Browsing for Books as a Book Blogger

Since I’ve now been blogging for just over two years, I’ve had some time to become adjusted to the changes in my reading habits blogging has caused. I now read more books and I read them faster in the span of a year. I read - and am aware of - far more new releases than I ever knew existed. I read each book a bit more critically now, knowing that I plan on recording my thoughts on it later. I buy a ridiculous amount of books and am hyperaware of book deals/sales.

None of these changes in my reading habits are bad. And, overall, I’m pretty happy with how blogging has impacted my communication skills and knowledge of the publishing industry.

If I did have one complaint, however, it would be this: I seem to have lost the ability to browse in bookstores and libraries.

That’s a rather dramatic statement, so allow me to refine my meaning.

Prior to blogging, recommendations from those whose reading tastes I trusted constituted the vast majority of the book I knew I wanted to read. Other books I read for classes. And still others I decided to read simply because a title or a cover caught my eye, I picked up the book, and I found the synopsis/first few pages to be interesting.Going to a bookstore or library was a cause for excitement because, for the most part, I had literally no idea what books would end up catching my eye. Navigating the shelves, checking out notable books on display - everything felt new and shiny and special to me.

Bookstores and libraries still elicit some level of excitement for me, but not to the same degree. Now many times I have some idea of specific books I’d like to find, or specific authors. Now I’m generally on a tighter schedule and don’t have an hour or more to just look around. Now I place library books on hold and often go to my library specifically to pick up those books or order a book through my local indie and stop by solely to pick it up, convincing myself that I have enough reading in my hands as it is without adding any more by browsing the shelves. And, of course, I cannot fail to mention that a good chunk of the books I read are digital.

But this post isn’t about the browsing for digital books (that’s for another discussion). Instead, I wanted to focus on my changing physical book browsing habits. They’re not all bad: I’m a more efficient browser, a more efficient reader, and acquire far fewer books that ultimately don’t mesh well with me as a reader.

Sometimes, though, I miss the spontaneity that came with browsing shelves with no preconceived expectations. The elation of discovering a new book or author destined to become a favorite. I miss introducing friends and family to unfamiliar, underrated books. It’s still possible to do that as a book blogger, of course, but it seems like it’s become a rarer occurrence for me.

From pulling books off of shelves I’ve discovered some of my favorite books: Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine, Crown Duel by Sherwood Smith, Wolf Speaker by Tamora Pierce (yes, that was my introduction to Pierce’s works), A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray. And many, many more.

I admit that there are also so many books that I would never have read in the past two years had I not been a blogger. Books that I’ve come to love, but that didn’t sound like they were worth the investment upon first glance.

And perhaps that knowledge makes the lessening of my spontaneity not as big of a problem as I sometimes feel like it is. I can work on making myself a better browser, after all - allotting more time to browse new-to-me shelves, authors, and books - but having a greater knowledge of the publishing industry, authors, and books makes it worth the changes, I think.

What about you? Have you become less of a book browser and on more of a mission when you visit libraries, bookstores, or other places with books?

Read more »

On Being a Long-Term Reader

After nearly two years of book blogging and a lifetime of reading, I’ve learned a few things about my preferred reading style:

1. Reading is my preferred form of relaxation

2. I prefer to be thoroughly engrossed in stories as I read

3. I like to take my time reading stories

There are other conclusions I can make based on my reading style, but for now I want to focus on the fact that, while I do consider myself to be a faster than average reader, I rarely ever spend fewer than a few days with the same book. I’m a LTR (a long-term reader - and, yes, I did just make up that phrase) and proud of it.

So what defines a long-term reader? For me, it means that I’m going to take a little extra time reading a book, even if I could potentially finish it within a day. It means that, for me, the best way to fully comprehend a book is to have it occupy my mind for a few days straight, giving me time to think about the story and process it in between reading sessions. It means that I generally only read one book at a time so that I can better concentrate on and reflect on my current read.

Unfortunately, it also means that I only read about two books per week, and that there’s no way for me to post more than two reviews a week. The benefits, however, far outweigh those consequences for me.

I decided to start writing reviews for two main reasons: to record my thoughts on the books that I read, and to encourage myself to continue to think critically about literature. Since I started this blog, neither of those goals has been difficult to accomplish except for when I end up speeding through a book.

Maybe it’s the student who spent four years studying literature in both English and Spanish speaking here, but I want to be able to think critically about what I read, to tease out meanings and form new understandings. Stories are written for the purpose of entertaining, of course, but I like to think there’s more at stake in them, and I find that I appreciate them best when I am able to spend a little more time with them.

When I read through a book within a short span of time, I may be enjoying myself, but the book usually doesn’t end up leaving much of a lasting impression on me. I don’t have time to process and think about it outside of actually reading it, which makes it difficult for me to recall my thoughts on it. And if I’m having trouble internally processing the book, then there’s no way I could write a decent review (which, again, isn’t the be-all end-all of reading for me, but it is another helpful tool to help me become a better reader and writer).

In the few months making up this year so far, Laura Florand’s The Chocolate Thief and Carrie Mesrobian’s Sex & Violence are the only books I read within the span of two days. And, really, that was just too short a span of time for me. I feel like there were aspects in both that I missed or just didn’t get to fully appreciate because I devoted fewer days and sittings to reading them, and therefore less time for processing them. The only time that’s really worked is if I’m re-reading a book, such as I did with Melina Marchetta’s Finnikin of the Rock so that I could be better prepared to read Froi of the Exiles and Quintana of Charyn.

None of this means that I don’t race through books or binge-read series on occasion, but those instances are rare. I’ve come to understand that I lose a lot more by reading quickly than I do by taking my time and really valuing the story in front of me.

Reading is an intensely personal experience, and the intention of this post is not to deride those who get through a book (or more) in a day or even in a single sitting. Rather, it’s to add my perspective to the dichotomy between fast readers and slow readers.

How do you prefer to read your books? Am I all alone in preferring (needing, really) to take my time with each book I read?

Read more »

A Year for Writing

In 2013 I had a personal reading goal of 65 books and ended up reading 90 books. That amounted to 30,731 pages and countless hours spent reading.

Here at Late Nights with Good Books, I participated in the 2013 Debut Author Challenge (I read a total of 14 YA/MG debuts) and the 2013 Standalone Reading Challenge (I read a total of 10 YA standalone titles).

For 2014, I’ve once again joined the Debut Author Challenge, but that will be my only formal reading challenge here. It was fun to have the opportunity to read specific types of books, but these challenges do take up a lot of time so I am not committing myself to more than one. Of course, I’ll have my personal reading challenge (trying for 70 books this year). I also have a deep and unabiding love for chunky books, which somehow was ignored for most of 2013, so another personal goal of mine will be to read a few lengthier novels. If you’re interested in tracking my progress, please refer to my Challenges tab.

My main challenge for this new year is not a reading challenge, however. As the title of this post states, I plan on making 2014 a year where I really focus on my own personal writing.

Back when I started Late Nights with Good Books in May of 2012, I was lonely and uncertain of my future. After spending four years at college critically analyzing writing (I double-majored in English and Spanish), I actually missed that I no longer had to do so. Two things that have always comforted me are books and writing, and so upon the discovery of Goodreads and book blogs it just made sense for me to start my own book blog.

I have absolutely no regrets in creating Late Nights with Good Books. I’ve read some fantastic books, and have had the opportunity to interact with many authors, publicists, and fellow book lovers. In no means do I know everything about the publishing process or the current market for YA books, but I’m learning. And I love that. I love that I have a reason to read a ton and write my thoughts about books — and that others actually care to read my opinions.

The issue herein is this: for the past year and a half, the vast majority of my free time after work has been consumed by blogging. I love reading, yes, but I also love writing. Writing’s been a passion of mine for nearly as long as reading has. My ultimate goal is to get some of my works published. While this blog has enabled me to better see what books are getting contracts, I’m no closer to getting any works of mine ready for submission. And this is my own fault; I’ve succumbed to the pressures of reading, reading, reading and blogging, blogging, blogging.

All of this is to say I need to change my priorities a bit. I won’t stop reading and I won’t stop blogging. Honestly, I don’t think I could even if I wanted to. But they’re going to take a bit of a back seat for a while, and I will start interchanging books to review with books on writing and those for inspiration (which probably will not be reviewed). My ultimate resolution for 2014 is to get back to writing. I have a partially finished novella I’d like to work on, and I would ideally love to finish a full draft for a novel. Blogging at Late Nights with Good Books has not only made me respect and appreciate published authors more, but has made me realize just how much I would love to count myself among their ranks someday.

Again, this is not a goodbye — my current plan is to publish at least one review and one additional post a week, maybe more. I also still plan on interacting with bloggers, authors, and the book community. Just not to the same degree right now. This is the right direction for me right now, and I am excited to spend some time really focusing on my writing dreams.

Read more »

Armchair BEA Discussion: Children's/Young Adult Literature

Although I've never explicitly stated that Late Nights with Good Books is a young adult book blog, the majority of the books I review and discuss do fall into the young adult category. And that's fine. Actually, that's more than fine. I started reading YA probably when I was ten or eleven, and it's an age category that has continued to interest me. We all undergo so many changes as young adults, figuring out our identities, what matters most to us, and starting the process of becoming full-fledged adults. It's an exciting time, but also a scary one full of uncertainties. I, for one, will tire of these coming of age tales.

Due to the success of the Harry Potter series, the Twilight series, and The Hunger Games trilogy, among others, young adult literature has definitely gained some prominence within the literary marketplace. I have the sneaking suspicion, however, that a lot of people still tend to be dismissive of books that cater towards this age group as a whole. After all, what can stories about young adults teach adults? A lot, as it turns out. 

This quote from C.S. Lewis sums up my argument the best: 

No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally – and often far more – worth reading at the age of fifty and beyond.

The younger the intended audience of a book is, the more universal that book becomes. That should hardly come as a surprise. As we age, we're able to start appreciating things catered for our specific age group, but that should not be at the expense of our ability to connect with stories geared towards younger audiences once. We're no longer those ages anymore, but we once were, and being removed from that age range gives us a fresher, more complex perspective, I think. And catering towards a specific audience does not necessarily mean that the adult author is writing down to that audience. Young adult books have just as much potential to be intelligent, well-crafted, and poignant.
 
Perhaps you've read some of the more popular YA books and are looking for similar types of books. Below are a few lists by genre that first mention one of the most popular YA books within that genre, and then other books that I think readers may possibly enjoy. I tried to pick books that aren't as recent, and those that I first read years ago and still love, meaning that I do not have reviews for the majority of them. 

If you liked the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling, you might like:
 
Sabriel (Abhorsen trilogy) by Garth Nix: Sabriel is a prefect at her boarding school in Ancelstierre with little knowledge of the magical Old Kingdom beyond the border, when she learns that her father is trapped in the world of the dead. In order to save her father, Sabriel travels to the Old Kingdom. While searching for her father, she also must take up the bells and sword and become a necromancer in her father's stead, despite her limited training. 
The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials trilogy) by Philip Pullman: Lyra lives at Oxford's Jordan College in an alternate-universe where polar bears talk, witches exist, a powerful and mysterious Magisterium, and the soul of every person is manifested through an animal companion called a daemon. Lyra hears talk of horrifying experiments testing the bonds between human children and their daemons in the north, so, armed with an alethiometer that can answer any question, she and her daemon Pantalaimon seek out the truth.
The Thief (The Queen's Thief series) by Megan Whalen Turner: Gen boasts that he's the best thief in Sounis, and for that he winds up in prison. Then one day the king's adviser seeks out Gen, offering him money and freedom for one small task: to steal and return to Sounis with Hamiathes' Gift, a stone of the gods that gives its wielder incredible power. The problem is, no one's seen the stone for many, many years now.

If you liked The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins, you might like:
 
The House of the Scorpion (Matteo Alacran series) by Nancy Farmer: Matteo Alacran lives in Opium, the lands between Mexico and the U.S. that are controlled by a powerful drug lord, El Patron. Matteo spends the first few years of his life in isolation and blissful ignorance, unaware that he's anything other than a young child under the protection of El Patron. And once he discovers that he's actually a personal clone of El Patron's, his life becomes much more valuable and dangerous than he could have ever anticipated.
The Giver (The Giver quartet) by Lois Lowry: In Jonas' world, turning twelve means children are given their Assignments and become adults within the community. Jonas feels as though he has no obvious talents or interests, and is worried about what Assignment the community Elders will give him. His Assignment as the new Receiver is both unusual and an honor, for the Receiver's job is to hold onto all the communal memories, the horrors and tragedies, as well as the joys and triumphs, throughout history, so that no one else has to remember them.
Uglies (Uglies series) by Scott Westerfeld: Everyone is born with differences, with imperfections. In other words, everyone is born ugly. Once teens reach their sixteenth birthday, they undergo a procedure to make them pretty and go live with the other pretties, where life is wonderful and full of parties. When it's nearly time for her procedure to take place, protagonist Tally begins to suspect that everything is not quite as perfect as it seems.
 
If you liked The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, you might like:
 
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky: Through letters to an unmentioned friend, Charlie describes the ups and downs of his year, from the loneliness and sadness as a result of his best friend's death last year, to the friendship he forms with his English teacher, to his growing aspirations to become a writer. The majority of his letters, however, are devoted to a group of seniors who befriend and accept Charlie for who he is, including step-siblings Sam and Patrick. 
Holes (Holes series) by Louis Sachar: Due to being mistakenly accused of theft, Stanley Yelnats finds himself serving his sentence at Camp Green Lake. What was once a lake is now a dried and dusty landscape, where boys spend their time digging one hole each day. The longer he spends there, the more Stanley wonders just what they're digging for, hidden in the bottom of a long-ago lake.
Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld: Lee Fiora doesn't believe that staying at home in Indiana and attending high school there will make her competitive enough for college admissions, and decides to accept a scholarship to attend a prestigious boarding school in New England. Prep school is not something that she can prepare for, however, and Lee struggles to fit in with her popular, upper-class classmates.

If you liked the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer, you might like:
 
The Summoning (Darkest Powers trilogy) by Kelley Armstrong: Chloe can see ghosts, so, after being hospitalized and diagnosed with schizophrenia, she's sent to live at a boarding home for troubled teens and those with mental illnesses. Although she continues to take her medicine, that doesn't stop her from seeing ghosts and witnessing strange occurrences in this house. As time goes on, Chloe begins to wonder if maybe there's another explanation for her visions, and if the same can't be said for her fellow housemates.
Tithe (Modern Faerie Tales series) by Holly Black: Kaye has always been her mother's caretaker, moving around the country as her mother plays with one band and then another. Kaye's been fine with that life and feels confined when she and her mother go back to New Jersey to live with her grandmother for a bit. While at her old home, Kaye sees glimpses of unusual things, but it isn't until she helps a wounded knight that Kaye discovers the hidden faerie realm, and the ongoing conflict between the Seelie and Unseelie Courts.
Daughter of Smoke and Bone (Daughter of Smoke and Bone series) by Laini Taylor: Enigmatic Karou has hair that grows in blue and a sketchbook filled with fantastical beings called chimera that she refers to on a familiar basis. She's been able to balance between the human and paranormal worlds until one day the ages-old conflict between chimera and angels sweeps her into its war as well.

Of course, these are only the tip of the iceberg that is great young adult literature, but hopefully they can provide a good starting point.
 
Have you read any of these? Let me know your thoughts!

Read more »

Armchair BEA Discussion: Non-Fiction

I am not a big non-fiction reader. My philosophy with reading is that I want to be able to experience things I probably never will. And, not only that, I  also want to appreciate everything associated with literature: the writing craft, the plot, literary devices, characterization, etc. I just don't feel as though you can appreciate non-fiction as a work of literature; instead, I feel like we're supposed to care more about the explicitly told story or message, and that's not really what I want out of my books.

Nevertheless, I have actually started reading some non-fiction. While I am pretty adamant about reading only one fiction book at a time, non-fiction is different enough that I should be fine reading those books on the side and gaining a little extra knowledge. We'll see how that goes, though.

Here are some of the non-fiction books that I hope to read sooner rather than later. 

Anything by Bill Bryson — My dad owns A Short History of Nearly Everything, A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail, and In a Sunburned Country. I've shied away from reading these because they seem more like memoirs than anything else, which is not a subgenre of non-fiction that particularly interests me. I also know his books are full of humor, which I also tend to avoid in the books I read. And yet, I can't really know how I feel about them until I try them. I can see them being good, light reads, so I do want to give at least one of his books a try.

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell — I've started this book quite a few times, only to put it down after a few chapters. It's not that it's boring; I found Gladwell's book about what really goes into the choices we make to be pretty interesting. This will be the year that I finally pick the book up off my shelf and read it through before placing it back again. I never took any psychology classes in school, but because I was friends with a number of people who did, I still am very much interested in learning more about how and why humans act the way that they do. My family also owns Gladwell's Outliers: The Story of Success, so if I end up enjoying Blink then I'll have to move on to this other book.

On Writing by Stephen King — I have not read anything by King yet (I'm not really a fan of horror), but I want to soon. I've heard wonderful things about this memoir/guide to writing and want to read it, but I don't want to read it until I've read at least one of King's works first. I do love non-fiction books about the craft of writing and that offer suggestions and guidance for aspiring writers like me. 

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner — I've also never taken any economics classes, so I'm also very interested to read Levitt and Dubner's layman's account of how the driving forces of economics are behind a lot of the choices people make to get what they need and want. I appreciate any sort of non-fiction book that can explain a particular field or subject in a way that easy for someone like me, with no previous background or understanding, to read. 

 
 

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan — I read Pollan's Food Rules: An Eater's Manual a few years ago, which is a slim volume that provides easy-to-understand rules for how we can eat better. Over the past few years I've faced some dietary restrictions and have subsequently started becoming much more aware of the food that I'm putting into my body. I'm not sure if this book will really help me become a healthier eater, since so far in my reading it seems like there's nothing we can do to escape the deeply-entrenched food production chains that monopolize our society. But becoming a better-informed person is never a bad thing. After reading Pollan's work, I'd like to ideally read other books about food practices and how to make better dietary choices.

I didn't think that I had a specific type of non-fiction that I would gravitate towards, but it appears that I do. Most of these fall within the social sciences categorization. I want to read all of them (with the exception of Bryson) in the hope that I can learn something, that they can affect the way that I live and understand my life. If it's possible to keep learning new things throughout our lives, then why in the world wouldn't I use books to help me accomplish that?

Let me know your thoughts on the non-fiction genre and if you have any recommendations for similar non-fiction reads!

Read more »

Armchair BEA Discussion: Literary Fiction

Since my discussion of genre fiction was more serious yesterday (and because my blog is full of genre fiction recommendations), I decided to make today's discussion a bit lighter. And for full disclosure here: I do love literary fiction. I love reading a novel with beautiful prose where I can really try to unpack the author's words. 

One particular subgenre of literary fiction I've enjoyed and I find fascinating is the family saga. The family saga chronicles the lives of generations of interconnected family members. Many times it becomes a literary device to aid the author in recounting historical events or making a social criticism.

It's so easy for us to get wrapped up in our everyday lives. We can see how we relate to those around us in the present, but the past isn't something that we always think about. Even when we do, it can be difficult to understand just how we relate to a bigger picture. What I love about family sagas is that they do just that: they put people in relation with their families, and then families in relation with much larger portraits.

I've read quite a few family sagas, so I thought I'd share some of my favorites, and then reveal some that I hope to read. 

Four of my favorite family sagas:
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende — Through the lives of the Trueba women, Clara, Blanca, and Alba, and their lovers, Allende writes a sweeping story of politics, love, and the tumultuous history of twentieth-century Chile.
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz — The de León family has always blamed fukú for the misfortunes that have fallen upon the past three generations, ever since Abelard decided to defy Dominican dictator Trujillo's demands.
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver — When their father decides to become a missionary in the Belgian Congo, the entire Price family finds their lives uprooted, so much so that even years later, as they've all gone their separate ways, they cannot escape its influence.
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez — The Buendia family finds their lives tied to a fictional town set alongside the Colombian jungle as it and they begin the arduous process of adapting to a modernized, post-colonial world.

And four family sagas I intend to read:
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri — The Namesake takes the Ganguli family from their tradition-bound life in Calcutta through their fraught transformation into Americans.(Goodreads)
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides — The breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City, and the race riots of 1967, before they move out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. (Goodreads)
The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy — The three novels which make up The Forsyte Saga chronicle the ebbing social power of the commercial upper-middle class Forsyte family between 1886 and 1920. (Goodreads)
Roots by Alex Haley — The monumental two-century drama of Kunta Kinte and the six generations who came after him—slaves and freedmen, farmers and blacksmiths, lumber mill workers and Pullman porters, lawyers and architects—and one author. (Goodreads)

Do you have any favorite family sagas that I should add to my list?

Read more »