(no subject)
For December 14th, 
luzula asked how I choose what books to read and what my reccing sources are.
Right now, it's sort of a mishmash! I'm not at all organized about it. I get a lot of it from you guys, to be honest; either people who blog about books (EVERYONE SHOULD BLOG ABOUT BOOKS ALL THE TIME) or people directly reccing me things. And sometimes I ask for specific recs for the kind of things I'm looking for, and you guys are great about that! If I see a mention on the internet that looks interesting, I'll usually go straight out and put it on a library pull list so I don't forget about it. The drawback of this system is that sometimes things are mentioned that aren't in my library system, and then I usually never get around to reading them until something else happens to make me remember them again. Sometimes I try to work my way through rec lists, and I always earnestly mean to do it, but usually I get distracted halfway through.
I try to maintain momentum on stuff -- like, if I start reading a series, I want to keep reading it with a fair amount of frequency (if all the books are out) before I forget what happened in the earlier books. But I also try to diversify what I read a bit, so if I notice I haven't read a nonfiction book in a while, I'll try to grab one, or if I notice I've only been reading white authors or dudes for a while (although "only dudes" is pretty rare for me) I'll try to switch that up.
(I used to have a much more concrete system before grad school, when I was working a boring job and wasn't using my brain and wanted to use it more in my free-time reading -- there was some complex math involved, like, one in every three books I read had to be by an author who wasn't white, and one in every five had to be nonfiction. I actually really liked that! I read a lot of stuff I might not have otherwise, and it also meant that I was always aware of what I was going to be reading next, and didn't have to agonize over which book to pick up. But of course it was also restricting in certain ways, and then I started grad school and was using my brain a LOT and wanted comfort reading much of the time, so the system fell by the wayside.)
For ages I had too much of a rec/known authors/series continuations/etc. backlog to do much random browsing, but now I have worked through enough of my backlog -- at last! -- that I've started doing some browsing again, like just wandering through stores and seeing what looks interesting and making a note of it to check stuff out later. I usually won't buy a book without knowing anything about it, but I will check books out of the library now as exciting surprises.
I also have this problem where if somebody physically puts a book into my hands, as a loan or a gift, I will feel INCREDIBLY GUILTY about it until I read it. Somebody made an effort to provide me that book! Somebody wants me to read that book! I should obviously prioritize it over other things! This guilt reflex of mine makes me an extremely easy mark for people who want me to, for example, read AWFUL THINGS AND BLOG ABOUT THEM, not that I'm pointing at any of you or anything (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE.)
Tell me about your reading habits, guys! How do you decide what goes on your to-read lists? And what is something that you've read recently that should go on mine?
This entry is cross-posted at Livejournal from http://skygiants.dreamwidth.org/354942.html. Please feel free to comment here or there! There are currently
comments on Dreamwidth.
luzula asked how I choose what books to read and what my reccing sources are.
Right now, it's sort of a mishmash! I'm not at all organized about it. I get a lot of it from you guys, to be honest; either people who blog about books (EVERYONE SHOULD BLOG ABOUT BOOKS ALL THE TIME) or people directly reccing me things. And sometimes I ask for specific recs for the kind of things I'm looking for, and you guys are great about that! If I see a mention on the internet that looks interesting, I'll usually go straight out and put it on a library pull list so I don't forget about it. The drawback of this system is that sometimes things are mentioned that aren't in my library system, and then I usually never get around to reading them until something else happens to make me remember them again. Sometimes I try to work my way through rec lists, and I always earnestly mean to do it, but usually I get distracted halfway through.
I try to maintain momentum on stuff -- like, if I start reading a series, I want to keep reading it with a fair amount of frequency (if all the books are out) before I forget what happened in the earlier books. But I also try to diversify what I read a bit, so if I notice I haven't read a nonfiction book in a while, I'll try to grab one, or if I notice I've only been reading white authors or dudes for a while (although "only dudes" is pretty rare for me) I'll try to switch that up.
(I used to have a much more concrete system before grad school, when I was working a boring job and wasn't using my brain and wanted to use it more in my free-time reading -- there was some complex math involved, like, one in every three books I read had to be by an author who wasn't white, and one in every five had to be nonfiction. I actually really liked that! I read a lot of stuff I might not have otherwise, and it also meant that I was always aware of what I was going to be reading next, and didn't have to agonize over which book to pick up. But of course it was also restricting in certain ways, and then I started grad school and was using my brain a LOT and wanted comfort reading much of the time, so the system fell by the wayside.)
For ages I had too much of a rec/known authors/series continuations/etc. backlog to do much random browsing, but now I have worked through enough of my backlog -- at last! -- that I've started doing some browsing again, like just wandering through stores and seeing what looks interesting and making a note of it to check stuff out later. I usually won't buy a book without knowing anything about it, but I will check books out of the library now as exciting surprises.
I also have this problem where if somebody physically puts a book into my hands, as a loan or a gift, I will feel INCREDIBLY GUILTY about it until I read it. Somebody made an effort to provide me that book! Somebody wants me to read that book! I should obviously prioritize it over other things! This guilt reflex of mine makes me an extremely easy mark for people who want me to, for example, read AWFUL THINGS AND BLOG ABOUT THEM, not that I'm pointing at any of you or anything (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE.)
Tell me about your reading habits, guys! How do you decide what goes on your to-read lists? And what is something that you've read recently that should go on mine?
This entry is cross-posted at Livejournal from http://skygiants.dreamwidth.org/354942.html. Please feel free to comment here or there! There are currently
comments on Dreamwidth.