Book Geek Posts

05Sep
2

Oh, books

In case you don’t follow me on twitter (though really, why don’t you? I’m amusing if nothing else!) or you haven’t been around with the holiday weekend, my boyfriend gave me a bookcase. Just a simple 5 shelf case, but oh my sweet zombie jesus the thought I put into organizing that thing. I may not be the neatest or most organized of peoples, but when it comes to books I am OBSESSIVE.

SO PRETTY

Yeah. I would do this.

First there was the unpacking. Then the agonizing. Clearly just alpha by author is UNACCEPTABLE. I mean, if I am in the mood for a Steampunk novel, how am I supposed to remember all of the author names in that genre? But then again, what if I want a YA Steampunk? Or a non-series YA Fantasy novel? DO YOU SEE THE PROBLEM HERE?! I kind of a fan of John Green’sof organizing, sadly I don’t have enough shelf space. Also I don’t have my entire library with me at the moment and I am a little hesitant to spend hours setting things up only to have to redo everything once I get the rest of my collection out of storage.

For now I set it up as: Oversized/Art Books, Trade Paper Graphic Novels/Collections, Steampunk, Sci Fi, Fantasy (they are two different categories!), Mystery, literary fiction, Nonfiction, YA. All alpha by author within their subjects though. It just got me thinking, does anyone else obsess over this? Or am I the only weirdo who enjoys sorting and organizing books? I would suppose it’s a by-product of working in bookstores for years, but then again, I met plenty of people who worked in bookstores and didn’t read.

So dear readers, what say you? Organize all the books? Or just dump them on shelves? Do you have a specific order or is it whatever strikes your fancy that day?

ehearts

Posted by tart in Book Geek and tagged with ,
29Mar
2

Day 6: Wherein I ramble about books

In the interest of not flooding anyone’s reader, I’ve decided that I’ll still do the daily Project Good, but unless I have something particularly interesting to say on the subject, it will be just the intro to the post. I’ve been wanting to update my reading list and talk games and nerdery, but multiple posts a day just seemed… UGH. That being said, today’s Project Good:

6. A piece of literature is being written that will eventually change your perspective on life.

This proves to be a good segue. I’ve been reading a lot lately, especially since I’ve discovered that the public libraries here in town offer the ability to “check out” ebooks and audio books online. Go to the website, check out what books you want, download and the licenses are good for 7-14 days. WIN. Audio books are a love of mine. Well, the good ones anyway. As a knitter, I love being able to queue up a book and work on a project while I get lost in the story. This gets me into trouble though as I now have SO MANY books to listen to in addition to my never ending pile of books to read. I have been on a huge YA kick lately though. Both my To Read pile and my To Listen To pile are full of YA goodness. (even if a few are re-reads) I just finished listening to Beautiful Creatures and am starting Beautiful Darkness. It’s made me pick up my physical copies of the books as well just to go back and highlight/note sections. Yes, I am one of THOSE readers. If it’s something that I will lend someone at some point I try to just use post it flags, but often my books wind up with highlighted sections and notes in the margins, along with post-its everywhere or folded down pages (I know, I KNOW. Sue me, my books are well loved, ok?)

To Read (the current pile, subject to change on a whim):
People of the Book – Geraldine Brooks
HORNS – Joe Hill
Mistborn Trilogy – Brandon Sanderson
The Stolen Throne/The Calling – David Gaider
The Graveyard Book – Neil Gaiman
Eyes Life Stars – Lisa Mantchev
A Map of the Known World – Lisa Ann Sandell
(Plus a handful of grammar and writing books such as Eats, Shoots & Leaves and On Writing)

To Listen To:
Beautiful Darkness – Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl
If I Stay – Gayle Foreman (re-read. I’m curious to see if it’s as powerful in audio)
White Cat – Holly Black
Delirium – Lauren Oliver (re-read)
Incarceron – Catherine Fisher
Sapphique – Catherine Fisher
Will Grayson, Will Grayson – John Green & David Levithan
Wonderland – Joanna Nadin

Really looking at my lists has brought a few things to light. One, I really, really, really enjoy YA books. Two, Though I am not the biggest fan of fantasy novels, I always try to read them. I feel, for some reason, as if I should enjoy fantasy novels, yet I often don’t. braces for the outrage I try, I really do, but more often than not I just can’t do it. Normally I can breeze through a book in a day or two. Fantasy novels? WEEKS. And that’s assuming that I don’t give up part way though. I’ll often start one, read 100-150 pages and walk away from it for a few days or a few weeks and try again. I loved what I played of Dragon Age: Origins and the books came highly recommended by both The Boy and Roger. My secret? I own both novels, but haven’t finished either. Warbreaker? Completely adored it. Mistborn? Can’t get further than 200 pages. I just don’t know what it is about them! I’m hoping that maybe the audio book thing will help. If it’s something in the written word that I can’t get over, perhaps listening to it will help? I’m just worried that if I hit that point where I would have walked away from the novel that I will just space out on listening.

What about you? Any genres or authors you feel like you SHOULD read, but just can’t get in to? Or am I the only crazy one?

Posted by tart in Book Geek, PMA and tagged with , ,
20Feb
0

Books 1-4

As most people know I’m a fairly voracious reader, to the extent that my requirement for buying a purse is “will it hold my book (in addition to my DS) without falling apart?” I figured it might be an interesting experiment to keep track of what books I’ve read this year so that I can look back and see exactly how many books I read in a year. Seeing as it’s February already, I’ve already read a few so this will be books 1-4, though future posts will likely be one or two books at most, depending on how many I read in a week. I will try to keep everything as spoiler free as I can though. This will be an all encompassing list, so graphic novels and re-reads will be listed, though I’ll probably leave shorter comic books off simply because I read too many of them. Without further ado, books 1-4.

Book 1 – The Audrey Hepburn Treasures by Ellen Erwin and Jessica Z. Diamond

I love Audrey Hepburn. I’ve seen every movie she’s been in and I own most of them. This is one of four (maybe five) biographies I own of her. It has the distinction of being a scrapbook of sorts as well. While not as detailed as some biographies, it is worth picking up for the memorabilia alone. Each chapter has a vellum pocket or two full of fun stuff from photos to letters to production call sheets to contact sheets. Even though I knew her story and didn’t learn anything new from reading, it really made things come alive and it added something to the biography to see Christmas cards and letters and Playbills. Definitely worth reading and I’ll probably spend some time poking through the artifacts from time to time.

Book 2 – Love Walked In by Marisa de los Santos

I’ve had this book sitting in my To Read List for a long time now, but for some reason things kept bumping it further down the queue. I finally picked it up and couldn’t put it down. It was a bit heavy in subject matter dealing with child abandonment, watching someone lose their mind and death, but it is incredibly well written. Heartbreaking at times, but beautiful to read. I can’t go into too much detail without ruining things, but if you don’t mind some deeper topics it is well worth the read.

Book 3 – The Weight of Silence by Heather Gudenkauf

I picked up this book simply because the cover caught my eye. It was an award winner (an Edgar Award for mystery if I remember correctly.) and the blurb on the back seemed intriguing. Another tough read as the plot deals with spousal abuse, child abuse, alcoholism, missing/kidnapped children and pedophilia. Heavy subject matter, but brilliantly written. The story is told from many different points of view. Each chapter is told from a different character’s perspective, so you get the entire story from everyone involved. Normally I am very good at pegging who did what and what is going to happen, but when I got to the end of this one I was actually surprised and did not expect the who did it portion.

Book 4 – Knitting Under the Influence by Clarie LaZebnik

After all that heavy reading, I needed something light. This was definitely light. Just a fun story about four friends in Los Angeles and their knitting group. Well, and their love lives, but the story is mostly centered around their knitting. An avid knitter myself, I got some of the jokes,such as never knit anything super time consuming for a guy because it’s the kiss of death for the relationship. Though I’m still planning on breaking that rule. All in all it was a good brain break and had some worthy lessons on not selling yourself short.

Posted by tart in Book Geek and tagged with ,
09Aug
0

I’m horrible I know

Bad blogger, no posts!

I know. Sigh. 50-60 hour work weeks have a way of crushing any desire to do anything creative along with your soul, what can I say?

There’s been so much new geekery too! I have been learning to play D&D thanks to a few friends who don’t mind my reading things and then IMing them going “waaaaiiiitttttt I don’t get ittttt!”. (yes, I do whine like that to my friends, but they assure me that it’s endearing!) I’ve also been learning to play Magic: the Gathering, and let me tell you, I’m not half bad with a Pearled Unicorn. Any tips on deck building are welcome though! I’ve mostly just been playing Packwar to try to get used to the flow of things, but I’ve got a tournament of sorts to go to in a few weeks, so I have to build my first deck! I’ll get a list of cards up here soon for the ease of helping me.

Gaming geekery has been pretty hefty lately too. I’ve been playing: Pokemon SoulSilver, (yes still. I love my pokemon, I’m sorry!) Dragon Quest 9, Assassin’s Creed, Uncharted, Transformers: War for Cybertron, 3d Dot Game Heroes and Fairytale Fights. I have the attention span of a small child, I know. That’s why it takes me so long to play through something, I bounce back and forth between things too much. So far the main winners for my attention are Fairytale Fights and Dragon Quest 9. I’ve also been dabbling in Maplestory on a friend’s recommendation. And there’s always WoW, though you can tell from PW:Bubble and from asking my Real ID cohorts that I’m not on much.

My ever present love for books hasn’t lessened either. If anything, I’ve been reading more lately than I have in a long time, mostly due to the fact that after a 10 hour work day, laying in bed and getting lost in a book is about the most energy I have. Plus the Kindle app for my blackberry is reaaaaalllllyyyyy handy. >.< Right now, I’m on a bit of a YA novel binge. This is fine with me though, as John Green, Laurie Halse Anderson, Sarah Dessen, Wendy Mass and the duo of Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl are all phenomenal writers.

And with that brief update, it’s 2:30am, and I think I’m finally tired enough to sleep. Now that I’ve installed the WordPress app to my phone, hopefully posts will be a little more often, but I make no promises until I’m fully moved and settled.

<3,
Tart

Posted by tart in Book Geek, Gamer Geek, General Geekery and tagged with , , ,