Booking Through Thursday - Disaster

Since it's been several weeks since I've done a BTT post I thought I may as well do it today.

"You've just dropped your favourite out-of-print book in the bathtub, ruining it completely. What do you do now? Booking Through Thursday

Well I reckon that I can say with a fair amount of certainty that this will *never* happen to me for several reasons.
1. I don't really like baths. I'm just more of a shower person since I get terribly bored sitting in a bath for any amount of time (unless I have company :P)
2. I wouldn't read in the bath anyway. I'd be too worried that my own clumsiness would make my book go swimming. Maybe if I purposely bought cheap tatty copies to read in the bath then I would but at the moment, not a chance.
3. My out-of-print books (and I have a *lot* which I really love) would be guarded like the Crown Jewels from any kind of damage since if I do need to replace one of them, the potential cost and difficulty of tracking down another, decent quality copy would be ridiculous.

I have basically everything Tamora Pierce has written to date (barring perhaps a couple of short stories in certain anthologies) and well over half of these books are the UK Scholastic editions which went out-of-print a couple of years ago *boo, hiss*. So now I've gotta conserve these books like they're priceless since there's little to no chance I'll ever come across more copies that don't cost an arm and a leg. It's gonna be hard since Tamora Pierce is my favourite author and I love re-reading her books multiple times. I actually re-read the Protector of the Small Quartet maybe 3 times in a row, back-to-back - I'm *that* addicted to her books.

Now I'll show you what my copies look like cos they really are the funkiest covers ever so you can understand why I don't want to try and replace them ever.

Four top Left - The Immortals Quartet

Four bottom Left - The Protector of the Small Quartet (my fav)

Four top Right - The Circle of Magic Quartet

Four bottom Right - The Circle Opens Quartet

Ain't they all so purdy?

This is my Omnibus of the Song of the Lioness Quartet. This series was the first that Tamora wrote and the starting point of the Tortall universe which also includes the Immortals, Protector of the Small and Daughter of the Lioness books and the new Beka Cooper trilogy - the third book Mastiff is coming out late next year (which IMO is far too far away :P)

On a final *hypothetical* note - What would I do if I did drop my favourite out-of-print book in the bath? Erm probably scream bloody murder and then sob my heart out for several weeks ;-)

Have a Great Thursday Folks

LadyV

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Booking Through Thursday - Meme of Reading Questions

I've been pondering over the last few days what to actually do for my 100th post but frankly my brain was dishing up peanuts so I reckon it'll be miles easier just to do a normal post for now and have a good chatty post at another time :P

This week's Booking Through Thursday question is not so much *one* question but a whole ruck of them. Oh how I love meme's like this.

1. Favorite childhood book?
Erm I'm not sure actually, but I reckon the 1st Harry Potter book was a fav when I was 8

2. What are you reading right now?
I'm currently reading the Alchemist's Daughter by Katherine McMahon

3. What books do you have on request at the library?
None, I don't tend to request books

4. Bad book habit?
I keep buying more books than I have the time to read? :P

5. What do you currently have checked out at the library?
Nothing at this present moment but I'm hoping to check out the Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness later

6. Do you have an e-reader?
nope and I don't plan on getting one

7. Do you prefer to read one book at a time, or several at once?
I tend to read one at a time but occasionally I'll read bits of several

8. Have your reading habits changed since starting a blog?
I reckon they've changed slightly, I think I'm more critical of the books I read but nothing major

9. Least favorite book you read this year (so far?)
Possibly Fallen by Lauren Kate, it was just meh and I'm not all that bothered about Torment

10. Favorite book you’ve read this year?
So far, The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness - unbelievably amazing

11. How often do you read out of your comfort zone?
Not very often, I like sticking with what I know I like

12. What is your reading comfort zone?
YA fiction, Paranormal, Fantasy, and Historical Fiction

13. Can you read on the bus?
Probably I can read in the car but I've never properly tried on a bus

14. Favorite place to read?
In bed mostly or somewhere comfy

15. What is your policy on book lending?
Only trusted individuals may borrow my books, any damage and I lynch ya! :P

16. Do you ever dog-ear books?
*le gasp* Heaven forbid!!

17. Do you ever write in the margins of your books?
*faints* How can you suggest such a thing?!

18.  Not even with text books?
Only if they were my own textbooks

19. What is your favorite language to read in?
Well English although I should be able to read in French (but I'm not very good)

20. What makes you love a book?
It's a mixture of the story and the characters but I can forgive a mediocre plot if the characters are amazing

21. What will inspire you to recommend a book?
How late I stay up to finish it and my rating

22. Favorite genre?
Fantasy I guess

23. Genre you rarely read (but wish you did?)
Non-fiction, I really should read more actual history books cos I find it interesting

Favorite biography?
I've only read two biographies and neither were fantastic

25. Have you ever read a self-help book?
Yeah sort-of do writing books count?

26. Favorite cookbook?
I don't have one - I don't really like cooking although I do own cookbooks

27. Most inspirational book you’ve read this year (fiction or non-fiction)?
Erm I don't know if I'd call any of the books I've read "inspirational" *ponders*

28. Favorite reading snack?

I don't usually eat whilst reading and I don't really have a preference of snacks

29. Name a case in which hype ruined your reading experience.
Hmm I dunno I can't remember any specific book which I was disappointed with because of hype

30. How often do you agree with critics about a book?
Well if the majority of reviews I see of a book are positive I'm likely to enjoy it too

31. How do you feel about giving bad/negative reviews?
If I really didn't like a book I wouldn't review it on my blog, but kinda meh books I'll still review

32. If you could read in a foreign language, which language would you chose?
Well since I study French and Spanish I'd kinda like to be able to read well in both

33. Most intimidating book you’ve ever read?
The Count of Monte Cristo - that thing is *massive*! Although it's actually a pretty fast-paced read

34. Most intimidating book you’re too nervous to begin?
A Sweet Far Thing by Libba Bray - I've been putting it off cos it's a rather beefy-looking book

35. Favorite Poet?
I don't have one - I don't read poetry cos most of it just goes over my head

36. How many books do you usually have checked out of the library at any given time?
Usually no more than 3

37. How often have you returned book to the library unread?
I've done it at least 6 times when I just haven't got into the book

38. Favorite fictional character?
God that's too difficult I have loads!

39. Favorite fictional villain?
Argh again I can't choose!! (I'll do another post on this in the future maybe)

40. Books I’m most likely to bring on vacation?
Any I fancy taking really I'm not one for differentiating between "beach" books and normal ones

41. The longest I’ve gone without reading.
Probably no more than a week and a half?

42. Name a book that you could/would not finish.
Wuthering Heights , I got about 40 pages in and gave up. I may try again one day

43. What distracts you easily when you’re reading?
TV I cannot concentrate on a book if I'm in a room with a TV

44. Favorite film adaptation of a novel?
Hmm I'm rather wary of most film adaptations but I *adore* the Lord of the Rings films

45. Most disappointing film adaptation?
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - just too much was left out of that

46. The most money I’ve ever spent in the bookstore at one time?
I can't quite remember but I think I may have once spent £56 in one go two years ago

47. How often do you skim a book before reading it?
Not very often at all, I don't like to flick through at random in case I spot a spoiler

48. What would cause you to stop reading a book half-way through?
Erm falling asleep? 

49. Do you like to keep your books organized?
Heck yea, I'm an organisational freak

50. Do you prefer to keep books or give them away once you’ve read them?
Nah I'm a hoarder, and I will often re-read books at some point in the future

51. Are there any books you’ve been avoiding?
Probably although I can't remember precisely which books

52. Name a book that made you angry.
Catching Fire - that ending coupled with the fact that I had to wait almost a year to read Mockingjay made me rather tetchy :P

53. A book you didn’t expect to like but did?
Cracked up to be by Courtney Summers - Parker was a total bitch yet I really liked her

54. A book that you expected to like but didn’t?
The Summer I turned Pretty by Jenny Han - I expected to like it more than I actually did

55. Favorite guilt-free, pleasure reading?
Any of my Tamora Pierce books, I love reading her books when I want a great comfort re-read

So there you go folks, I've tried to keep my answers short to save y'all a ton of reading. At another time I'm gonna try and do some posts about my favourite male and female characters and my favourite villains so keep an eye out for those in the next few weeks.


This has taken me a good hour or two to answer but it's been fun, I always like these types of meme. I hope everyone is having a good Thursday and YAY for my 100th post!! *dances*
LadyV

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Booking Through Thursday - First Time

I would have liked to have got this post up earlier but I've been super busy all day what with driving home from my great-auntie's house and then going to help my Gran with some ironing and *then* being dragged along while my sister and mum went to physio and whatnot (thank gawd I grabbed a book to read while we were there)

"What is the first book you remember reading? What about the first made you really love reading?"

I gotta confess that even though I'm not quite 20 my memory of my childhood is so exceedingly poor that I can't remember at all what was the first book I read for myself. I just seem to have been reading all my life and I can't pinpoint when and how it started. I know that I loved Enid Blyton books - like many other people - when I was younger it was more the fairy books but when I was around 7 or 8 I reckon the Secret Seven books were my favourite. I also remember reading this series of books about ballet, I did two years of ballet lessons from when I  was 5 but I've never really been graceful enough or balanced to be a ballerina, but I enjoyed these books nonetheless.

The book that I vividly remember being the catalyst for my reading even more voraciously was Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. I can't recollect who gave me the book but it was in '97 or 98' not long after it came out and I've probably never been more obsessed with a series of books than with Harry Potter, it literally infected a huge part of my childhood. From when I was 7 until I was 17 I pretty much lived for the release of the next book although during that time I did expand my range of reading quite a bit, I'd not really read much fantasy before Harry (as far as I'm aware, I have no idea unless I go and grill my parents about it) but over that ten years I've read the Chronicles of Narnia, His Dark Materials and lots of other books that-I-can't-remember. I feel rather guilty that it's only been since last December that I've read The Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit which I really should have read yonks ago but I can't change the past and I've read them now and that's all that matters.

It is a great shame that I don't remember the *very first* book I ever read and I may have to reminisce with the parentals one day about my reading habits, cos god knows I didn't get my love of books from either of them so I'm rather intrigued to know where it came from. What I would really love to do is go down to my local library, where I've been going for-evah, and ask them if my lending record goes as far back as the mid-90's and if they could actually print me a copy of everything I borrowed cos it would be amazing to see what I read back then and whether I remembered any of them. But I reckon if I did the librarians would look at me pretty funnily *hehe*

All this thinking about my childhood reading has really made me regret giving away all the lovely hardback copies of Roald Dahl books that I had, I'd lost the illustrated dust covers to them years ago but they were in mint condition still (excepting that game of MASH I'd done inside the cover of Matilda - don't ask me *why* I committed sacrilege like that I was a weird child), gah if only I could get them back. *sigh* I'll just have to buy a set of paperbacks for perpetuity and future offspring - who *will* have a love of books beaten into them :P.

Well anyways this has taken me a while and I really need to do some book reviews!
TTFN
LadyV

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Booking Through Thursday - Hot!

Well, folks, I don’t know about where you are, but right here, it’s HOT.

So … when you think about “hot reading,” what does that make you think of? Beach reading? Steamy romances? Books that take place in hot climates? Or cold ones?

Well oops, I was not intending to sleep nearly 12 hours.. but I woke up at half 3 in the afternoon!! Crap now I have to hope that I can tire myself out at cricket practice enough to actually be able to go to sleep tonight. *sigh*

Anyway I'm getting sidetracked. This is an interesting question, first off it *was* really hot here for about a month with no rain until... this week when the rain came back in force and it's not really stopped since Monday which totally sucks. Second, to me "hot" reading brings connotations of steamier novels since if you feel the urge to fan yourself whilst reading it then I'd call that pretty darn hot. When I read Cross Stitch (Outlander) by Diana Gabaldon I found myself checking over my shoulder when I was reading to make sure that no one else could see how saucy some of the scenes were. It's not that I'm a prude about it but I don't want people who just glance at a page and see something like that to think I read soft-core erotica novels :P

Books that get labelled as "beach reads" or "summer reading" are usually lighter, fluffier women's novels like Sophie Kinsella, Louise Bagshawe etc. but I generally don't like those type of books because the stories are not really relatable for me and therefore not that interesting. My kind of beach reading is whatever book I have with me when I happen to be at a beach, which has only occurred once as far as I can remember since I live in a county that's hundreds of miles from anything that resembles a beach. While I was in Barbados I took full advantage of being right by the beach and spend several days on a lounger reading - but I wouldn't call Daphne du Maurier "light" reading and Jane Austen isn't wholly fluffy despite some people's opinions that her books are not entirely serious. 

I can't say I've ever really paid attention to what type of climate a book takes place in because it's not something that tends to be emphasised very much unless it's important to the plot i.e. a story of an expedition in the Antarctic  where the freezing climate is a constant threat to the team's survival. But it's an interesting point to consider, I wonder what the ratio of hot climates to cold there is in the books I've read this year? I'd expect it'd be pretty small though since so many books take place in the US or UK where it's a temperate climate without massive extremes of temperature (for the most part anyway).

Right I've gotta get myself moving now since I've been asleep for most of the day and I need to get dressed and eat before cricket training in 2 hours *eep*. 

Have a good Thursday folks!

LadyV

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Booking Through Thursday - Now or Then?

I'm rather late in doing this weeks BTT question but here I am finally.

"Do you prefer reading current books? Or Older ones? Or outright old ones? (As in, yes, there's a difference between a book from 10 years ago and say, Charles Dickens or Plato)

This is quite an interesting question since I read books from all three categories, admittedly the majority are books published within the last 5 years but I do have quite a lot of books which were originally published in the 19th and even the 18th century (I haven't actually read them all but it's on my to-do list :P). I do quite enjoy reading classics as you can get a good feel for what society was like at that time because unlike historical fiction set in that particular era classic novels were the contemporary works at that time and it's obviously a more authentic picture of the times.

Of course with modern literature it's much easier to read as the language is more what we use in everyday life. I find that when I read Jane Austen aloud I tend to make mistakes because the word order is different to what I'm used to.

I think the main reason I like reading books published in recent years is that the range of genres available is vastly larger than what was around back in the 19th Century because our ability to imagine strange and crazy things has grown so much and there's a lot less of a taboo on certain subjects i.e. homosexuality - you'd never have seen a GLBT book even as recent as the 1950's when being gay was still a crime in several countries.

So to sum up this rather short and terribly incoherent post (I've written bits at three different times) Although I do like reading out-right old books such as Jane Austen's and older books such as Daphne du Maurier's my greatest preference is for the new and awfully exciting books which have come out these past few years and are going to be coming out in the near future - hel-lo Mockingjay anyone??

Gah I so should think these things through more :S
LadyV

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Booking Through Thursday - The Long and Short of It

HAPPY THURSDAY!!! (sorry I'm just really cheerful at the moment)
Since I am now completely finished with exams for my fresher year of university *happy dance* I have the whole summer to be free and make merry which means bucket-loads of reading and hopefully some adventures. (I already have a trip to Barbados at the end of June but I also have a little book-buying excursion in the pipeline which shall be blogged about as it is book- related)

But this has nothing to do with today's BTT Question! *gasp*

 Which do you prefer? Short stories or full-length novels?


Well this is a terrifically simple question (which is good because I don't have long to answer it - la familia are due to appear soon) and doesn't require a huge amount of thought on my part (also good cos my brain is *fried*).

While I do like short stories on occasions, I don't tend to read them unless I happen to have bought a collection of them because I like the author or whatever i.e. The Birds by Daphne Du Maurier which has about 6 short stories all of them being rather creepy and somewhat disturbing. The problem with short story collections is that if there's only one good story out of the lot, then you're stuck with a book you only like to read a tiny part of which sucks really.

So it's fairly easy for me to say that I *much* prefer full-length novels because it gives me time to really get into the world and feel like I really know the characters. With short stories you never really have time to really get into the story before it's over. In fact, the longer stories are the happier I tend to be cos then I get more time with the awesome characters which is excellent.

This post is having to be stupidly short (for me anyway) because the parentals are on their way to the flat and we're going out for lunch. :)

So are you a short story person or a chunky book lover?
LadyV

If you didn't know- I'm having a 75 Followers Giveaway over HERE Check it out!!

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Booking Through Thursday - Bedside

Halloooo!! Sorry for the slightly odd greeting I'm just not used to being up so early - I mean it's still before noon!! (no really I've been sleeping in waaay too late recently)
Anyways decided that since this weeks BTT topic is nice and easy and won't ramble off into the monster post that last week's was I'll get it done before I head off for my exam *yippee*

"What books do you have next to your bed right now? How about other places in the house? What are you reading?"

So glad you asked. Well currently on my bedside table there is the ARC of Forget You by Jennifer Echols which I re-read last night and read for the first time earlier that afternoon (yes I read it twice in one day- I had to make sure it was as marvellous as I thought) and you can be expecting the review of it later today although *that* post could turn out quite lengthy as I may start gushing about my favourite part of the book. Where was I? Oh yea bedside table - the other book currently sat by my bed is the book I was reading before Forget You arrived yesterday which is the one I used for my Teaser Tuesday this week - The Taste of Sorrow by Jude Morgan (check out the teaser Here)

I did have another book on the bedside table but since I haven't touched it since I got back to uni after Easter I relegated it to the top bookshelf where all the other unread books live but it has lots of company so I don't think it's lonely up there- oh the book is a biography of Katherine Howard (the ill-fated 5th wife of Henry VIII) written by Joanna Denny. It's not that I didn't like the book but I wasn't really in the mood for non-fiction, I'll get back to it before the summer's out.

I don't really have books scattered around my flat at the moment because I share it with 3 other people (2 agreeable, one whom I won't spew my diatribe about right now- I want to keep this post clean) so my room is where my books live; most are on the top shelf and stacked up fairly high but there are some in a basket underneath my bed which are the books I've read and there's also one lone book sat near me on the desk - Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell, which is a gorgeous blue leather hardback with a wonderful old book smell that I might take in my bag later when I head up to campus for a  bit of reading either before or after the exam.

Since I've already mentioned the book I'm currently reading above I shall now end this post. It will be rather interesting to see how many books other people have piled up by their beds considering that my pile is rather small.

Have a nice Thursday Folks
LadyV

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Booking through Thursday - Useful

"What's the most useful book you've ever read and why?"

For more Booking through Thursday posts check out the blog here

I'll confess that for a moment after reading what this week's question was about I was thoroughly stumped. I mean I don't read a lot of non-fiction unless all the grammar and verb books that I have for my language studies count so I was pretty stuck for a clue on what could be the most useful book I've ever read.

Another good question is what would actually make a book "useful"? Is it when you've learnt something from it which you didn't know before or is it when it contains things you can actually put into practice?
Because in the case of the first reason I can name two books that I've read in the past 24 hours which mention facts which I didn't know before and they were fiction books.

These may be rather wooly examples but it's what my still sleepy brain can pull together (I *shouldn't* be sleepy since it's nearly 3pm over here but the book I'm about to mention keep me up rather late).
In John Green's An Abundance of Katherines in amongst the footnotes - which were totally awesome I weirdly love footnotes - there was a very interesting mnemonic which could help someone if they felt the inclination to memorise the first 99 numbers of Pi (It's footnote no. 33 at the bottom of pg 63 & 64). Most people wouldn't find that useful, I myself have no urge at this moment to reel off the digits of Pi but I thought it quite a quirky mnemonic and it has the potential to be very useful to a select few people. Even if the book as a whole is not useful to everyone who reads it, it should still be acknowledged as having some use aside from the entertainment & enjoyment factor which is the principle reason for people to read a fiction book.

My second example of a book which has the potential to be useful in the fact-providing quarter is probably quite a surprising one. Pride by Rachel Vincent is not usually the type of book where you'd expect to find useful information but if you happened to tune out your high school biology classes when you studied genetics there is a, albeit very brief and simplistically put, explanation of how people end up with a certain eye colour (Ok I *did* already know about dominant and recessive alleles  but for people who maybe didn't know about how someone whose parents both have brown eyes could end up with blue eyes the explanation is actually quite useful).

So those are my rather pitiful examples of Fiction books which are useful in certain ways to certain people but  on the point of non-fiction books which tend to be the ones which contain information we can actually put into practice thinking of one book which is more useful than the rest I've ever read even part of, is really quite difficult. Some people would say that cookbooks are very useful because obviously you're making what the book is describing but despite the fact I own several cookbooks I rarely use them because I'm not much of a cook so those books are therefore not very useful to me except if I want to make myself feel very hungry by looking at the pictures.

Another type of book which I have read which is considerably more useful to me are those self-help writing books which suggest characterisation tips, methods to help with plotting and world-building, editing and publishing advice etc. Although I wouldn't like to try and copy exactly the methods given in one particular book I do find these books useful in sparking the old grey matter into finding the methods that work for *me*. Now I don't talk about my writing very much since it never really gets far past planning (I can plan and plot for England but never really seem to finish any stories) but since my favourite genres are fantasy, historical fiction and YA realism those are the areas where my story ideas would end up in and although I haven't as yet read any books which give tips on writing YA or historical fiction I have read the rather helpful book by Orson Scott Card called How to Write Science-Fiction and Fantasy (link goes to the Goodreads page for the book). I know Card is primarily a Sci-Fi author but I found the sections on Fantasy World building to be very useful and some of the other methods he talked about gave me much food for thought. So despite the fact that my writing is currently rather pitiful I do find writing advice books to be some of the most useful non-fiction books I own.

Finally to talk about the book(s) which I find to be universally useful although there's no way in hell I'll ever read all of one. A Dictionary. No joke I think dictionaries are the most useful books on the planet - I find myself distracted whenever I look through my French Dictionary for one particular word as I always find at least 5 other words that I didn't know and thought to be freaking awesome. If I owned a proper English Dictionary I would probably be flicking through it for brilliantly interesting words whenever I could as I'm one of those people who find obscure and weird words really cool (Yes Nerd am I). I wish sometimes I spoke more languages so I could have the excuse of needing more language dictionaries to look through when I wanted to know how to say a particular word in Japanese for instance. Maybe in the future once I have my own house and library (I must have one or I will never be satisfied) I shall try and teach myself some more languages and build up a collection of dictionaries to pore over whenever I felt the urge.

So there you go, my *very* rambling thoughts on useful books. Lord knows if it makes sense to anyone other than myself but it was really fun to think about. If anyone has opinions on what books they find to be useful do leave me a comment below :)

Now I must go do some work as my afternoon is disappearing.
LadyV

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Booking through Thursday - Restrictions

God* comes to you and tells you that, from this day forward, you may only read ONE type of book–one genre–period, but you get to choose what it is. Classics, Science-Fiction, Mystery, Romance, Cookbooks, History, Business … you can choose, but you only get ONE.

What genre do you pick, and why?

*Whether you believe in God or not, pretend for the purposes of this discussion that He is real.

Booking Through Thursday is a meme hosted Here

I thought I'd do another Booking through Thursday since I was going to do a post yesterday about my reading challenges but Youtube had a hissy fit and my vlog wouldn't work (and it'd taken three attempts to get to that point anyway) so I just got fed up and left it.

Anyhow, if I had to pick just *ONE* genre of books to read for the rest of my life it would be a toss-up between Fantasy and Historical Fiction because with fantasy there is really no limit to the number of stories that authors could come up with as everyone's imagination is different and there's no hard-and-fast rules of what worlds could be created.

Historical Fiction is another vast genre because there's 5000 years of human history and with all the hundreds of countries there have been over this time you could write stories about people in any time period you liked from any part of the world for the rest of your life and never exhaust the wealth of history that exists. And in the case where certain details about historical events are not known for definite authors of Historical Fiction have the license to speculate on what they think, or would like to believe happened so there's the possibility for several versions of a story surrounding the same event - e.g. just look at how many stories there are set during the reign of King Henry VIII. 

So I'm thinking that as much as I love the completely out-of-this-world escapism of reading Fantasy novels I also adore reading books where I get to travel back in time to places and eras that I would have loved to have seen first-hand (ok maybe not the plague eras - although I really enjoyed World without End I would *not* have liked to be wandering around Kingsbridge without protection from disease). 

History has always fascinated me although I began to dislike my history A-Level classes when it became more about interpreting the different views of *why* a certain monarch did something (Louis XIV is now one of my most hated historical figures because of this) rather than the, admittedly childish desire to know about how people lived in past times. That's why I'm quite glad that I'm not studying History at university because I fear that all the discussion of ways to interpret history would have destroyed my love of the subject.

Therefore I think that if I had to read only one genre of books for the rest of my life I would choose Historical Fiction because although it's not 100% factually accurate; well-researched and thoughtfully written historical fiction can be infinitely more interesting and digestible than the gospel truth written by the driest, fustiest bunch of old historians you could cobble together from the best universities in the world.

See you in a past life

LadyV

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Booking through Thursday - Encouragement

How can you encourage a non-reading child to read? What about a teen-ager? Would you require books to be read in the hopes that they would enjoy them once they got into them, or offer incentives, or just suggest interesting books?


Since I've not done a post for several days (I'm really sorry about that I've got a lot of work from uni to do) I'll do this week's BTT. 


Although obviously I am not old enough to have non-reading offspring to worry about I have had to deal with my mostly non-reader sister. Until very recently we were completely opposite in that she preferred to watch TV and Dvds all the time and had to be forced to read anything that was larger than a magazine whereas I hardly watch TV anymore (although I do love watching films) and I have to be threatened to get me away from my books- the threats usually imply that some form of harm will befall my precious books should I not comply. Our parents have long accepted the fact that I was the bookworm and my sister the TV addict and didn't force her to read if she didn't want to.


However in the last year a strange and miraculous change was wrought upon my sister thanks to me and although I'm not all too happy to admit it- Twilight. Yes that's right those beslubbering books which have been hyped up beyond all reason and which have ensnared the minds of an enormous portion of the female population, old and young, were the catalyst which got my sister reading. When I first read the Twilight books back around the time just when Breaking Dawn came out I'll readily confess that I was addicted. I raced through all four books and went back and re-read them several times for good measure. I even gave the first book as a christmas present to three of my best friends with the very stern order to "read it or else!" I even joined The Twilight Lexicon (one of the largest Twilight fansites) and was so hooked on it that I annoyed a heck of a lot of people for several months until I weaned myself off it. But out of that experience came something brilliant- as dodgy as this may sound- I met my best friend on the Lex. Although we've only known each other for a year and only met up twice in person I fell as though I've known her my whole life- we have so much in common it's scary and we actually got mistaken for being sisters on our first get-together (which was hilarious oh our faces were a picture!). Nowadays neither of us much like the Twilight books since the furor surrounding them has just got to the point of being ridiculous but I do have to give thanks to the books and the Lex for providing the spark for a friendship that I'm going to be glad of for the rest of my life.


Now before you cry "hold on, how off on a tangent are you going?" I do have a point and I'm getting to it, albeit by a very convoluted route. What I'm trying to say is that although I don't like the Twilight books anymore I have to acknowledge the fact that they have had quite a remarkable effect on my life and my reading habits. They are not great literature and they're not going to become classics by which 21st century fiction is defined, not in the slightest, they're books about sparkly freaking vampires for god's sake! But no one can deny the incredible effect these books have had on a whole generation of young people. Some kids who hated reading before they read Twilight now are almost as ravenous for books as kids who've been reading all their lives and are clamouring for more books "like Twilight" (how many times a day bookstore clerks hear those two words I can't possibly imagine). If you can get past the annoying whininess of Bella and the sheer craziness that is the sparkly vampire concept the Twilight books are, initially, thrillingly addictive and you almost can't help speeding through them. Even though on multiple readings they become less brilliant to even a minimally critical reader, they give such a rush to new readers that they can ignore the faults and devour them happily until someone gives them something new to read. 


At first my sister wouldn't read the Twilight saga, but when the film came out she became suddenly interested in the books and I lent my copies to her. Since she was not a usual reader it took her a long time to get through all four books but by the time she'd finished them all the Twilight fandom had it's newest recruit. Over the months that followed she re-read those books more times than I actually know, she had to buy replacement copies for two of them since she'd read them almost to the point of tattiness. I had been trying over that time to get her to read some other books so that she wasn't reading just the Twilight books for the rest of her life. She requested suggestions for books with romance in them which is not too difficult to find as most YA books these days have at least some romance in them. So I gave her my favourite Sarah Dessen books to read, Just Listen- unfortunately she didn't really get on with Dessen's brand of romance so I switched tack. Short of Mills and Boon drivel the most romantic books I could think of were Nicholas Sparks' novels - that man is a marvel to me. Almost every book of his that I've read has left me sobbing by the end so I thought they would fit the bill perfectly. And I struck gold- although it wasn't the book I suggested, my sister read his newest book "The Last Song" and within a day of her reading it I got numerous emails and texts in full caps complete with an army of exclamation marks to "READ THIS BOOK RIGHT NOW OR ELSE!!!!" I was completely shocked, where on earth had this monster come from? My sister the devout TV lover who had to be brow-beaten into reading was now demanding vehemently that *I* read something?? Just yesterday when I spoke to her on the phone she said that I would have to read a book that had just arrived at home straight away so that she could read it because it looked really good. I'm both immensely glad and amazed at the change in my sister because now we have something else which we can share and talk about together and that is fantastic after so many years of us being quite different from each other. 


So to sum up, although the Twilight saga is regarded by some as the stupidest piece of tosh to appear this century I have to say that it has been enormously helpful to get thousands of young people reading. If a non-reader gets hooked onto these books it's possible to get them to read other books which they may never have dreamt of reading before. Use Twilight as a launch-pad to wider reading, help someone to branch out into other genres depending on what aspect of the series interested the non-reader most, for my sister it was the romance aspect, for others it may be the paranormal creatures- give them a choice of similar books to choose from and see where they want to go from there. (if I'm sounding at all preachy I'm terribly sorry) Who knows, Twilight might get people reading the classics which are mentioned in the books! That'd be a thing to see indeed!


Now I've bored you for far too long so I'll finish here (I really must try and write to a word limit because posts like this are just mental). Thanks if you've read all the way down here and if you want to make a comment then feel free :)
LadyV

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