September 4, 2009 • reading •

TBIF: Thank book/blog it’s Friday! This week in bookishness

BOOKKEEPING: The Reading Status Report

My Question of the Week, as asked on Twitter this past Tuesday:

Will I get blackballed from the book-blogging community because I haven’t read The Hunger Games and sat out the release-day hoopla for Catching Fire this week? Seriously, someone tell me it’s OK. I need to know.

** Actually, I don’t need to know any more…I ordered them both on Wednesday. I still have no idea how soon I’ll read them, but at least I’ll have them.

Book reviews posted this week:
The Weight of Silence, by Heather Gudenkauf (TLC Book Tour)

Next review scheduled:
The Art of Racing in the Rain: A Novel by Garth Stein

Currently reading:
Marley & Me: Life and Love With the World’s Worst Dog by John Grogan (I saw the movie first)

Teaser: “She photographed the quintessentially heterosexual couple’s eunuch dog, too. Or at least what she could catch of him on film.” (page 150)
I missed out on Literate Housewife’s “Dog Days of Summer,” because I didn’t finish reading these books in time, but I’m planning to post their reviews back-to-back as my own “Gone to the Dogs” mini-event.

New additions to the LibraryThing “To Read” Collection:
For me, a couple from the Wishlist – 

Books added to the Wishlist:
American Nerd, by Benjamin Nugent
Old World Daughter, New World Mother, by Maria Laurino

Book Blogger Appreciation Week is fast approaching, and general voting for the awards will begin on Monday. Here’s some background on the process of creating the shortlist. Also: daily – and completely optional – blogging themes for the week have been announced.

Tuesday Thinger, hosted at Wendi’s Book Corner: “Some FUN Stats From Your Books”

This week’s Thinger comes from a suggestion by Joy of Joy’s Blog – Thank you Joy!!!!

“A week or so ago, we took a peek at Statistics, but I completely missed a great new feature. Ever wondered where your books take place? Now you can find out!! Go to your statistics page, look down the column on the left hand side, and find the heading that says Common Knowledge. Then click on the link that says Places. It will take you to a page that will show you the places that you books have taken place in.“


Questions: Have you explored the Places feature of your Statistics? Do you have any places that have multiple books listed? If you have multiples, are they from different authors, or from the same series?

My Answer: A book must have information in the “places” field of its Common Knowledge section to show up in these statistics. There are books in my library that aren’t listed under the cities where they’re set, so apparently that info isn’t there yet for them. But even with that limitation, LT’s Common Knowledge feature identifies 483 places among the 641 books I currently have cataloged. That includes some completely fictional locales, like Thursday Next’s Bookworld, various places from Harry Potter’s world (anyone up for a visit to Diagon Alley?), and The Cliffs of Insanity from The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern’s Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure by William Goldman. (You know, there are some days I think those cliffs just might exist…)

Here are a few of the real-life places that make multiple appearances in my books:

Baltimore, Maryland, USA (6 times, no series, but all thanks to Anne Tyler)

Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA (6 times)

Chicago, Illinois, USA (11 times, mix of fiction and non-fiction – if it has a subtitle, it’s the latter):

London, England, UK (21 novels, not including any of the Harry Potter books)

Los Angeles, California, USA (tied with Chicago)


New York, New York, USA (27 times, no series – we have a winner!)

Paris, France (3 novels, 6 works of non-fiction)

San Francisco, California, USA (17 times, including 7 Tales of the City)


Toronto, Ontario, Canada (6 times, 3 courtesy of Margaret Atwood)


As for other “fun” statistics, my books mention 36 events, but almost 1/3 of them come from the Harry Potter books, so I personally wouldn’t count them – it seems to me that the “events” cited in this category should be real-world ones, but apparently some people disagree. There are also over 2400 characters identified in the books living in my library – no wonder it seems crowded!

Booking Through Thursday: “Recent Big”

btt button

What’s the biggest book you’ve read recently?

(Feel free to think “big” as size, or as popularity, or in any other way you care to interpret.)

I’ve seen several BTT responses that responded to this with multiple concepts of “big” books, and I think I’ll do the same. Again, I’ll define “recent” as “this summer” (June through August).

Biggest page count: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (672 pages)*

Biggest seller/most popular: again, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince*

Biggest impact/impression on me: The 19th Wife

  *This was a re-read after I saw the movie, and I didn’t post a review of it here, but it meets the criteria for this question regardless.

Friday Fill-ins #140

Serendipity

1. I feel like it’s been way too hot the last few days (but at least the Santa Anas haven’t kicked in yet).

2. Going out to dinner with Tall Paul is always fun.

3. Right now, I can hear these things: the water running in the kitchen, and someone else washing the dishes (I cooked, so he cleaned up).

4. Summer vacation is over and I’m glad the kids didn’t kill each other.

5. The last time I ate Brussels sprouts was the last time I ate Brussels sprouts.

6. I have some plans, but not too many of them, for this Labor Day weekend.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to hanging out at home, tomorrow my plans include grocery shopping and a movie and Sunday, I want to make the drive down to Oceanside and back without hitting too much traffic! (And I’m glad we’ll still have Monday off to relax after the trip.)

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10 comments

  1. We won't kick you out of our cabal for not having read The Hunger Games and Catching Fire yet, I promise. However, we love you, and we love Suzanne Collins' series, so we want you to get together and love each other too.

  2. Jen – Well, the books are on their way, and I'll do my best to read them before the end of this year. If they're as good as everyone says, I'll want my stepdaughter (15) to read them after I do, so that's my incentive to get to them sooner rather than later.

    Glad to know my book-blogger citizenship is not in jeopardy, though, since I love y'all too :-).

  4. Jennifer (Literate Housewife) – I like doing a little theme reviewing once in a while :-). I have the review of …Racing in the Rain scheduled for Tuesday, and Marley & Me will post on Thursday.

  9. So does that mean you found out you would be blackballed for not reading The Hunger Games or Catching Fire? I may read them, but it won't be any time soon.

    I haven't looked at the places feature in the stats of LT. I'll have to take a peek when I have some time to explore that feature. It looks like a fun one.

    I'm so glad those dreaded Santa Anas haven't made an appearance yet. The city where I work did get a big little storm the other afternoon. It was raining fast and hard, hail, thunder, lightening, and wind. It lasted maybe 20 minutes. I left for home not long after and discovered it hadn't rained a drop in my home city. Such strange weather.

    I hope you had a great weekend, Florinda! Did you enjoy your trip to Oceanside?

  10. Literary Feline – No, I was kindly assured I would NOT be blackballed, but I did get caught on a wave of book-blog enthusiasm. And as you know well, just because the books are in the house doesn't mean they get read any time soon :-)!

    I'm glad it's supposed to be cooler again today. I'm sure the Santa Anas will arrive at some point, but they can take their time.

    We went down to my mother-in-law's house to bring her some stuff and pick up some other stuff, and to take her to lunch. It was a good visit, and traffic was good in both directions, so it was very nice.