Booking through Thursday – Page 6

Would You Lie? Booking Through Thursday

Published on October 1, 2009 by Margaret14 Comments

Suggested by Monibo:

Saw this article (from March) and thought it would make a good BTT confessional question:

Two-thirds of Brits have lied about reading books they haven’t. Have you? Why? What book?

I don’t remember ever claiming to have read a book when I haven’t. There are books I think I’ve read but when I look at them I realise I haven’t – I just know the story either from a film or TV programme, just as there are books I don’t think I’ve read and then when I start reading I realise that I have! It’s bad enough not being able to remember all the books I have read without having to remember which books I’ve lied about reading as well!!

According to this article 1984, War and Peace, and Ulysses come high up on the list of books people lie about having read and the main reason given was to impress the person they were speaking to. (1984 is a book I think I’ve read but maybe I haven’t, I’m not sure.)

It wouldn’t impress me at all if someone claimed to have read a book and then it was obvious they knew next to nothing about it. But then it doesn’t impress me what anyone reads – I’m just happy they read at all, as so many people don’t!

Recent Serious – Booking Through Thursday

Published on August 6, 2009 by Margaret15 Comments

Today’s question is

What’s the most serious book you’ve read recently?
(I figure it’s easier than asking your most serious boook ever, because, well, it’s recent!)

I thought at first this would be an easy question to answer, but as I looked back over the books I’ve read recently I began to define “serious”. Does a serious book have to be non-fiction? If so then I didn’t have to think too hard and the book is one I’m currently reading – After the Victorians: the World Our Parents Knew by A N Wilson. I’m up to 1938-9, the build-up to the Second World War. What could be more serious than that?

However, “serious” isn’t limited to non-fiction. Fiction can be very grave, austere, earnest, thought -provoking and heavy (as opposed to light and fluffy). Thinking of books in this way it’s more difficult to choose “the most serious” book I’ve read recently.

But I think the most serious and powerful novel I’ve read this year is Remember Me … by Melvyn Bragg. This is the tragic, emotional and heart-rending story of Joe Richardson as he tells it to his daughter. It’s a long book, very intense and very moving.

Preferences

Published on July 23, 2009 by Margaret15 Comments

Today’s questions are:

Which do you prefer? (Quick answers€“we’ll do more detail at some later date)

Reading something frivolous? Or something serious?
Paperbacks? Or hardcovers?
Fiction? Or Nonfiction?
Poetry? Or Prose?
Biographies? Or Autobiographies?
History? Or Historical Fiction?
Series? Or Stand-alones?
Classics? Or best-sellers?
Lurid, fruity prose? Or straight-forward, basic prose?
Plots? Or Stream-of-Consciousness?
Long books? Or Short?
Illustrated? Or Non-illustrated?
Borrowed? Or Owned?
New? Or Used?

(Yes, I know, some of these we’ve touched on before, and some of these we might address in-depth in the future, but for today€“just quick answers!)

My very quick answers are that I can’t choose. I read them all!

TBR – Booking Through Thursday

Published on July 16, 2009 by Margaret15 Comments

Follow-up to last week’s question:

Do you keep all your unread books together, like books in a waiting room? Or are they scattered throughout your shelves, mingling like party-goers waiting for the host to come along?

I have a bookcase where a lot of my unread books are shelved – that’s the waiting room. I also have unread books in piles in various rooms because I don’t have enough shelves – these are on the waiting list for places to come available. But now I come to think of it the unread bookcase also holds books I’ve read as well because there’s nowhere else left to move the unread books to once I’ve read them. And I have a feeling that there are some unread books mingled in amongst the other bookcases too.

The only place I’ve found to keep them under some form of order is in LibraryThing. But now LT has a category of Books To Read I see that I have 285 books in that category, whereas I’ve tagged 275 of them as TBR. I’m so inconsistent! Anyway that’s a lot of unread books.

Unread – Booking Through Thursday

Published on July 9, 2009March 23, 2018 by Margaret16 Comments

An idea Deb got from The Toddled Dredge (via K for Kat). Here’s what she said:

‘So here today I present to you an Unread Books Challenge. Give me the list or take a picture of all the books you have stacked on your bedside table, hidden under the bed or standing in your shelf – the books you have not read, but keep meaning to. The books that begin to weigh on your mind. The books that make you cover your ears in conversation and say, No! Don’t give me another book to read! I can’t finish the ones I have!’ ‘

My first thought was “impossible, I’m not listing all my unread books, way too many!” My second thought was OK – just the books in piles by the bed. These are there because at some time I thought I’d read them next and then forgot about them when others got added on top. I dragged them out and here is the list, in no particular order:

Turbulence by Giles Foden – a book from LibraryThing’s Early Reviewer Program. I have just started this and it promises to be good.
The Ode Less Travelled by Stephen Fry – another one I’ve started. It looks excellent but it’s not one to read striaght through – that’s my reason (excuse) for not having finished it.
Roma by Steven Saylor – a chunkster that I really want to read.
The Tuscan Trilogy by Derek Adie Flower – this was forgotten about at the bottom of a pile – sorry Derek.
The House of a Thousand Spirits by Isabel Allende – can’t remember why I haven’t started this one.
Resistance by Owen Sheers – I was full of enthusiasm for this when I bought it and since then I’ve never been in quite the right frame of mind to read it. I loved his series on BBC4 recently, A Poet’s Guide to Britain.
Stockings and Suspenders: a Quick Flash by Rosemary Hawthorne. This is a history of stockings etc full of fascinating information. Did you know that stockings are 3,000 years old and the first stocking machine was invented by a Nottingham vicar? It’s only a short book – must read it soon.
Shoe Addicts Anonymous by Beth Harbison – a library book – chic lit I think.
Fleshmarket Close by Ian Rankin – for when I get up to it in his Rebus series.
The Naming of the Dead by Ian Rankin – as above. (Both books borrowed from our son).
Whitethorn Woods by Maeve Binchy. I have started this and was disappointed it didn’t appeal much.
The Chymical Wedding by Lindsay Clarke – started but thought it a bit heavy going so I left it for a while.
The Appeal by John Grisham – again forgotten about at the bottom of a pile.
The Lollipop Shoes by Joanne Harris – forgotten about it because it was buried at the back of the piles.

This is a good exercise if only to remind me of the books buried by the bed.

My third thought came to me as I passed yet another pile of books on the bookcase on the landing, so instead of listing them here is a photo –

Bookcase Unread Books

I’ve had the Thomas Hardy book a long time now and although I’d started it once I put it to one side whilst I read more of his books and haven’t got back to it yet!

I’m in no danger of running out of books to read – I just need more space for them and time to read them!

Hot!

Published on June 25, 2009June 30, 2022 by Margaret13 Comments

Now that summer is here (in the northern hemisphere, anyway), what is the most ‘Summery’ book you can think of? The one that captures the essence of summer for you?

(I’m not asking for you to list your ideal ‘beach reading,’ you understand, but the book that you can read at any time of year but that evokes ‘summer.’)

It’s hot here, but not as hot as other parts of the world – but too hot for me anyway. Actually, this morning it’s dull but the forecast is for sun later on. Nothing came to mind when I read this question – no book leaped up to remind me of “the essence of summer” . Maybe it would be the books I read on holiday, but this question is not about “beach reading”.

Then my husband came up with a perfect answer (why didn’t I think of it?) – Forever Summer by Nigella Lawson. This is a beautiful book full of recipes that you can eat all year round reminding you of summer even in the darker days of winter. I love Nigella’s books as much for her writing as for her recipes:

Summer then, is an idea, a memory, a hopeful projection. Sometimes when it’s grey outside and cold within, we need to conjure up the sun, some light, a lazy feeling of having all the wide-skied time in the world to sit back and eat warmly with friends. I’m not talking about creating some overblown idyll of perpetual Provencal summer, but of extending that purring sense of sunny expansiveness.

In this book are recipes for pasta dishes, salads, Spanish, Italian, Eastern Mediterranean recipes and so on – wonderful desserts, ice creams and summer drinks. Imagine The Ultimate Greek Salad, Red Mullet with Sweet and Sour Shredded Salad, followed by Figs for a Thousand and One Nights, Slut-Red Raspberries in Chardonnay Jelly, Arabian Pancakes with Orange -Flower Syrup, or Margarita Ice Cream!