts of ways, but I can’t tell you my “favorite book.”

Since I’ve tended to hang on to most of my favorite books during adulthood, I can’t think of any that aren’t listed on LibraryThing, but I don’t have a special tag that identifies them. Chances are that they have a 4-star or better rating, though. I’ve given all of the following books at least 4.5 stars – let’s see how that compares with their average LT ratings.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, by J.K. Rowling: My rating – 5; LT average – 4.24
East of Eden, by John Steinbeck: My rating – 5; LT average – 4.45
Middlesex: A Novel, by Jeffrey Eugenides: My rating – 4.5; LT average – 4.16
Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia, by Elizabeth Gilbert: My rating – 4.5; LT average – 3.85
Intuition, by Allegra Goodman: My rating – 4.5; LT average – 3.54
Seabiscuit: An American Legend, by Laura Hillenbrand: My rating – 4.5; LT average – 4.22
Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, by Anne Lamott: My rating – 4.5; LT average – 4.2
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, by J.K. Rowling: My rating – 4.5; LT average – 4.34

The fourth book I’ve listed is known to be a “love it or hate it” read, and the fifth one isn’t that well-known, period (popularity rank 6,410 and only 29 reviews); otherwise, it looks like my ratings aren’t all that out of whack with the averages.

Answer if you dare – what’s your favorite book?

What comes to mind when I think of “good ‘bad’ books” are the guilty pleasures – books that you know have questionable literary merit, but have such gripping plots and/or high levels of drama that once you start reading them, you just can’t stop. You may regret the time you spent with them once it’s over, but while it lasted, it sure was fun.

I don’t partake in too much guilty-pleasure reading any more, now that I think about it, except for the occasional foray into chick-lit territory, and even then I’m picky. I did go through a legal-thriller phase for a while when I religiously read everything John Grisham wrote, but then he started branching out into other styles and I drifted away. (As an aside, though, I thought A Painted House was very good.) I’m still fond of several of his books from that period, though, especially The Firm and The Rainmaker, because of their Memphis connections.

However, the first book I thought of in response to this question was one that I also used in last week’s answer – The Da Vinci Code. My annoyance begins with the title; I may be old-fashioned on this score, but I was taught that “Da Vinci” was NOT the man’s last name. Very few Italians in that time had last names. “Vinci” is where he was from – he was called “Leonardo.” The writing was pedestrian at best, and then there were times when the narrative just stopped dead so that characters could explain things to each other. But despite all that, I could not put the damn book down!

When it comes to books, what’s your favorite guilty pleasure?

This week, Janet took the first sentence in 6 of her favorite books…you fill them in…with the right words or even better, ones of your own.

1. “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit a wascally wabbit named Bugs.”

2. “You don’t know about me, without you have read a book by the name of ‘The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,’ but that ain’t no matter.” (The name is Finn. Huck Finn.)

3. “After dark the rain began to fall again, and I was glad to stay inside by the fire, with the dog curled up at my feet.”

4. “A hideous smell emanated from the hold of the Spanish galleon.”

5. “There was a hand in the darkness and I couldn’t see it – because of, you know, the darkness.”

6. “Accidents ambush the unsuspecting, the careless, and the lazy.”

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to getting the bags packed, tomorrow my plans include leaving early to start our weekend at Disneyland and Sunday, I want to celebrate my birthday with Tall Paul, Katie, Spencer, and Captain Jack Sparrow! (And I don’t have to go back to work till Wednesday – now that’s a gift right there!)

I have posts scheduled for tomorrow and Sunday, but Monday will probably be a day off around here. What do you have planned for the weekend?

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