What. A. Week.

[constance]

Oh my God. I have had such a week. A week spent working ten hour days, then going home and working more till bedtime (or in one case, heading back out to work another half-day at the bookstore). A week wherein my boss, of whom I am normally quite fond, piled last-minute projects on top of the projects I already had to finish until I was ready to saw his head off with the rusty hacksaw I found sitting on my desk the other morning. A week wherein every single morsel of food I ate came from a restaurant. A week wherein my pets have probably forgotten that I exist in a conscious state. A week I am happy to forget.

And so I am forgetting it, right now, and instead concentrating on this :

• Paperback, hardback or trade paperback?
  Hardcover for the keepers, trade paper for the stuff I don't mind getting cheap. Never mass markets if I can help it; they're flimsy and printed on dreadful paper.
  
  
• Amazon or brick and mortar?
  Well, brick and mortar, to a degree. I generally get books I'm searching for from online used book services like alibris, or from half.com or ebay or Amazon storefronts (which isn't the same as Amazon, or am I deluding myself?), because they're cheaper -- cheaper even than they are with a BN employee discount -- and because I'm a casual sort of tree-hugger and keep a low consumer profile wherever possible. When I buy things on impulse, though, I do buy brick and mortar, and usually from BN, because it's mighty convenient to do all your book-browsing-and-buying while hanging out at work. (We're not allowed to read on the clock, but you really can't help but notice wonderful things during the course of an ordinary day at a bookstore, and I've found lots of superb things quite by accident.)



• Barnes & Noble or Borders?
  See above. There's no Borders here, but even if there were, why would I buy books full price from anyplace else? *sets aside guilt at not frequenting local indie stores*



• Bookmark or dog-ear?
  I used to dog-ear, but at some point I stopped doing it; I have no idea when or why. For years, I've generally marked my books with little bits of paper -- receipts, shopping lists, packing lists, sticky notes with mysterious phone numbers written on, etc. -- or with the dust jackets, in spite of the fact that I have quite an impressive number of nice bookmarks. They are the gift of choice for bookworms, see.



• Favorite place to read?
  In my comfy chair or in bed. On the front porch, if the weather's nice.



• Alphabetize by author or alphabetize by title or random?
  Hahahahahahaha. Sort by arbitrary category imposed by me, then alphabetize wherever possible but when not possible due to constraints of shelving space, spend hours figuring out a configuration which will store physics-defying numbers of books on a single shelf.



• Keep, throw away, or sell?
  Keep if I love it. Donate (to friends or to charities) if I don't. I used to keep everything, but then I found myself leaving New Orleans and facing the task of boxing up about eighteen full-sized bookcases stuffed with things I knew perfectly well I neither loved nor would ever look at again, I lightened my load, and I continue to try and lighten it. Although I have had a few D'oh! moments when I've realized I must've got rid of something I didn't actually mean to give away.
  
  I keep meaning to try my hand at selling things I don't want on half.com, but somehow I never quite get around to it.



• Keep dust jacket or toss it?
  Keep. And if you ever borrow a book from me, DO NOT DARE to return it without a dust jacket or I will think very badly of you indeed.



• Read with dust jacket or remove it?
  With. See above note about marking my place with dust jackets.



• Short story or novel?
  Novel, more often than not, but I adore short stories, and generally prefer to travel with them.



• Harry Potter or Lemony Snicket?
  Harry Potter, but I am very fond of Lemony Snicket as well.



• Stop reading when tired or at chapter breaks?
  Hahahahaha, I make myself stop when I'm tired. I've burned myself too many times trying to stop at chapter breaks. By this I mean:
  
  Me: hmm. Eleven pages to go. I'll just read to the end of the chapter and stop.
  Me: *reads for half an hour*
  Me: I passed the chapter ending two chapters ago! Oops, well, I'll just read to the end of this one, then. Only eight pages to go.
  Me: *repeats until three a.m.*



• "It was a dark and stormy night" or "Once upon a time"?
  :O DO NOT ASK ME TO MAKE THIS DECISION.



• Buy or borrow?
  Buy. Alas for my bank account. But in my defense, I am disappointed by the selection of my local library system. Plus I kind of owe them money that I keep forgetting to pay.



• New or used?
  Used whenever possible, remaindered whenever possible, new only when I feel I must have it IMMEDIATELY.



• Buying choice: book reviews, recommendations, or browse?
  All!



• Tidy ending or cliffhanger?
  OMG Tidy ending. I can't help it, okay? I must have closure. When I read Infinite Jest -- I don't think this is a spoiler, but you might want to tread warily here -- I got to the end, and obsessed for many days about the callous open-endedness of it all. I spared coco_palmolive the worst of it when she made it clear that she did not share these unhealthy concerns, but she probably got a fair whiff of my craziness nonetheless.



• Morning reading, afternoon reading, or nighttime reading?
  Yes, please.



• Stand-alone or series?
  Yes, please.



• Favorite series?
  Oh, I am bad at the Favorite Game. Harry Potter. A Series of Unfortunate Events. Emily. His Dark Materials. Little House. I wouldn't have thought of including Regeneration until SQ mentioned it, but God, I did love those books. Patricia Highsmith's Ripley series. Sarah Caudwell's Hilary Tamar mysteries. James Ellroy's LA books. Sandman.



• Favorite children's book?
  I'm going to limit myself here to books I loved as a kid, books I literally wore to pieces: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Harriet the Spy, The Great Gilly Hopkins, The Bridge to Terebithia, The Long Winter, A Little Princess, Little Women, okay I am stopping now but that's not it by a long shot.



• Favorite YA book?
  Again, read as a YA (a much shorter list because I spent most of my YA years sneaking reads of adult novels): Rose in Bloom, Daddy Long-Legs, I Capture the Castle. Notice a pattern in twelve-year-old me?



• Favorite book of which nobody else has heard?
  I honestly don't think I could name a work of fiction of which no one on my flist has ever heard; I mean, that's one of the reasons why I love my flist as much as I do.



• Favorite books read last year?
  Read for the first time: the Hornblower Series. (I think it was last year -- they all run together.)



• Favorite books of all time?
  Dude, I am totally not answering this question.



• Least favorite book you finished last year?
  Okay, don't kill me or anything, but. The Time Traveler's Wife.



• What are you reading right now?
  Lalalalala City of Bones by Cassandra Clare, checked out from BN.



• What are you reading next?
  Probably the latest Adrian Mole, which has been sitting on the floor next to my bed for a while now and keeps getting passed over for more immediately appealing things. Or What Was She Thinking?, which ditto.



• Favorite book to recommend to an eleven-year-old?
  Depends on the eleven-year-old, of course. I am a conscientious bookseller and try to tailor my recs to the reccee.



• Favorite book to reread?
  Goddamnit just stop with the Favorites questions. Anything by Jane Austen. Anything by Laurie Colwin. The Harry Potter series, which is in constant audio rotation (alternating Jim Dale and Stephen Fry) in my car. The Mapp and Lucia books. Sandman. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. One Hundred Years of Solitude. The Sportswriter (I've only reread it rarely, but when I do reread, I wonder why that is).



• Do you ever smell books?
  True story: when I was sixteen, I often used to drive across town to the musty old main library rather than go to the big, airy, well-stocked branch library near my house, because I just liked the way it smelled better -- mmm, book mold and dust. Mmmmm. (The answer, BTW, is yes.)



• Do you ever read primary source documents?
  Yes, I do, but: wtf?

Comments

[laurelwood.livejournal.com]

Wow, you and Dennis seem to have had identical work weeks, which means someone owes you several shoulder rubs and your favorite candy hidden in your sock drawer to cheer you up, as he's received.

I wish I could morph into an 11-year-old and see what you'd recommend to me! And I'm trying so hard not to ask for specifics about how you categorize your books. I dearly want to know, but then again, I want to come see them for myself someday and try to crack the code. But! I do crave an example of some of the neat books you've stumbled onto by accident while working.

And really? You broke the dog-earing habit? Then there's hope, I guess.

Everyone should do this meme. Only, I agree- too much with the "Favorite" questions. Like anyone who reads voraciously could ever pare it down.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

I will certainly look into this matter of free shoulder-rubs and unexpected candy. I mean, I only want what I have coming to me, but if this is owed, then I want somebody to pay up! (That said, I do feel a little better after a fair amount of uninterrupted sleep.)

You would be one of those tough eleven-year-olds, who's already read most of what I would suggest! But I'll take a quick stab at it:

Well, eleven-year-old Laurel, I bet you've read The Boxcar Children already, I can just tell. But how much E. Nesbit have you read? I think she's terrific. Or Enid Blyton? And I really loved Ellen Estes's The Hundred Dressed when I was your age -- it's a little quiet for some girls, but I think you'd like it.

:D

And a few examples of lovely books I've just happened upon in the course of my long tenure as a part-time bookseller: any Jim's Journal comics collection, Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, McSweeney's Enchanted Chamber of Astonishing Stories, Ellen Gilchrist's books, The Sadness of Sex by Barry Yourgrau, The Seas by Samantha Hunt, Jay's Journal by Ricky Jay.

And I would love to see your version of this meme!

[soliloquia.livejournal.com]

I'll steal this! I'll steal this! Just you wait. Ahem... Always fascinated by how people relate to their books. Thanks.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

*beams at you*

[dahlia-777.livejournal.com]

Sort of OT, but I just read a book I think you would really like (if you haven't already?) - The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters (http://bookshop.blackwell.co.uk/jsp/id/9780670916474/The_Glass_Books_of_the_Dream_Eaters) by GW Dahlquist. It's a gorgeously compulsive story set in a fantasy version of 19th century Britain... you can guess immediately why I'm recc'ing it to you, but it's so original in every other way that I don't think I've ever read anything quite like it. The hardback has a fab, glass-like cover and the website is lovely (and suitably mysterious) too: http://www.glassbooks.co.uk/flash.html?
I feel quite bereft now I've finished it. Please read it if you haven't so I can talk to someone about it :D!

I didn't know you'd read Hornblower? I'm nearly at the end of the series now, having read it at the urging of Kay Taylor. The plots are so gripping they're perfect for reading on the Tube where I require books with Maximum Escapism Value.

I never do memes but this book one is kind of tempting.

[dahlia-777.livejournal.com]

PS Did you see that Shadow of his Wings updated? Or have you given up on it?

[tofty.livejournal.com]

:O I most certainly did not know! And I haven't given up just yet, either. I was just thinking the other day, after I read a very nice long S/H fic (to which I will link you if you're interested, and assuming you haven't read it already), that I needed to check her group to see if she'd updated, but I hadn't gotten around to it.

[dahlia-777.livejournal.com]

I most certainly would like a link. Is it one of the Snarry Games fics? I've randomly read a few of those posted so far but recs are best. I'll trade you that link for a decent H/D auror fic (http://archive.skyehawke.com/story.php?no=12862&PHPSESSID=133e6a236c84a5c56e602ddacb375a71) - I know you don't read much H/D but this one's charming and absolutely UST-ridden.

I'm getting back into reading HP after spending quite a while away in other fandoms. Well, it seems like good timing since it's going to be the summer of HP isn't it?

[tofty.livejournal.com]

I did read it! I read it a couple of years ago as a galley proof I picked up at the bookstore. It was higher in melodrama than, say, JS&MN, but I had fun with it! My memory's a little spotty now on the details, but I remember the basics -- I'd just need to glance back through to have an in-depth discussion.

Rhoddlet uploaded the Hornblower ebooks last year and I read them online -- it was last year, because it was in my new house that I read them -- and yeah, they are the absolute perfect low-effort high-impact read.

Please do this meme! I love seeing how people live with books.

[dahlia-777.livejournal.com]

I've been ill again lately so GBDE was the perfect book to distract me from my woes. I read it so fast I got completely wrapped up in it. I practically lived in it, you know? The ending wasn't exactly what I expected but I thought it worked anyway - though I would have loved to know what happened to Miss Temple and Cardinal Chang afterwards. The shipper in me was intrigued by their relationship.