TBIF: Thank blog it’s Friday! This week in memes and books

Musing Monday, hosted at Just One More Page: “Nonfiction?”


 Today’s MUSING MONDAYS post is about reading non-fiction…Musing Mondays (BIG)
Do you read non-fiction regularly? Do you read it in a different way or place than you read fiction? (question courtesy of Diane)

I try to mix nonfiction into my reading pretty regularly; in fact, I’m currently reading my third consecutive nonfiction book. Most of the nonfiction I read is memoir or biography, and although I don’t really care much for short fiction, I do enjoy reading the occasional essay collection. I’ll sometimes dabble in popular psychology and sociology, but unless they have been sent to me for review, those will be among the very few books I probably won’t post about here.

I’m usually a one-book-at-a-time reader, but when I make an exception, one of the books is usually nonfiction; I’ll two-time it with a novel. Otherwise, my reading habits are no different; the book comes everywhere with me, and I read it straight through till I’m done.

When you read nonfiction, what are your favorite types to read?


Tuesday Thingers, hosted at Wendi’s Book Corner: “Cover It All”

This week, Wendi has something just for fun in mind:

I was randomly (desperately searching) the site for something different and fun to look at this week, and I stumbled onto a few fun pages. One of them was a page that will show you “All Your Covers” by title, author, or date entered! Find it here. If the link doesn’t work (or if it takes you to MY covers), I found it by going to Tools (tab at far right), going down to number 9, and selecting the link for All Your Covers.

Questions: Do you have any missing covers (they show as a plain gray book)? Did you have a favorite view (title, author, date entered)? Do you have any favorite covers? If so, is there anything they have in common?

My Answer: I currently have 587 books cataloged on LibraryThing, so it takes a little while to load those cover views. I knew I was probably missing some covers, but it may be far fewer than I had thought; granted, I didn’t take an exact count, but I don’t think I spotted much more than a dozen generic gray covers in the whole display.

I don’t really have a favorite book cover, but I liked viewing all my covers best when sorted by author. Some author’s book covers have a signature style or theme, and I liked seeing them lined up together as a set.


Booking Through Thursday: “Which is Worse?
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Which is worse?
  • Finding a book you love and then hating everything else you try by that author, or
  • Reading a completely disappointing book by an author that you love?
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’m going with Option #1 here. When I finish a book by an author who has potential to make my “favorites” list, my next move is usually to seek out some of his or her other work. But sometimes it turns out that the book I loved may have been a fluke – the writer’s other work is very different from the first book I read (in an unappealing way), or it turns out that all of the author’s books are pretty much the same but gradually declining in quality and becoming more formulaic each time, or everything else is just not as good, and it’s hard to pin down why that is. That’s a real letdown for me, and I might even feel taken and misled in by the first book I read.

If the author and I have an established relationship, I’m much more likely to give him or her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she’s experimenting with a new style or genre, or he’s introduced a protagonist I just don’t care for this time – but I’m usually willing to take a loss on that particular book and hope that the next one will be more to my liking. However, if I have the same reaction to that author’s next two or three books, a re-evaluation of our relationship may be in order, and we could end up in Option #1 territory.

Devourer of Books agrees with me. Which option do you think is worse?


Friday Fill-ins #122

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1. The first rule of working in an office and getting along is having a functioning filter (because some thoughts should not be shared!).

2. I don’t like clams (because they don’t like me).

3. When I think of carnivals I think of rides like the Tilt-a-Whirl; I loved them when I was a kid, but now they’re nausea-inducing potential deathtraps. (Being an adult can be no fun at all sometimes.)

4. Whatever doesn’t make me sneeze is my favorite spring flower. (Seriously, I don’t have allergies, and I do like flowers, but I’m just not that attentive to them.)

5. Things on my desk include…well, I’d tell you if I could FIND any of them under all the stacks of paper! (I will be SO glad when audit season is over!)

6. A beautiful spring day makes me wanna play hooky from the office!

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to nothing in particular (which actually sounds pretty good to me), tomorrow my plans include seeing my nephews’ Little League games, and Sunday, I want to see a movie with Tall Paul (and I will – we already have tickets to Wolverine)!

Is it a sign of how crazy the last couple of weeks have been that I’m looking forward to jury duty on Monday? What are you looking forward to in the next few days?

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11 comments

  1. #6 – ME TOO!!! :o)

    I’m hoping to see Wolverine this weekend too. I hope it’s good! Have a lovely weekend – good luck with jury duty!

  2. Wolverine is suppose to be really good! And Hugh Jackman looks good no matter what! Enjoy the movie and the ball game. We’ve got plenty of them to go to also. Have a great weekend and I hope you do get to play hooky sometime soon. 🙂

  3. I feel the same way about a lot of nonfiction! Thanks for posting this. I’m really enjoying your blog.

    -Constance-Reader.blogspot.com

  4. I used to love clams when I was younger, then I helped make them once and I couldn’t eat them anymore. 🙂

    I feel the same way about carnival rides. I won’t go near them.

  5. eMelectric – I hope it’s good too :-).

    Nita – Same here. I got sick on clam chowder a couple of times, and now I stay away from anything clam-related.

    Wrighty – The games may be rained out, but I completely agree about Hugh Jackman :-D!

    Billy Rhythm – That doesn’t mean I ever DO play hooky – just that I’d like to!

    Janet – I hope it’s a good time.

    Connie – Thanks, and it’s nice to meet you :-).

    Mike – See my reply to Nita’s comment about why I don’t like them.

    There was a carnival at the mall for a few weeks during the winter (that can happen in SoCal), and I shuddered every time I looked at it.