Musing Mondays, hosted at Just One More Page…
This week’s MUSING MONDAYS post is about recording your reading…Do you keep track of what and/or how many books you read? How long have you been doing this? What’s your favorite tracking method, and why?If you don’t keep track, why not? (question courtesy of MizB)
Last week we talked about our favorite book(s) – yes, hard – I know 🙂 . This week,we’ll switch gears – instead of favorites, we are going to look at least-favorites – should be a little easier?? This doesn’t have to mean a book that you hated, or one that you didn’t finish, although it might be. . .
Questions (yes – there are a bunch – answer one or two . . . or all of them!): What is your least-favorite book(s)? Is your least-favorite book listed in your LT library? If it is listed, do you have anything special in the tags or comments section? How have others rated your least-favorite book?
My Answer: This question is actually NOT easier than last week’s! However, since some recent Booking Through Thursday questions have trod similar ground, some of my least-liked books are rather fresh in my mind.
Some of my least-favorite books aren’t listed in my LT library because I have long since given them away or discarded them – I just didn’t want to keep them around and be reminded of them. This group includes such un-favorites as The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller and Fortune’s Rocks by Anita Shreve, which I found very unpleasant reading (the story is based a fifteen-year-old girl’s affair with a married forty-year-old doctor). What makes it worse is that both of these were books I felt compelled to read and couldn’t put down till I finished them, and then I didn’t even have that guilty-pleasure feeling – just guilt over the wasted time.
Since I started my LT account, I’ve listed every new book I’ve acquired as well as many of the older ones I still have in my possession. Many of them don’t have ratings because I read them so long ago I haven’t bothered to go back and assign them, but when this question came up I thought I’d see what my lowest-rated books were and whether I’d consider any my “least-favorite.” Sure enough, one of the single-star books is another one by Anita Shreve, A Wedding in December, and the other is the book that I probably am most likely to name as my all-time least-favorite if I have to pick one: Wuthering Heights. However, either I’m very much in the minority with this one, or many of the other haters haven’t bothered to rate it at all; there are 15,800 copies of it on LT, but only 178 reviews, and the average rating is 3.95.
The flip side of last week’s question: Do you have a least-favorite book, and what is it?
It’s Tuesday, where
I was (still am) on the upper Upper West Side of New York City – better known as Harlem – with Judith Matloff and her husband John. They’re about three-fourths of the way through the renovation of a brownstone they’ve purchased in an “emerging” neighborhood – one where their neighbors are drug dealers and crack addicts, and where some of the buildings are better described as “decaying” than emerging – and Judith has recently learned that she’s pregnant, at the age of forty-two. The memoir I’m reading is Home Girl: Building a Dream House on a Lawless Block.
Booking Through Thursday: Library Week
Suggested by Barbara:
Don’t forget to leave a link to your actual response (so people don’t have to go searching for it) in the comments—or if you prefer, leave your answers in the comments themselves!
I know I’ve talked about libraries here before, including a couple of times for BTT – “Why buy books?” (11/08) and “Library Memories” (8/08) – so I’ll try to keep it brief this time around and stick to the specific questions being asked.
How often do you use your public library and how do you use it? Sadly, I really don’t use it much these days, except to drop off my used books as donations for the Friends of the Library bookstore, where my dad volunteers two mornings a week. The “Why buy books?” link explains this a bit more.
Has the coffeehouse/bookstore replaced the library? I can’t say if that’s univerally true, but it certainly has for me. Considering that I know people who will spend a couple of hours browsing and skimming books in bookstores and then leave empty-handed (HOW do they do that?!), maybe it is becoming a more general substitute for the library.
Did you go to the library as a child? Do you have any particular memories of the library? Do you like sleek, modern, active libraries or the older, darker, quiet, cozy libraries? Yes; lots of them; they’ve influenced my library preferences – check out that “Library Memories” link, partially quoted here:
My mother took my sister and me to one of the two branches of the Norwalk Public Library nearly every week, and those trips were always something I looked forward to. In those years, both branches were located in historic Carnegie library buildings, and they’ve shaped my perception of what a library should look like, both inside and out…
My earliest library memories involve its summer reading program; you received a sticker to put on a paper chart (designed like a “bookworm”) for each book you finished. I don’t recall it taking very long to complete the chart. I also remember being pretty pleased with myself because I usually got my books from the shelves designated for readers a couple of grade levels ahead of me…Trips to the library were regular family outings for many years. Even in my teens, I remember spending many Saturday afternoons there (although by then it was a different city, and a different library), both for school assignments and just for fun.
Will you be celebrating National Library Week?
1. Angel or not, I will want to watch some Buffy the Vampire Slayer on DVD (although I actually prefer those “not Angel” – I’m a Spike gal).
2. Pose me for that picture any way you want me.
3. As my mother used to say, you’re full of beans (she actually did say that).
4. I need a big bottle of water and a nice, cool breeze on my skin after I’m done working out or doing something strenuous.
5. Even in the most crowded of rooms I sometimes feel lost and alone.
6. The day I report for Jury Duty (it’s happening again, on May 4th) is a day fraught with peril.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to some quiet time at home with my husband, tomorrow my plans include meeting my sister for a birthday lunch and some girl time and Sunday, I want to write, read, and relax! (This is going to be a much quieter weekend than my last one was.)
And as for your weekend…?
You know, of all the other FFIs I’ve looked at today, you’re the only other one who had “beans” as the answer to #3. And my mom really did say it too!
Billy Rhythm – I know I saw that response on one other person’s FFI, but I can’t remember whose. Maybe it was yours :-)?
I’m so sorry I haven’t been around your blog for a long time. I haven’t been blogging much myself, but I just wanted to drop by and say hi, wish you a good weekend and a nice Easter (if you celebrate that) and apologize for being scarce.
I am finishing my Master thesis and this takes up most of my time. Hopefully, by the end of May, I will be able to blog more and participate more around the blogosphere.
I am still reviewing books from time to time on my blog, but I am not really active.
I don’t expect you to come running visiting and commenting, I just wanted to let you know that I am very much alive and I miss reading and commenting on your blog very much.
This is a personal message written to all the blogowner, whose delightful blogs I visit on a regular basis, but it has been copy/pasted. So if you find it on other blogger’s blogs, that is why.
I look very much forward to be active again – and apologize once again for not being active the past month and not being able to be active for another month or two.
Louise,
http://louspages.blogspot.com
I couldn’t get into Lolita for the same reasons that you didn’t like Fortune’s Rocks. I know it’s a classic, but it just didn’t hold my attention.
I’m finishing my midnights up tonight, so I’ll be awake during the day this weekend. Yay! 🙂 My daughter has her ice show tomorrow, it was “interesting” tonight.
The big question is, did you get your taxes done? 🙂
LibraryThing is wonderful, isn’t it? I still keep my EXCEL list of TBR books, which is separate from my LT catalog, but LT definitely makes things easier.
I really haven’t had any inclination to read The Bridges of Madison County, but I did read and really like Fortune’s Rock. 🙂 My least favorite book? Any play by Shakespeare perhaps.
Well, you know where I stand on libraries–much the same as you really.
My first thought with #1 on the fill-in’s was Buffy too. 🙂 I tried for a more bookish theme though. I never did figure out what to put for #1 and so threw in the title of a book. The second one came to me in the middle of the night (I woke up suddenly and had to change my original response to the new one), which is why it’s not worded quite like I might have done if I’d been fully awake.
Number 5 is so true sometimes! I hope you have a great weekend, Florinda. I have no plans as of right now. I just want it to be quiet. My boss was out of town all this week and will be on vacation next week so I’m standing in for her. It comes with its own set of headaches. I’m just glad I’m not on call like she would be if she were here.
Louise – Glad you stopped by, and I’ll look forward to seeing you more often when things settle down a bit.
Nicole – Despite its “classic” status and my understanding that it’s very well written, I have NO desire to read Lolita. At all. Ever. However, I must admit that my reaction to Fortune’s Rocks was colored by personal experience (my ex-husband and his much younger second wife, whose relationship started before he was my ex-husband), and without that I might not have disliked it quite so much.
Mike – Be sure to post pictures from the ice show! I know you’re glad to be done with late shifts.
Oh yeah, taxes were the big project two weekends ago, weren’t they? Yes, they’re done and e-filed, and the IRS has been paid. We are patiently waiting for a refund from the state, since they’ve supposedly stopped with the IOUs. Are YOURS done :-)?
Wendy (Literary Feline) – You were the one who steered me toward LT in the first place, so thank you!
#2 on the FFIs was a tricky one for me, and since my social anxiety tends to kick in when I’m in a crowd, #5 is quite true for me.
I’ll be busy Saturday, but we really have no plans for Sunday, and that’s fine. We’re due for a fairly quiet weekend – March was crazy!
Enjoy your own quiet weekend, Wendy! Sometimes I find I can get more don when my boss is gone, but as you note, being second in command – and first in absentia – does have its own headaches.
Thinger: You know, I loved one of Anita Shreve’s books, but then tried another and was NOT liking it, so haven’t picked up any of her other books. I also didn’t like Wuthering Heights at all – always felt bad about that, but can’t change the way I feel. 🙂
Thanks for stopping by and participating in Thingers last week! I’ve got the post up for this week, have you seen the new customizable widgets on LT? ~ Wendi
Wendi – I’m always glad to encounter another non-fan of Wuthering Heights – the book, anyway. I like the Kate Bush song based on it, but it’s over a lot faster than the book is :-).
Hugs for #5…I feel that way, too, sometimes.
Janet – Crowds are where my social anxiety tends to kick up strongest. Not fun.