Hi Everyone! I’m sneaking this one in on the “proper day” going by West Coast Time. Cuz there’s where I am. Totally. >.> Anyway it’s the third Saturday of the month! Which means we have a guest post from a member of the romance community who is a reader! 99.99% of the guests are solely readers – and they’re all here in that capacity only on the special guest post days. Isn’t that fun? (It was the balance me originally only having one guest author a month. … Any more readers wanna volunteer? ;-))
MORE IMPORTANTLY! This is Mary’s first time ever writing any sort of blog post. YAY!!!
I’d like to thank Lime for the opportunity…. THANKS LIME (I’m actually suspicious of this here, because I had to hound Mary for this post. So everyone be nice to her!)
I’m a married mother of two girls. Both are out of school now. My husband likes the books I own only in the respect that it could be used for kindling in a fire! I don’t blame him for that though – at last count my collection was over 2000. And we live with books in every room in the house….LOL
Now is the time of year when I go over what I’ve read. It was a hard decision to decide what my faves were this year. So this leads me to the questions of:
What makes a keeper for you? How easy is it for you to give up books you own? Do you keep a log of what you’ve read? At what point do you decide to quit reading a book when it doesn’t keep holding your interest? How often do you give a book a second chance? If you had a chance to meet your favorite author what would you ask them?
Mary Froelich
Thaaaaaaaaaank you Mary!!! I really appreciate you writing this post for me. 🙂 So we both wanna know – books! You! Talk!
Mary, what makes a book a keeper for me is if it’s a book I want to re-read. Generally I’ve already read it three times. That’s how it used to go when I got books from the library. Now that I only read ebooks… it’s easier for me (and more dangerous!) for me to get books more easily and indiscriminately.
I’ve been trying to keep track of all the books I’ve read this year via goodreads, but every so often I forget one. It’s hard to do ASAP – especially since I tend to read in the wee hours.
Admittedly I rarely give books a second chance because I’m already so painfully behind. I will, however, generally power through if a book is super strongly recommended.
Again – thank you for guesting!! <3 <3 <3
Hello Mary! Great post! I am a bibliophile too. I have 6 large and 2 small overflowing bookcases in my tiny house. I just moved across the country and the movers shook their heads at all of my heavy boxes of books. I rarely get rid of any books which is my problem. Thank goodness for ereaders and digital books or else I would be in serious trouble. 🙂
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This is one of the things I love best about ebooks. I never have to give them away! I am a re-reader, mostly because I have a terrible memory. And I’m a sucker for a series. I hated knowing I’d read book one, and wanting to re-read it before book reading book two. I never get rid of digital books, even if I hated it. That way I can go back and see that I didn’t like it and not accidentally get it again. For me, they’re all keepers. 😀
What defines a keeper? The way the book grips me. If it made me bawl my eyes out like I was at a funeral or had me howling with laughter. That it wrung out emotions out of me means it’s a keeper.
I do a month by month record of my reads. Sometimes I get lazy about recording them, and sometimes I’m really good at it.
Great post, Mary! Wish you had answered some of your own questions!
Hi Lime and Mary, good to see readers holding the floor, we writers can’t do without you – you’re our reason for being, after all. I’m a hoarder who moved out to the country and got rid of a huge number of books to a charity book fair, one way I justified cutting back. But they’re sneaking in again. I try hard to stick with a book, especially if the author has an unusual style, because the rewards can be great when you fall into their rhythm. Aussie author, Judy Nunn, is a case in point. My pet peeve is predictability. I love books that surprise, intrigue and generally lead me through them to see how they end. Not surprisingly, I try to write the same things. With other writers, the fav question is usually, “What are you working on now?” Happy reading!
I don’t tend to buy books since I’m an avid reader but borrow them from the library. I also have a Nook but although I have about 300 books on it I only purchased two – all the rest have been free ones. I do have bookshelves of them since I do receive books as gifts + at one time I worked in the corporate headquarters of a printing company and they would let us choose books we wanted that they received.
I’ve now been keeping a log of books I’ve read on Goodreads. I always tried to keep a log but I wasn’t very successful before.
I usually try to read a book until the end even if I don’t really like it but several times recently I’ve abandoned a book that just didn’t hold my interest whether it was because I couldn’t follow the storyline or I didn’t like the type of book it turned out to be.
If I reread a book it’s usually because I didn’t remember reading it before and by the time I do I might be so far into it I figure I might as well keep reading.
I love books that draw me in from the first page and ones that capture my emotions. I like books that I feel I could be friends with the characters.
If I could ask my favorite author a question I would want to know where they get their ideas and how long does it usually take them to write a book from start to finish including the edits.
Thanks for being the guest blogger today Mary!
Hi Mary and Lime!! What a great post to read with my Sunday morning coffee!
For me, a keeper has 2 qualities — I’m sad to leave the story when I finish it, and, whenever I see the book, I can remember the story and the sentiments it created. (I can still remember my favorite Nancy Drew books when I see their covers, even though it’s been…um… decades *ack*) True keepers never leave my house. When I need to cull my book-herd, it’s the ones that I look at and can’t remember anything about the story that are the first to go.
I’ve been a slow adopter of ebooks, and those I do have as “keepers” are only because they aren’t available in print, otherwise I’d buy a second copy to keep. (I’m an archivist — I dig paper! LOL) About the only thing that will drive me away from a book I’ve started are what I call inexcusable errors — geography, continuity, loads of grammatical issues, etc. (Not long ago I stopped reading a book at page 6 because in describing the setting, the author was using a real place and had created a geographic impossibility.)
A couple of years ago, I had the chance to meet my favorite author, someone I had been reading for 15 years and kept *all* her books — It was indescribably amazing and fun! If you get the chance, do it!! 🙂
Thanks for your post, and to Lime for hosting!!
Great post, Mary 🙂
I keep most of my books these days. I just can’t seem to give away, lend out or trade my books anymore…which is really irritating my hubby to no end. He told me the other day when 9 more books came in the mail (Because I won a couple and bought a couple with amazon.com gift cards I won) that if I kept winning books there wasn’t going to be any room for him. To which I said, yes there will…we;ll just have to get a bigger apartment with an extra bedroom that i can have as a library for all my books. LOL Oh yeah, you should have seen the face I got for that remark. But I wasn’t kidding…o_o
Hi Mary! My criteria for a keeper is the book had either have a strong affect on me, be signed to me, or be a sentimental object like a gift. If it’s part of a series I love then collect ’em all in hardcover. The Mercy Thompson series and Hunger Games trilogy are good examples of that; otherwise the way I cull my collection is donating to the library for their book sale or as add to their collection, giving away to friend I know will love it, or maybe even a giveaway on a blog. And this summer the most unexpected thing happened to me: I met 2 of my favorite authors! At ALA in NOLA, I got to meet Nalini Singh and Julie James!! Meeting Julie James was really funny because I’d gone to ask at the publishers’ booth what time she’d be there for the signing and like right out of a movie the woman turns around and IS Julie!lol I went speechless and as a very shy person felt incredibly unprepared and so shocked that all reasonable thought flew out of my head lol. She was very sweet and answered my silly questions but I still cant help but feel like blushing because I know whatever I said probably made very little sense and made me sound simple haha!
Hi Mary ! I hope you get to read my late reply. A keeper for me is a book I can reread at least once a year, like going to visit a well-loved friend. Since I now have a kindle, I get rid of less books, as they do not take up physical space, but I do not think of all of these as keepers, more like haven’t gotten around to releasers.
I also keep books I have received signed to me from authors, or as special
presents from friends.
You did a great job Mary! Have a great holiday!
A keeper for me would be a book that I know that I would love to read over and over again.
I don’t give up books that easily. It would have to be a book that I just couldn’t see myself reading again.
I keep a log of what books I own but not specifically what I’ve read although I’ve been thinking I should start doing that. I do, however, move most of the books that I’ve read to a different location so they don’t remain mixed with books I haven’t read.
There hasn’t been a lot of times where I haven’t finished what I’m reading. Once I just felt that the book, although touted as YA, it seemed a lot more childish and I just couldn’t go it. I probably hadn’t even gotten more than a few pages into it. The other time it was a short story I’d gotten for free off of Amazon and I just thought it was poorly written. Like I could have written it and that’s not saying much. LOL
When I finish a book, and I didn’t completely enjoy it for whatever reason, I always feel that I should read it again at least once more to see if it is better. I mean, I could have been distracted which could have made the reading of it seem confusing or whatever. I enjoy reading books more than once.
I have never had the chance to meet an author and I’m not sure what I would ask until I had the opportunity!
Pam