SO/ 50 book challenge. What do you really want to read?

[LibraryLady]

There was a time, about 20 years ago, when I kept careful notes on every book I read and tried to get the highest number I could per year. One year, I racked up 400 books. It didn't quite work because I found myself reading short, junky books to make up the numbers. I read them but they weren't worth remembering.

I don't keep a book diary these days and my reading may be the better for it. There may be a month when I don't read a book but I get caught up on interesting and important articles I haven't read from Harper's or the Atlantic Monthly.

Reading shouldn't be the devouring of any text available. It shouldn't be like a drive-through meal at a fast-food place. Good reading should be enjoyed at leisure like a well-prepared meal at a fine restaurant. We might not be able to afford a steak and lobster dinner but we can afford a trip to the public library and make a selection from their excellent intellectual menu.

Although light Sci-Fi or Fantasy books are fun, we can not live only on literary chicken nuggets, burgers and pizza. We need substantial food. Asimov, Heinlein and Ted Sturgeon can help feed the soul with varying degrees of spice. Those who really want spice should take a look at Lovecraft.

Sometimes we need to swim through deep, warm, intellectual soups. A novel by Joseph Heller or Saul Bellow can give us a nice bowlful of meaning to digest. You can also bet there will be plenty plenty of tasty noodles along the way.

Sometimes, we need a bit of champagne and caviar to get make us happy. I wouldn't say "No!" to a small box of Godiva chocolates. I wouldn't say 'No' to a book by Harry Turtledove either. He's a very good writer whose work ranges from Medieval fantasies to an alternate history of WW II. His work is always sweet and tart like a Godiva chocolate with a lemon center.

Whatever you want to read, you can find it. It's out there. I would ask is that we look outside what we think we like and widen our horizons a bit. You just might find that you like what you never looked at before.

Here's looking forward to a wonderful 2009 with reading lists outside our boxes and good reprts about what we've read.

[AnaKhouri]

I'll read almost anything, but there are some genres I tend to avoid, because they don't interest me. Romance, Chick lit, and Christian fiction fall into those categories.

I used to force myself to finish books I hated, but lately I've decided I'm only going to live so long, so why bother making myself finish "Kushiel's Dart" or the Harry Potter series when there are other books out there I really want to read?

I've never kept a book diary. I usually remember what I've read and what I haven't, even if I don't remember all the particulars of plot (I may have to keep one when I get older though; at least once a day I have an elderly person return a book to my store because they bought it and discovered they'd already read it).

[LibraryLady]

SO/ Fifty Book Challenge. How Bad This Can Get

Many years ago a friend brought me a wonderful/horrible souvenir from Italy. It was an example of the beautiful paper goods that Northern Italy can produce. It was an innocent-looking little register of "Books I Have Read". It became an obsession. I can tell you that Ginny Weasley had nothing on me.

Every month had to have at least one more book than the month before. Things got crazy. I started reading the shortest, easiest books I could find to make the numbers. "A Brief History of Time" got knocked aside in favor of "The Stainless Steel Rat" (Not that there's anything wrong with that, mind you. The old Sci-Fi books of 120 pages were usually better written than the modern lumps of 500+ pages.) I stopped reading long, thoughtful articles from "Harper's" or "The Atlantic Monthly" because I didn't feel that a magazine article belonged in that register.

After about six months of madness, I realized that I wasn't getting much out of what I read. I was gorging on literary potato chips when I really wanted a nice, nutritious piece of salmon or the roast beef of old England. I closed the register and put it aside.

It's still here. It's still beautiful and it's a reminder of time when I went a little daft. The worst/best month had a total of 46 books and I don't remember anything about any of them.

[Removes soap box and puts it over her head as she quietly slinks away]

[Jester]

"A Brief History of Time" got knocked aside in favor of "The Stainless Steel Rat."

Hey! The Stainless Steel Rat rocks!

[LibraryLady]

Hey! The Stainless Steel Rat rocks!

Right you are, Bro!

Harry Harrison rocked! He knew how to present a tight, well-written story in 160 pages. Do you remember Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's "Game Park"? The 'Ring-World" series or Asimov's "I, Robot"?

I'm sorry if I sound like an old Grump but I liked the Sci-Fi books from the 50s and 60s. The authors cut their literary teeth by publishing in pulp mags like 'Analog'. They wrote close to the chest and they wrote very, very well. Kids reading those stories weren't reading junk. They were reading real literature by people who knew how to get the most out of a story in the fewest pages. My hat is off to them.

[LibraryLady]

I'm in my early 60s. I'm not that old but I have found myself buying books I've already read.

One problem can be that the UK and American titles are different. I took out a book on the QM2 expecting to read something new by Bill Bryson. The first page told me I'd already read this. It was just a different title.

I've also had problems with editions of old books issued with new cover art. That can throw you if you aren't very careful.

When you get to be my age you've read so much that it isn't always possible to remember what you've read and what you haven't. Sometimes, I come across a book in a Library that looks new but proves to be an old but forgotten friend. I'm always happy to find those. Sometimes, I pick up a book that looks fresh and new. I open it and my response is , "Ick! Not YOU again."

Books are always a crap-shoot but, at least with books, you win more often than you lose.

[Drakstern]

I read anything that I can lay my hands on, though I will fully admit to having a deep abinding love for sci-fi and fantasy of varying stripes.

Current book I'm reading? The Power of Myth.

I love me some Joseph Campbell.

[dalesys]

Did you know that if you take the sheetrock off in the hallway and put in little 14.5x3.5 shelves the cavity is just the right depth for paperbacks?

[Drakstern]

That would be much cheaper than the two-three additional bookshelves I'll need to get my books out of boxes...

Don't think the leasing company would appreciate me doing that in my apartment though.

[Boggles]

I'm one of these people who finds an author and then devours their back catalogue.

The problem is, I have caught up on most of my favourite authors. Tom Clancy, Jeffrey Deaver, Stephen King, Robert Ludlum, Terry Pratchett, Matthew Reilly and a few others.

On the list for this year are Clive Cussler and Harry Turtledove. plus any others I spot at the library.

Igenerally have a little pile in the bathroom for dipping in and out of. Currently Stephen King's Danse Macabre, Bill Bryson's Notes From A Small Island and The 2009 Book Of Lists.

By the bed I have my current "big novel" for reading a chapter every night. Currently it is Cussler's Valhalla Rising. The next 3 are the final three Flashman novels as i read the rest of the series back to back and need a break before tackling them.

And finally i have a pile of general books for taking with me on trains, to waiting rooms etc. Currently I am on Asimov's Magic followed by The Rest Of The Robots and then a few of Asimov's old Orion Paperbacks.

[Eireann]

I became hooked on Raymond Chandler some years ago; why did he write so few books? That's the problem with a favorite author. Once you've read everything s/he wrote, that's it.

The books on my list are anything that looks interesting, that I know I haven't read. I'm horrified by the number of novels out there that put real people (Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Dickens) into mystery plots. Nope, not going to work with me; plus, the people listed above had very interesting lives, and don't need any fictional spin on their existence.

One problem with living here is that English-language books are expensive. This cuts down on my purchasing. I've been downloading public-domain material off Project Gutenberg, and I'm gonna settle me down with some good Victorian and Edwardian ghosty stories.

[Shards]

When I was young, my father taught me to read by reading Tolkein books aloud while I looked over his shoulder at the words. I loved the Hobbit and the LOTR books, long before anyone outside the literary circle had ever heard of them.

However, I've read Asimof, King, Lovecraft, and a number of other highbrow 'classic' writers, and I have to say, they bore me. King and Lovecraft especially just like to screw with the minds of their readers, and that's it.

I find that I get more interested, more involved, and, because I'm more involved, more stimulated by comic books and mainstream novels (Read: Star Wars universe novels, Halo/Mass Effect novels, anything that's got a tie in to another form of culture that I'm interested in) than the browbeating monotony of authors who my grandmother's schoolteachers were presenting as classics. You may call me less intelligent, or less cultured than you for it (on that second one I probably am, by the older definitions of cultured that my parents use), but, to quote a popular game reviewer: "If disliking this sort of thing makes me stupid, then call me Retard McSpakypants, but I'd rather be stupid and having fun than bored out of my huge genius mind."

[Buglady]

at least once a day I have an elderly person return a book to my store because they bought it and discovered they'd already read it

Um. I do that at the library all the time - not usually in bookstores because I tend to buy new releases there...

I was commenting to one of my instructors - we were discussing a book I lent her, about a Harvard professor with early-onset Alzheimers (so tragic!) - that one mercy is that when I hit menopause, or if I ever do get Alzheimer's (no history of it in my family, thank God) - anyway, the mercy of it is that I won't know what's happening until it's completely too late. I have ADHD and I am all too used to forgetting stuff already.

[Buglady]

I am on a nonfiction bender this year. Mainly psychology - cognitive and neuropsych stuff (Steven Pinker, Oliver Sacks, Temple Grandin on autism), cognitive linguistics, and relationship issues (handbooks for marriage and family counselling; Harriet Lerner's books on anger). I am also reading biographies of literary figures, which is a new thing for me.

I love well-written science books - my shelves are full of Stephen Jay Gould and E.O. Wilson (I was a biology student previously). Recently started reading more in evolutionary developmental biology (how evolution has shaped the actual mechanics of embryonic that process, and a change int he timing of the switch can change huge aspects of the organism). I am also a history geek and adore books that look at one thing in detail throughout its history (especially diseases. Must be the medievalist in me, I have six or seven books on various plagues).

In terms of fiction, I'm reading mainly mysteries and crime books at the moment. I do love fantasy and science fiction but I have little patience for authors who go the potboiler route, or those whose thesauri need to be taken away with considerable force and extreme prejudice. (Tad Williams, this would be you).

Also reading some literary novels lately - Lawrence Hill's "The Book of Negroes" and "Any Known Blood" are fantastic.

Oops, gotta go to class!

[LibraryLady]

Quoth Boggles;518673]I'm one of these people who finds an author and then devours their back catalogue.

I understand that, Boggles, I've done that too. However, sometimes people can go a bit overboard when they want to read everything a favorite author has writen.

Some years ago we had a devotee of Elizabeth Peters (AKA Barbara Michaels and Barbara Mertz). He wanted to possess everything she ever wrote and offered to pay for copies of her Master's Thesis and Doctoral Dissertation. We had her permission to do it but it would be very expensive and time-consuming.

He didn't care. He wanted it. He got what he wanted but it cost him about $600 USD. He was happy to pay for it.

Hey, you get your jollies where you can.