How do you read two books at once?

So, I accidentally started reading two books at once. Accidentally you say? Well, sort of. My husband had left a book lying around for a few months and it looked interesting so I picked it up just to quickly look at it. It turned out it was pretty good so I carried on reading it even though I was in the middle of another book.

Before this I have actively tried to read two books at the same time just once and I gave up pretty quickly. In that case I wasn’t really enjoying the book I was in the middle of so I thought starting another one would be a nice break and allow me to go back and enjoy the first one more. In the end I gave up on the first one pretty quickly after starting the second one. So, this leads me to wonder, how do people read two books at once regularly?

The online book community shows that a lot of people read multiple books at the same time really frequently but how does it work out? If you pick up two books, any two books, the chances are you will like one more than the other, so what stops you just giving up on the one you like the least like I did? Do you try to pick two you think you will like equally? If so how do you go about that? There are a couple of Mitch Albom books I would say I like equally but then there are a couple I like less than those ones, so even with the same author it can be hard to find books of equal interest to you. 

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Does age matter when reading?

Does your age matter when you are reading? Now by that I don’t mean should you only read at certain ages, I mean does how old you are have an impact on your enjoyment of reading particular books? Of course, adults aren’t going to love books meant for toddlers, but I’m talking about “proper” books.

Most books have a target audience, at least in terms of age, so if a book is aimed at people older or younger than you does that mean you wont enjoy it? Personally, I usually don’t like YA or “new adult” and of course I am not the target audience there. How about classics? They are forced on most kids at some point during school and “average” kids often don’t like them. Why? My guess would be the language. Usually it is more difficult than with modern books so can be an effort to get through to get to the actual story. When people go back to read classics as adults however, those same people often enjoy them. Why? By that stage they have been exposed to language a lot more so perhaps they just automatically find the language easier to understand and can focus on the story? So, that would suggest age really does matter.

What do you look for in a book cover?

So, I recently did a post about judging books by their covers, because lets face it, a lot of us do it. What is it though that you are looking for when you do that?

Another recent post was about different editions where I said that I basically pick the edition that is prettiest, but what makes a book “pretty” or not to you, what matters? Big words? An unusual font? Bright colours? Realistic pictures? More cartoon like pictures? Is it more just the general overall look rather than a specific thing you look for?

I think for me it’s more the overall look that makes me like a cover. I guess I wouldn’t be very helpful in a publishing focus group! If I compare the books I have with covers I love they are all actually really different. Most of them are all quite colourful but the colours really vary, as does the general artistry. There is one thing they have in common though….none of them have photos of people on the covers. The only ones that have people in any sense are the Penguin deluxe editions of the classics and some of the Harry Potter books.

Beautiful Bookstore

Like most in the online book community I love going into a bookstore (even though I love the convenience and prices of Amazon).

Recently I went to a bookstore in Bath, in the south of England that was really beautiful. I have also been to one of their other branches in St Andrews, in Scotland.

I thought I would just show a bunch of pretty pictures of the stores for you all to enjoy! The shop is called Topping and Company Booksellers and they have branches in Bath, Cambridge and St Andrews. They have a website with a few more pictures too. They aren’t the cheapest but they seem to have a lot of signed copies and they wrap all the books in clear plastic to protect them which I really like. I still have the plastic on my illustrated Harry Potter even though I read it ages ago! They even offer you tea to drink while you browse!

Bath

Do you judge a book by its cover?

Everyone knows the old saying “don’t judge a book by its cover” but do you stick to it?

Surely bookstores rely on people judging books by their covers? When you walk into a bookstore, what else makes you pick up a book if not the cover? With some books you might have heard about them somewhere or recognise the author’s name, but that can’t be the case for most books, for most people. So if not the cover what else is there, at least in terms of picking up a book to find out what it’s about?

Book Prizes

So, I keep seeing shortlists for book prizes….

Book prizes often actually put me off books. With one very well known prize, if there is a book on their shortlist that I was previously interested in, it just being on the list will make me remove it from my TBR. I haven’t just started doing this completely randomly, there is a reason. With some of these big prizes I have read many of the previous winning or shortlisted books and I haven’t liked any of them. It’s similar to liking or not liking particular genres really. I know I don’t tend to like YA in the same way I know I don’t tend to like such and such prize winners, so I avoid both.

It seems the big name prizes are often very political. If a book is about an “important” topic it ends up on a prize shortlist, regardless of how good or bad it actually is. From my point of view the quality of the book should be the sole determining factor for prizes. Anyone can pick an “important” topic and write something about it. Not everyone can write a good book. A good book, can be about anything, any topic, it being about a less “important” topic doesn’t make it “unworthy”.

Do you DNF books?

So, I find it really difficult to not finish a book. Why? I’m not really sure. I think it’s mostly because I keep hoping that it will get better and I don’t want to miss out.

With ARCs there is an added factor, the publisher is expecting a review, and I don’t want to let them down. I also want to get future ARCs. I am totally fine writing bad reviews for ARCs, which last month in particular shows, but I feel like I have to at least write a review. I know some people still write reviews if they DNF a book but I think it is better to be able to do a full review, which to me means finishing the book. What if the ending is amazing and changes how you feel about the whole book?

Book Unhaul!

So, on BookTube I love a good unhaul video! Obviously this isn’t a video but I am still doing an unhaul so I thought I would post about it. Most of my books are ebooks so it is unusual for me to have many physical books I want to get rid of but I have built up a little pile.

What am I going to do with the books you ask? Well there is a used bookshop in the hospital and a patient library so I am planning to donate the books to one of them.

My reasons for getting rid of these book vary, so I will give an explanation for each as we go along.

With this book I just couldn’t get through it. It was weird but also just not that interesting. I made it about halfway through before I gave up. Unfortunately it was quite expensive.

Does it count as reading if it’s a graphic novel?

When someone tells me they are reading a book, I imagine a 200+ page novel with writing taking up the whole page on every page. You?

Often with BookTube I will be watching a video and someone will say they  have read 15 books that month and I  will think “wow, that’s loads”, usually though it turns out that they have “read” a lot of graphic novels, and I’m disappointed.

From my point of view, a graphic novel is essentially a longer/bigger version of a comic. Most people would say they “read” a comic however, so is it fair to say the same with a graphic novel? Or is it fair in some contexts but not others? Fair in the general population but not on BookTube for example?

Reading Book Reviews

Lately  I have been reading a lot more book reviews and I have found a lot of them really frustrating! I wrote a post recently about writing reviews but that concentrated on what other people like rather than what I like, so that is the purpose of this post!

In my other post I said I wasn’t sure if people want all opinion in the actual review or some more recap of the story as well. However, it seems quite a lot of people don’t give an opinion at all in their reviews, they just go over the plot. Yes that can be helpful but is it really right to call that a review? Sometimes there is a bit more of a discussion of the themes of the book rather than just the story but often the reviewer still doesn’t really give an opinion. Saying a book “explores an important topic” isn’t the same as saying “it was well written, I particularly liked…” I don’t need the entire plot from reviewers, that’s what the book is for, I read book reviews because I want to know the opinion of the reviewer, so why aren’t reviewers actually giving opinions? I want to know what they think!