Messy Books

We all know that I am the ultimate bibliophile.  Oddly enough though most of my books are pretty messy and beat up.   I bring my books with me everywhere, to work, to vacation, to road trips, to the bathtub, to the pool...pretty much everywhere.  They get tossed in my back back, under my bed, the back of my truck.  I know a ton of fellow bibliophiles who would never dog ear a page and do their best to keep their books in pristine condition...yeah me, not so much.  I dog ear my pages, I write in
the margins and in the back of books all the time.  There are always drips of coffee or a splotch of rain.  I like my books messy though.  It reminds me of when and where I read them.  When I open up my book from our cruise I smell sea salt and coconut oil and am immediately taken back to a happy place.  My books are a part of my life, they go with me everywhere and I am not ashamed that they are as marked by my life as I am.  Now that being said, I do have some very special and very beautiful books that are cared for as if they are priceless treasures...which to me they are.  These however are the exception.  In summation my books are like me, used, traveled, messy and alive.  So if you ever stop by my bookshelves and start flipping through my books, look for the marks of life on them and know that these books have lived life along with their current owner.  Happy Reading Everybody!

Reading For Myself

Lately I have noticed that my reading list has become a bit of a chore.  Because of the blog I feel like I have to read a certain variety of books, or a planned sequence of books, or read the book with a certain slant to make a coherent rambling.  Lately this mind set has diminished my ability to just grab a book that suits my mood and dive in.  I find that this is a hazard of turning something you love into a job.  So I decided to just say screw it and read what I want when I want.  This has helped me rediscover the whole reason why reading is such an essential part of my being.  I have to remember that as much as I love writing this blog, as much fun it is to discuss my current reads ad nauseam and how great it is for my brain to exercise it's creative strength with writing, that if I am not getting what I personally need from my books, then this blog is pretty worthless.  Anyways thanks for listening to my wandering thoughts today.  Hopefully my future rambles will be better for my new mindset.  Happy Reading Everybody!

Bookish Thoughts

Here are some thoughts on books that pretty much sum up my literary life.

Happy Reading Everybody!

Wandering Through The Woods

The weather has finally taken a turn for the better and to celebrate Hubbin took me on an epic hike today.  As we were walking along, many book related thoughts popped into my busy little brain (yes I think about books almost all the time).  Here are some of them...you know just for fun.

1)  As we were walking in 60 degree weather, the day after a huge ice/snow storm through the middle of the woods I was struck about how much it reminded me of the scene in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe where the White Witches curse is finally broken, winter is fading and spring has finally arrived.  Now to be fair, we only had about 4 weeks of extreme winter, not 100 years...but some days it sure felt like it.  As we were trying our darnedest not to slip on the mushy, icy, muddy ridges it struck me the incredible strangeness of having at least 3 inches of snow and ice on the ground, and wearing a t-shirt with no coat, I like to imagine as I stood in the sun that this is how the characters in the book felt, just a moment of comfort, warmth and contentment in the middle of a really hard situation.  Yeah I'm a dork.
2)  We say this couple with a really great idea that I want to steal.  It was a sheet/hammock type deal that they had tied between two trees to make a resting place to have a little snack.  I found this to be absolutely brilliant.  So many times we have been out in the middle of no where and all I want to do is pull out a book and read in this amazing environment...but I really don't feel like getting my hinney all soaked and dirty.  This is the most perfect solution, a light weight something or another that you can hang from a tree, or spread on the ground, or wherever it would work to cuddle up and read for a while.
3)  The longer we hiked, and the wetter I got, the longer list of books that I wanted to read was building up in my head.  I'm funny like that, I desperately want to be outside and doing things as much as humanly possible...but every time I do, it just reminds me of a book I want to read :-)  All things considered this is not a bad thing, it just makes me wish for more hours in the day to do both.
So that was my day.  I was wet, muddy and incredibly happy all day and once I'm done with this I can go read my books and be even happier.  Happy Reading Everybody!

Rambles About Ramblings

Somebody asked me the other day why I always put in such a long synopsis of the book in my ramblings.  My first thought was well 'cause it's my blog and I can do whatever I want but that sounded kinda snotty, so here is the reasons I write my ramblings the way I do.  The whole purpose of this blog is a very very selfish one, I like to talk about books.  I like to pontificate, speculate, analyze and discuss books I've read, want to read and other cool things related to books.  When I started this blog it was to fill a void I found, sometimes I wanted to know the whole plot of the book. The vast majority of the time I try not to read reviews of a book until I have already read it.  I have found that reviews leave me with the reviewers point of view and sometimes skews my reading of the book.  So after I have read the book I want to read what other people thought of it.  A lot of reviews give you one super detailed beginning paragraph and then a bunch of vaugery as to rightfully not spoil the book, and then try and review it.  Do you know how hard it is to review a book and not spoil it?  The few ramblings I have done where I have tried to keep pieces of the plot a secret are not my best work.  I look at it as less of a review and more of a discussion among people who have already read the book, or may want more information than a back cover blurb. I think most reviews (as they should be) are a way for people to find a new book to read, but the lack of spoilers can really stilt the discussion.  Now I know my ramblings are not

for everybody, they are called ramblings, not reviews for a reason.  They are long and wandery and sometime really choppy, there is a reason I'm a reader not a writer!  I guess in the end it is more about my need to discuss a book at length that leads to these overly written musings of mine.  A lot of the people I know who read the same books as me don't live anywhere near me and my poor Hubbin gets stuck with me going on and on about a given book.  This space gives me somewhere to just spew everything I am thinking, feeling, loveing and hating when I have finished a book.  I will continue my rambling as long as there are books to read and thoughts to be had and I hope you will all join me in discussing some of these amazing books!

Slogging Through The Tomes

Do you ever just not want to finish a book?  I find myself in that situation lately, I'm not sure if I'm just not picking up great books, or I am distracted or what, but I have a huge stack of half finished books laughing at me.  I hate not finishing books, there are a few exceptions of course.  I have not finished books that are just so badly written that they don't make sense.  I have not finished books that I personally find in bad taste.  I have not finished books that are so boring that I find myself rereading the same page several times and still not registering the words on the paper.  These are all good reasons to not finish a book, and I have even forced myself to finish a few that fall into these categories, just for fair reviewing purposes.  The books that I have half read now do not fall into any of these reasons, they just are not getting finished. These books are decent books, maybe not earth-shattering, maybe not my new favorite of all time, but these are fairly well written, solid stories with good premises and decent plot lines.  It might be the post-holiday blues, where nothing seems as shiny and pretty as it was last month, it might be that I have so many books just begging to be read I can't keep my focus on what I am reading right now, maybe I just need more coffee. Whatever the reason I am giving myself a break and putting these books back in the TBR pile and hopefully their mocking laughter will not keep me up at night.  I will probably pick one up one of these days, remember why I got it in the first place, finish it and then kick myself for not sticking with it earlier.  Well back to the stack...hey what's that book with the pretty cover over there?!?

Do you always finish the books you start?  Are you one those disciplined people who can read one book at a time, never picking up the next one until the current one is finished or are you distracted by a pretty cover or interesting sounding premise?  What is the most amount of books you've had going at once (I'm up to 11 right now)?