Booking Through Thursday: Holiday Reading

It’s a holiday weekend here in the U.S., so let’s keep today’s question simple – What are you reading? Anything special? Any particularly juicy summer reading?

I am still working my way through a few books that have been on-going for a few weeks, now. Hopefully the extra holiday from work will help me get through a couple of them! The list:

• The Gargoyle, by Andrew Thompson
• X Saves the World: How Generation X Got the Shaft but Can Still Keep Everything from Sucking, by Jeff Gordinier
• Ledgermain, by James Heaphey

Of these, I have a hard time putting down The Gargoyle (I have no idea where the story is going!), and always get a kick out of X Saves the World, even though it takes me forever to pick it up again.

I have also recently purchased several of the books for my LOST Reading Challenge, and have high hopes of read Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, by Judy Blume, this weekend. I am not sure how I managed to get through my childhood and adolescence without reading it.

Finally, I am driving for a few hours over the weekend and hope to get through the rest of the audio book I am currently listening to: Whose Body? by Dorothy L. Sayers.

BTT: Flavor of the Week

Think about your favorite authors, your favorite books . . . what is it about them that makes you love them above all the other authors you’ve read? The stories? The characters? The way they appear to relish the taste of words on the tongue? The way they’re unafraid to show the nitty-gritty of life? How they sweep you off to a new, distant place? What is it about those books and authors that makes them resonate with you in ways that other, perfectly good books and authors do not?

What makes me love a book or an author? This is a pretty excellent question, I think. And one I'm not quite sure how to answer. I've been thinking about this for about 3 hours, and haven't come up with much more than "Can't I just like what I like?"

I talked here about why I love the memoir so much; this is probably the best answer to this weeks' question that I'll come up with. There is something so fascinating to me about honesty, and the bravery it takes to be honest about the less-than-pleasant things in life. Maybe it is voyeuristic? I don't know if it has anything to do with my line of work? But (perhaps) in opposition to what I do, I generally can't stand "Christian" literature, and specifically what I might term "Christian self-help" books.

I still hold a great fondness in my heart for my favorite books of childhood, such as From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. And I do love the Harry Potter series and the Chronicles of Narnia. And I love the verbose prose of English Victorian Literature, like Thomas Hardy, Charles Dickens, and the Bronte sisters.

Booking Through Thursday: Clubbing

A combo of two suggestions by: Heidi and by litlove:
Have you ever been a member of a book club? How did your group choose (or, if you haven’t been, what do you think is the best way to choose) the next book and who would lead discussion? Do you feel more or less likely to appreciate books if you are obliged to read them for book groups rather than choosing them of your own free will? Does knowing they are going to be read as part of a group affect the reading experience?

In recent years I have been a member of three attempted book clubs, though none panned out terribly far. And, by "recent years," I really mean two summers ago:

As a lit major in college I had little time for recreational reading, and was pretty exhausted from reading items I knew would be discussed in more depth than I (often) cared to. When I finally graduated and had taken a significant break from reading anything more difficult than the Harry Potter series, my good friend Eric and I decided that a summer book club was in order. Using the phenomenal medium of Facebook, we formed a group and came up with a nifty name: A Staggering List of Books to Read.

Mistake number 1: letting Eric pick the first book before we had any other members. He and I were both quite excited to read Dave Eggers' What is the What, though, before I had it in hand, I had little concept of how long it really was. After much thought, we invited friends to join us; several were excited... until they saw the book choice. After a month of attempted meetings, and my inability to finish the book, we moved to a second choice, Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen. Though this title was much more "summer friendly," it still proved nearly impossible to gather our group for discussion (even with the promise of food). And so we just gave up.

Book Club Attempt Number 2 was more about getting involved in my new church than anything else. Books were chosen by democracy; the group was quite diverse in all possible aspects (except gender - we were all women) which led to a good book and a not-s0-good book during my duration with the group. The not-so-good book was the first pick (it was actually written by a person closely connected to the church, and her first novel), and the only reason I actually DID read it was because I knew I would be discussing it with people whom I did not yet know very well, and I wanted them to like me.

(I left this book club because I left the church... the later was not predicated on the former.)

Book Club Attempt Number 3 was a great Facebook experiment with my former academic adviser: BookFace (original, we know). Dan had left my alma mater before I graduated, but remained in contact with those he left behind. Somehow this idea for an online book club was born and bred into a beginning, connecting Dan's students across the country (and even venturing a little bit to the rest of the world). By popular vote we chose to read The Kite Runner, set up a reading schedule and discussion board, and BookFace took off... for about a book and a half. The brilliance of a multi-location book club was also the difficulty of a multi-location book club. After the first choice, it was quite difficult to agree on a book to read (lit majors are picky people), and even more difficult to accommodate peoples' online availability. Theoretically BookFace still lives in a suspended state, but may be on permanent inactive status.

So, to backtrack to the original questions, I have mixed feelings about the effectiveness of book clubs in spurring on appreciative reading. Perhaps my days of class are still too near for me to feel like the book club exercise is anything more than a high-pressure assignment. I think the foreknowledge of a book discussion completely affects the reading experience: I am less likely to enjoy the book as a work of art, and more likely to be focused on "getting" it (or at least guessing what other people will think is important about it so I can participate in the discussion). I don't believe all book clubs necessarily function this way, but would be willing to wager that the differences lie in the participants and their levels of comfort with one another.

I do enjoy discussing books, when the discussions are unexpected and are had over an excellent cup of coffee. (Apologies for the tangential nature of this post. Thanks for reading!)

Booking Through Thursday: First Shot

(This is a weekly meme found over at btt2.wordpress.com that several from the LibraryThing world, and Jen over at DevourerOfBooks, participate in. I thought it'd be fun to give it a shot, and have the best intentions of participating regularly. We shall see once school starts again in August...)

Have your book-tastes changed over the years? More fiction? Less? Books that are darker and more serious? Lighter and more frivolous? Challenging? Easy? How-to books over novels? Mysteries over Romance?

When I was in high school I worked at our local Carnegie Library a few days a week after school. This was an excellent job, and provided ample time for reading. At that point I read what I later began to refer to as "cake" books - mystery novels, popular crime fiction, mindless chick lit, and a healthy dose of young adult/children's fiction (I spent a good portion of my time in the Children's Library).

In college I was an English Literature major, and didn't have time to read much other than what I was assigned. I made my way through the entire collection of Norton Anthologies, with my preference being Victorian Literature, balanced by a great deal of modern and postmodern literature assigned by my professors. I took a course in writing creative nonfiction that sparked my love of that genre, and began reading a great deal by Anne Lamott, John Krakauer, David Sedaris, etc.

Post-college, pre-grad school, I read the entire Harry Potter series, and a smattering of other fiction and non-fiction. Really, whatever seemed interesting at the moment. During the school year I now basically only read theology and history books, and anything that is not too taxing during breaks. This summer I have high hopes of getting through a large TBR pile, as well as dabbling in some ARC reviewing (I have my first two of these sitting on my desk, eagerly waiting to be read).

All of this is clouded by the fact that I am, for a literature lover, quite a slow reader with a moral obligation to finish any book I start. Thus, my literary choices are often dictated by available time.