The chat this week on several book blogs has been about where we get most of our books, and whether getting a book as a freebie influences what we say about a book in our review. Marie at Boston Bibliophile has a great post on the subject. I urge you to read it. The comments that follow her post are equally thought provoking.
So,to follow the trail, and to assure my readers that I'm not giving positive reviews just because I got the book for free, here's a breakdown of where/how I acquired the books I've reviewed since I started this blog:
Since April, I've reviewed 67 books. Of those 42% were from my personal library --I either owned them, bought them, or inherited them. They physically reside with me. 38% came from public libraries. The remaining 19% were freebies--i.e., they were Advanced Review copies, galley proofs, or Early Review copies from LT's program.
Anyone who has looked at my reviews here or on LT, knows that I am not afraid to say 'this book is not for me!' and in a couple of cases I've really panned a book I thought wasn't worth the paper it was printed on. So authors and publishers who send me their books to review, (and who have taken the time to investigate my reviews) will know that I don't sugar coat things. I even said I was disappointed in one that won the Pulitzer!
I have decided in the future to alter my reviewing policies a bit.
First of all, I'm going to be more selective about books that I take to review...if it looks like something I know I won't enjoy, or have serious doubts about, or is a genre I don't normally read, then it's not be fair to the author to have me as a reviewer.
I'll only be accepting what I can expect to review within a month of receiving it. I'd love to say within a week, but often the books don't show up when you think they will, and then suddenly, 10 arrive in one week. I feel I have an obligation to do a fair review when I accept a book, and fairness includes timeliness. If my schedule is clogging up, I'm always up-front with the author or publisher about when I expect to be able to get a review done.
Although I usually mention it, I'm going to be vigilant about making sure my review includes information about the source of the book.
I'm also going to include a recommendation about whether I'd spend my own money on this book if I'm reviewing a freebie.
I'm only doing giveaways once a month. If too many others are already sponsoring the same contest, I'm going to pass. They are a lot of work for the blogger (time spent running contests is time NOT spent reading) and the publisher gets a whole lot of free publicity from blog contests, so my being more selective isn't going to hurt anybody.
Book blogging is fun. Reviewing books is fun. Receiving 'free' books is wonderful for all of us. But they're not 'free'--the average 300-500 page book takes about 10-12 hours to read, and about another hour to draft, edit and post a review. While I get to read books I might not have had the funds to buy, or never have heard of, the author and publisher get some feedback and publicity.
Honest book bloggers just don't guarantee the publicity will always be totally positive.
It's been a year since I joined LibraryThing as a way to track both my collection of volumes and the reading I had done. When I discovered I could also keep books I didn't own yet but wanted to read and I could talk about books with like minded people, i truly had met my match. During the past year I've read 165 books, added 2367 books to my account, joined 15 groups, led an online book discussion (and participated in 4 others), and posted 98 reviews. In case you're curious, here's the list of books read. I'm in the process of constructing a sidebar to track blog reviews, but these titles are linked to mine or other interesting reviews on LT.
I'll start the list with my BEST OF THE YEAR (they may not have been originally published during this time, but they were the best I read during this period:
The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop
I have a category in my 999 Challenge labeled "Books about books and libraries." To finish up this category, I read this light easy volume tracing the history of booksellers and their relation/interdependence on publishers. Buzbee does a good job of explaining the business model of most of today's American bookstores, and presents a gentle validation for bibliophiles that it's ok not to be able to read every book every written. I didn't read it for a full review, but rather just to feel good about my out of control book buying habit!
If you're curious, here are the 9 books I finished to complete this category:
1. Free for all: oddballs, geeks and gangstas in the public library by Dan Borchert
2. Ex Libris Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman
4. So Many Books, So Little Time by Sara Nelson
5. Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
6. The Library at Night by Alberto Manguel
7. Dewey the Small-Town Library Cat by Vicki Myron
8. The YellowLighted Bookshop by Lewis Buzbee
9. Soldier's Heart: Reading Literature throught peace and war at West Point by Elizabeth Samet.
It was an eclectic, educational, enjoyable journey around the world of books. I have about 10 more to fit this category that went onto the TBR pile.
I have not enjoyed a book this much in years. It is pure laugh out loud fun. I'm sure there are people who will try to analyse it in terms of relations to present day religions, but I didn't try to make a theologic or anthropologic exercise out of it. If you ever studied Greek Mythology, you have enough under-pinnings to just plain love the hilarious antics.
This was my weekly audio book, and the narrator was British. I had a great deal of fun with the human heroine named Alice--I kept picturing her as Alice, the ditzy side-kick to Dawn French in the old BBC series "Vicar of Dibley". Neil, her he doesn't realize he is, boyfriend, is such a mouse that you have to love his naivete, especially when he has to interact with gods he's never heard of and doesn't believe in.
Apollo is portrayed as a promiscuous pompous ass, and the rivalry between Artemis and Aphrodite is played perfectly. The juxtaposition of the high intelligence of the one, and the extraordinary sex drive of the other is set against the futziness and foibles of a bunch of run-down deities trying to live together in a flat in London. It's a hoot!
Put this one on the list of "I need a perk me up" -it won't let you down.
Although I don't normally participate in many of these weekly memes, Cathy at Kittling: Books raises an interesting question for which I have a definite answer:
Do you have an account with an online book database such as LibraryThing, Shelfari or GoodReads? If so, do you have a preference? Do you use it for - your own record keeping? finding new books to read? social networking?
I began my online book adventures one year ago this Thursday by joining LibraryThing(LT). Actually, I had established an account for my deceased father's books so all of his daughters, sons-in-laws, and grandchildren could go online and see what was available and let my mom know who might be interested in receiving what from dad's estate. In doing so, I saw how easy it was to use.
Although I have another computer resident database program (Readerware) that I've used for years, and still do keep current, LT offered me a better search engine, and the ability to share my books and info with other online--about the only functionality books that Readerware(RW) didn't have. So.............I rushed back home to Maine, opened my own lifetime account, and began cataloging our own extensive collection. Later, mainly because I'm a very curious person, I began nosing around the groups/talk, and other social aspects. Within weeks, I was hooked.
I've peeked at Goodreads and Shelfari, but don't see anything there that LT does not offer. I'm absolutely thrilled with LT and its capabilities, and the people who catalog and post there. Through my online LT friends, I've found literally hundreds of leads to books I would never have read. In fact, I've been preparing a one year anniversary recap for my LT profile, and I'm willing to say that over 50% of the books I've read this past year (there have been almost 200 of them) are LT recommendations.
I especially love the challenges and groups and the ability to have on-line discussion groups without having to go to a third site. I tried Virtual Bookshelf on Facebook, but that was awful. I don't particularly like all the fusiness of Facebook anyway, and find it can get personally intrusive and obnoxious.
Finally, and this is a biggie for me since I've done database maintenance work for a living, the staff at LT are phenomenal. The database works as advertised, they actually give you warnings of the extremely short down times they have, the staff openly solicits suggestions ---and not only LISTENS TO THEIR CUSTOMERS----they ACTUALLY GIVE US FEEDBACK, and keep us posted on everything going on. They are an incredibly dedicated, hard-working, intelligent and competent bunch. ---no I've never met any of them! Their witty sense of humor shines through and cements an incredible dedication to customer service.
I started blogging just recently, more as a writing exercise and to develop Web 2.0 skills that I felt I needed in my work at our town library. When I found out that people would send me free books just as long as I read and reviewed them, I was really hooked!! The world of books and blogging is a fun, interesting, and meaningful way to contribute to the world of knowledge, especially for us chronologically advantaged semi-retirees.
Thanks Cathy for asking the question. I look forward to seeing the replies you get.
It's been awhile since I've done a weekly update but this seems like a good time to sit back and recap what's been happening.
I've had a wonderful week with visitors from Maryland and Virginia. My sister Cheli (of Cheli Can't Live without Books) escorted my granddaughter Kyla up to visit her Tutu and Tampa (when she was little she couldn't say "grandpa" so he became Tampa--it stuck). We all had loads of fun discovering books on Tutu's shelves and in Tutu's attic, going shopping (for books of course), eating ice cream, and visiting General Henry Knox's estate. Cheli returned home to Maryland yesterday, but T&T have another week with Kyla to attend the annual Lobster festival this coming week.It's been amazing to watch a young child who loves to read. She even brought with her a 'reading journal' to write down the books she had read!! Discoveries for this 8 year old this week include Carl Hiaasen's Hoot, Anne of Green Gables, The Little Prince, Dear Dumb Diary, The Prince Mammoth Pumpkin, Dewey the Small town Library Cat (the book actually fell off the shelf and landed at her feet!), and The Scarecrow and His Servant. And yesterday......... Tutu had to sheephishly approach the front desk at the big box bookstore in Portland to ask that we page G-girl so I didn't have to call her parents and say she'd been kidnapped! She'd disappeared into the puppet section. Talk about a moment of panic!
So during the week while she was reading and Cheli was redesigning her blog, I was busy trying to catch up on a rapidly growing pile of ARCs that have been arriving almost daily now for the past week. I want to finish non ARCs Dear Fatty and The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop to close out 2 of my last 3 categories for the 999 challenge. Gods Behaving Badly is the current audio. I'm thoroughly enjoying all three of them. When they're done however, I'm putting all challenges on hold (none of them has a deadline before the end of the year) to catch up on reviewing ARCs. Oops....there's also the ILL Second Death of Goodluck Tinubu that I have to read. I always feel obligated to return inter-library loans on time, and this one looks way to good to send back unread.
Books in the ARC pile appear in the sidebar widget labelled "Waiting to be Reviewed." Cheli took one or two to do for a guest blog appearance later this month, hubbie is going to appear reviewing two, and I'm going to settle in for a lovely bunch of reading. We're going on a two week vacation to Europe the end of August, and while I'd love to drag them with me, I'm not. The luggage weight limit won't allow it, and I know I'll be too involved in sightseeing, wine tasting, and soaking up the cruise atmosphere celebrating a long marriage to worry about reviewing books.
I also want to reformat my blog into a three column template (I'm working and testing it now) but the rest of this Sunday is going to be spent reading. I hope your summer Sunday is full of lemondade, sunshine, loving hugs, and good reading.
Time for another Favorite Reads the meme hosted by Alyce at At Home with Books.
Sometime during the past week, my blog feeder yielded a review of Home to Holly Hills, by Jan Karon. This book is actually the latest by Karon, but is almost a prequel to her previous books the beloved Fr. Tim, Mitford series. I have read Holly Hills, and the review brought to mind my fondness for the entire series which I read/listened too a couple years ago while I was quite ill.
They are not the kind of soupy, gushy Christian feel goods that I normally read, but the gentleness of Tim and Cynthia as they fall in love, raise a foster child, deal with an engaging, delightful, and ever vexing congregation and neighbors in the small poverty-stricken North Carolina mountain town was so calming, validating, and full of warmth, that I fell in love with every character in each book, and could not wait for my husband to get to the library and get the next one as I finished each. I felt like I knew every one of them, and wanted Fr. Tim to come be our pastor.
I went to Karon's website today, and note that she has a new book scheduled out but not until Oct 2010. I wonder if it will be something different? And I think I may have to re-read every one of them before then to be ready for whatever comes next.
My apologies to the fellow blogger whose excellent review of Home to Holly Hills triggered this memory...I wanted to give you credit by name, but can't trace my steps back right now.
This one looks to be a real page turner. I can't wait for my review copy. Hachette is giving us a copy of The Lost Dog by Michelle deKretser.
They catch our interest with this blurb:
Tom Loxley, an Indian-Australian professor, is less concerned with finishing his book on Henry James than with finding his dog, who is lost in the Australian bush.
Joining his daily hunt is Nelly Zhang, an artist whose husband disappeared mysteriously years before Tom met her. Although Nelly helps him search for his beloved pet, Tom isn't sure if he should trust this new friend.
Tom has preoccupations other than his book and Nelly and his missing dog, mainly concerning his mother, who is suffering from the various indignities of old age. He is constantly drawn from the cerebral to the primitive--by his mother's infirmities, as well as by Nelly's attractions. THE LOST DOG makes brilliant use of the conventions of suspense and atmosphere while leading us to see anew the ever-present conflicts between our bodies and our minds, the present and the past, the primal and the civilized.
About Michelle de Kretser
Michelle de Kretser was born in Sri Lanka and emigrated to Australia when she was fourteen. She was educated in Melbourne and Paris and has worked as an editor and a book reviewer.
The Hamilton Case, her second novel, received the Commonwealth Writers Prize (SE Asia and Pacific region), and the Society of Authors’ (U.K.) Encore Award for best second novel of the year. It was also first runner-up for Barnes & Noble’s Discover Award in Fiction, and a New York Times Notable Book.
The Lost Dog is her third novel. It was a finalist for the Commonwealth Writers Prize and received the 2008 Christina Stead Prize for fiction.
So these are the rules:
Leave a comment here -one comment to a customer : include
your email address,
if you are a follower,
the link if you post the giveaway on your blog,
Open to US and Canadian addresses only (sorry no PO Boxes)
Comment no later than August 12th. I'll draw on August 13th.
Hachette Books is offering us another great opportunity. This time we're giving away a copy of The Blue Star by Tony Earley.
Scott Turow from the New York Time Book Review praised THE BLUE STAR saying, "I galloped through the novel and relished every page….Earley's simple prose is always informed by Jim's good heart….'The Blue Star,' like its hero, is irresistible."
Here's how Hachette trumpets the book:
Seven years ago, readers everywhere fell in love with Jim Glass, the precocious ten-year-old at the heart of Tony Earley's bestseller Jim the Boy. Now a teenager, Jim returns in another tender and wise story of young love on the eve of World War Two.
Jim Glass has fallen in love, as only a teenage boy can fall in love, with his classmate Chrissie Steppe. Unfortunately, Chrissie is Bucky Bucklaw's girlfriend, and Bucky has joined the Navy on the eve of war. Jim vows to win Chrissie's heart in his absence, but the war makes high school less than a safe haven, and gives a young man's emotions a grown man's gravity.
With the uncanny insight into the well-intentioned heart that made Jim the Boy a favorite novel for thousands of readers, Tony Earley has fashioned another nuanced and unforgettable portrait of America in another time--making it again even realer than our own day.
This is a timeless and moving story of discovery, loss and growing up, proving why Tony Earley's writing "radiates with a largeness of heart" (Esquire).
About Tony Earley
Tony Earley is the author of four books: Here We Are in Paradise, a collection of stories; the novel Jim the Boy; the personal essay collection Somehow Form a Family; and The Blue Star, a novel released in Spring, 2008. A winner of a National Magazine Award for fiction, he was named one of the twenty best writers of his generation by both Granta, in 1996, and The New Yorker in 1999. His fiction and/or nonfiction have appeared in Harper's, Esquire, The New Yorker, The Oxford American, The New York Times Book Review, Tin House, Best American Short Stories, New Stories from the South and many other magazines and anthologies.
He is a native of western North Carolina and a graduate of Warren Wilson College and The University of Alabama. He lives in Nashville, Tennessee with his wife and daughter, where he is the Samuel Milton Fleming Associate Professor of English at Vanderbilt University.
Interview with Tony EarleyRead a chapter excerptSo these are the rules:
Leave a comment here: one comment to a customer :include
your email address,
if you are a follower,
the link if you post the giveaway on your blog,
Open to US and Canadian addresses only (sorry no PO Boxes)
Comment no later than August 12th. I'll draw on August 13th.
This is a book that is almost impossible to do justice to in a review. It should be required reading for all bibliophiles, and certainly in library schools. A luscious book about libraries: ancient, modern, imagined, real, paper, stone, virtual, digital, scrolled, rolled, bound, shelved, piled, cataloged, but always there for generations to relish, to wallow in, to dream about and in, to build, to burn, to own, to borrow from, to discover, to remember, to organize or leave alone.
Manguel is well read, has lived in (by his count) 6 countries and has books in a myriad of languages. His classical references, along with his easy acceptance of the possibilities of the WEB as a library make this a fascinating read. He examines the library as (a separate chapter for each) Myth, Order, Space, Power, Shadow, Shape, Chance, Workshop, Mind, Island, Survival, Oblivion, Imagination, Identity and Home. There are so many quotes I noted in my notebook, I could almost publish another book. Here are just a few:
The Library as Myth:
" Every reader exists to ensure for a certain book a modest immortality. Reading is, in this sense, a ritual of rebirth." pg. 28
The Library as Order - here's one I can really relate to, and am still struggling with - how to arrange the books in one's library:
"For several weeks, I unpacked the hundreds of boxes that had, until then, taken up the whole of the dining-room, carried them into the empty library and then stood bewildered among teetering columns of books that seemed to combine the vertical ambition of Babel with the horizontal greed of Alexandria. For almost three months I sifted through these piles, attempting to create a kind of order, working from early in the morning to very late at night." pg. 41.
The Library as Space:
"It has always been my experience that, whatever groupings I choose for my books, the space in which I plan to lodge them, necessarily reshapes my choice and, more important, in no time proves too small for them and forces me to change my arrangement. pg 66.
The Library as Shadow:
"Every library is exclusionary, since its selection, however vast, leaves outside its walls endless shelves of writing that, for reasons of taste, knowledge, space and time, have not been included." pg. 107.
The Library as Island:
"Our society accepts the book as a given, but the act of reading--once considered useful and important, as well as potentially dangerous and subversive--is now condescendingly accepted as a pastime, a slow pastime that lacks efficency and does not contribute to the common good." p. 223.
The Library as Survival:
"...books can sometimes help us phrase our questions, but they do not necessarily enable us to decipher the answers. Through reported voices and imagined stories, books merely allow us to remember what we have never suffered and have never known." pg. 247.
The Library as Oblivion:
"I have no feeling of guilt regarding the book I have not read and perhaps will never read; I know that my books have unlimited patience. They will wait for me till the end of my days." pg. 254.
and finally the Library as Home:
"As we wander among our books, picking at random a volume from the shelves and leafing through it, the pages either astound us by the difference from our own experience or comfort us with their similitude." pg. 308
This is one read I will return to again and again.
After moving around the world with the US Navy 19 times in 26 years, I've settled with hubby in coastal Maine where I get to use my MLS from CUA being a small town librarian. Besides being an avid reader, I'm a talker, Mom to the world's two greatest grownups, grandma (aka Tutu) to the bestest girl ever born, cross-stitcher, retired volunteer administrator, sports fan.
I swim four times a week (listening to audio books while I do so) and read/review at least 4 books a week. Can't think of anything more fun to do in retirement.
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