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Let’s Talk About Books, Baby!

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Today I head off to New Jersey, land of tomatoes, peaches, and Springsteen for the New Jersey Romance Writers’ Conference.

Conferences are great motivators; not only do you get to meet and talk with other women who do what you do and like what you like, but man, you’ve spent the registration fee, so darn it, you better do something besides sit on your butt and whine about not writing.

Which means, of course, that it is–let’s see–6:39am in the morning and I have to think of something to post here before I go.

[sudden switch of topic, I will bring it back around, just wait]

Another great thing about writing is that, contrary to what we whine about a lot, it is not a solitary endeavor; your comrades-in-arms (or keyboards) understand what you are going through and can commiserate. For example, I am heading to New Jersey with my friends KJ and EKM, who posts as the Lady Novelist.

A few days ago, EKM tagged me for a book meme. Which I now present here. Please comment and share your answers, too, so we can be a big community of obsessed book people!

Total number of books?

Oh, lord, I’m a reader, not a math person; I estimate about 2,000. My husband and I were both English majors, plus there’s the obsessive reader thing–maybe more, I dunno.

Last book read?

Traveling With The Dead by Barbara Hambly, a vampire story set in the 1920s. I am currently reading J.R. Ward‘s Lover Unbound. And next up in the queue is Deborah Simmon’s Tempting Kate, a Regency historical.

Last book bought?

Lover Unbound and The Devil’s Right Hand by Lilith Saintcrow (but honestly, I’m not ALL about vampires and demons, it just happened to be that way right now).

Five meaningful books?

Andrew Lang‘s The Colored Fairy Books: amazingly diverse tales that all usually have a happy ending.

C.S. Lewis‘s Narnia Chronicles: Kids surviving on their own, using their own innate good sense and morality, something I found myself doing when I was growing up.

Jane Austen‘s Pride and Prejudice: Romance, a seemingly irresolvable conflict, strong characters, plus that Mr. Darcy is soooo alpha-sexy. Le sigh.

Barbara Cartland‘s The Wicked Marquis: Ellipses and all, I read and re-read this book when I was nine or ten. And spent all my allowance money on more Cartlands. Eventually, I discovered the Heyers lurking in my parents’ library, but Dame Barbara was responsible for my introduction to romance.

Charlotte Bronte‘s Jane Eyre: First person, not a traditional heroine, a dark, tortured hero, melodrama, she turns down that prig St. John, thank goodness, and yet it’s got an HEA.

What about you? Share your obsession!

Megan

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Sandy Books

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The past two weeks, I’ve been at the Jersey Shore*, observing egregious fashion choices (short shorts are NOT for everybody), eating way too much ice cream, and of course reading books.

I’ve devoured at least five thus far, with a sixth about to be finished, if I have my way.

During the summer, I don’t get a lot of time to do my own writing (my Son is in Camp Mommy, so I am on call most days), so I make up for that by reading a ton.

My favorite thing to do is to rotate genres: First romance, then action, then sci-fi, then historical fiction, then back to romance, etc. So this summer I have read Barbara Hambly‘s fourth book in the Benjamin January series, Die Upon A Kiss, Tara Janzen‘s Crazy Kisses, MaryJanice Davidson‘s Drop Dead, Gorgeous, Liz Carlyle‘s Never Lie To A Lady, and Lee Child‘s Tripwire.

I’ve read all of these authors before; summer beach reads are not for experimenting, because if you hate the book, you’re stuck in the sand with it.

I don’t do any research reading during the summer because I get too frustrated at not being able to write; instead, I try to figure out what it is I like about each author I read. Hambly I love for her language and ability to make any setting–in this case, 1830s New Orleans–come alive. Her hero, Benjamin January, is a complex character who you really come to know, and who grows throughout the course of the series. Tara Janzen’s Crazy series are fast-paced, delicious fun, great for her ability to get into a man’s head. Lee Child is just plain brilliant. Liz Carlyle’s writing is lush and gorgeous, and this hero is just about perfect for me–nothing gets to my heart like a tortured alpha male. And MaryJanice Davidson’s voice is so fantastic I don’t care her plots are as thin as some of the bathing suits I’ve seen on the beach this week.

Next week, we go back to reality: Brooklyn, school, writing, washing my own dishes, the possibility of sweatshirts. But right now I’m reaching for another book in the huge pile and savoring the last few days of summer.

Megan
*on dial-up, so no pictures.

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Keep On Keepin’ On

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Yesterday, I tried to clean my massively overcrowded apartment. My husband and I just bought a house (which needs loads of renovation, grumble, finances, grumble, rice and beans, grumble), and will be moving in a few months. Meanwhile, my housecleaning skills, never stellar, fell to record lows.

Until even I couldn’t stand it. There was clutter everywhere: papers, books, notebooks, CDs, magazines, more books, FIVE PAIRS OF MY HUSBAND’S SHOES IN THE LIVING ROOM, a few more books, some bookmarks, toys, and more magazines. And a few books.

Never one to shy away from an onerous task, I started going through my books. My father-in-law built me my own bookshelf, ‘specially designed for double-stacked paperbacks (and it comes apart for easy moving!), but I have SO many books they had spilled out onto the floor.

So I got rid of some. Some I had never read, and realized I never would read. Some I had read, and liked, and wanted, but the space issue overcame the acquisitive issue, so they were gone. I found one I had bought twice, so that went. That was an easy one.

I was not able to get rid of books by some good writing friends, even though I will never read those books again–something superstitious (appropriate for today, actually) reared its head in me and made me put them back on the shelves.

My keeper collection is, as keeper collections go, fairly small; my keeper authors include Amanda Quick, Loretta Chase, Mary Balogh, Eloisa James, J.R. Ward and Georgette Heyer; non-romance keeper authors include Barbara Hambly, Lee Child, Ross McDonald, Bernard Cornwell, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Charles Willeford, and Neal Stephenson (the husband counts John Hawkes and Thomas Pynchon among his).

How do you decide what to keep and what to toss? When you toss, where do you put them? Do you have any keeper authors that are outside of your usual reading taste?

Megan
PS: Clive is just here to get you to read the boring bits.

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The pleasures of reading again

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Do we all have too many books?

And why is it so hard to give up books that you know you probably won’t read again but you like to know are there, rather like a print security blanket? And then there’s the other category of books that are there because you know you’ll re-read them, again and again. But the odd thing is that whenever I reach for one of those, I always run through an inventory of things I don’t like about the book first rather than an inventory of things I do like about it.

And these can include books about which I’d claim in a heartbeat are my favorites.

For instance, Persuasion. What’s not to like? Yet, here, off the top of my head, are the reasons I don’t want to read it.

  1. It always seems to be raining. (I know it’s not, but that’s the impression I have.)
  2. The silly Musgrave girls.
  3. The tedious poetry-loving Captain. Smack him.
  4. Most of the men are idiots.
  5. I’ve read it far too many times before so there won’t be any surprises.
  6. A cast of dozens, most of whose names I can’t remember.
  7. Far too many walks on which awful things happen.
  8. Anne rolls over and takes it far too much instead of lashing Wentworth with a handful of brambles and/or stinging nettles while he makes snide comments directed at her on the walk with the silly girls.
  9. Why don’t I just watch the video (the best Austen adaption, imo).
  10. I don’t know where the video is, but I do know where the book is, so…

and so on. Yet it’s a book I love, and I know I’ll love again when I re-read it, even though I go into it thinking only of its annoyances. Maybe that’s a characteristic of a book you’ll want to read over and over, because it has imperfections that you can’t, ever, really figure out. I’d say most of my favorite books fall into this category.

How about you? What are your favorite read-agains?

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