Day 6 (A meme!)

I’m sure I haven’t noticed enough blogging memes lately. It feels like they were extremely popular when people were blogging. I suppose our energies are a bit spread these days in all the other social sites, with memes propagating there.

That said, I just came across this one via normblog. Because this may help those of us who’ve crazily agreed to blog every day of June with more grist for the blogging mill, I thought I’d best share it. Also, given that it’s about reading, I don’t think it’ll be difficult for librarians to do.

Do you snack while reading? I seldom snack while reading books. I’m more likely to snack while reading blogs and the like online.

What is your favourite drink while reading? Strong English Breakfast tea with a drop of milk. No sugar.

Do you tend to mark your books while you read, or does the idea of writing in books horrify you? When reading fiction, I’ve started to scribble passages or words that appeal to me in a notebook. I don’t tend to mark novels. I don’t seem to mind writing in non-fiction books, though. Only in pencil, mind.

How do you keep your place? Bookmark? Dog-ears? Laying the book open flat? Bookmark, if I have one handy. Otherwise I usually manage to find my way back again. Never dog-ears. (Here I confess to a minor prejudice against those who would dog-ear pages.)

Fiction, non-fiction or both? Both, but definitely more fiction. I am reading more non-fiction than I used to. History, travel, stuff on managing and leading organisations. (I have a lot I want to learn.) Also reading a lot more poetry these days.

Do you tend to read to the end of a chapter or can you stop anywhere? Anywhere. Least favourite way of stopping? When I fall asleep and get hit the face by the book.

Are you the type of person to throw a book across the room or on the floor if the author irritates you? I don’t think I have ever thrown a book. Even if I think it’s dross, I can’t seem to do such a thing.

If you come across an unfamiliar word, do you stop and look it up right away? As a language learner, I have cultivated the habit of trying to work out the meaning from the context. If not knowing the meaning is completely interfering with my understanding of the paragraph or chapter (!), I will look it up. This habit does mean that I sometimes attach slightly inaccurate meanings to words, especially English ones. I look them up when I’m not sure if my made-up meaning is right or not. Words recently looked up: concupiscence (thank you Hilary Mantel), incorrigible, avidity, “shock of the new”.

What are you currently reading? Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel; The Power of Pull: How Small Moves, Smartly Made, Can Set Big Things in Motion by John Hagel III, John Seely Brown and Lang Davison; A Counterfeit Silence by Randolph Stow; What Your Teacher Didn’t Tell You (The Annexe Lectures, Vol. 1) by Farish A. Noor.

What is the last book you bought? The Best Australian Poems 2009 by Robert Adamson.

Do you have a favourite time/place to read? Lying on a couch on a sunny afternoon with nothing to do but read.

Do you prefer series books or stand-alones? No preference. (I will read anything!)

Is there a specific book or author you find yourself recommending over and over? Stoner by John Williams. I think the title puts people off though. It’s not about drugs.

How do you organize your books (by genre, title, author’s last name, etc.)? On bookshelves. (I am a Bad Librarian. My personal collection of 3000+ books is currently in a state of complete disarray. My excuse is that we recently moved house and I haven’t gotten around to it yet.)

Barbara’s additional question: background noise or silence? I used to require background noise, but I think that was a result of living on a main road and wanting to block out the traffic noises. Now we’re living on a quiet street, I love listening to the silence and the noise the birds make as they wake up. (At the moment I’m listening to chihuahuas scampering and the washing machine doing a spin cycle.)