I’ve been reading a lot lately, and I’ve also realized that I’ve been buying a lot of new books. So I’ve decided to put up a booklog here in the site. At first, I thought of starting a booklog in preparation for those 20+ books in 12 months memes. In the end, I decided against it, since I don’t want to be pressured into reading books for the sake of accomplishing a specific number of reads.
Last night, I decided to try buying online from National Bookstore, using a credit card. I ordered Atonement by Ian McEwan, and The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. I’m currently waiting for the order to be approved and shipped out. Thankfully, I haven’t seen the film adaptations for these novels, so I still don’t know what to expect. I’ve downloaded torrents of the films, so I’ll see the movies after I read the books.
This week’s question from Booking Through Thursday:
“Life is too short to read bad books.” I’d always heard that, but I still read books through until the end no matter how bad they were because I had this sense of obligation.
That is, until this week when I tried (really tried) to read a book that is utterly boring and unrealistic. I had to stop reading.
Do you read everything all the way through or do you feel life really is too short to read bad books?
It really depends on how bad the book is. Seriously, there are books that are so bad, you just have to put them down after the first chapter, but there are still some bad books that I can stomach. There are moments when I find a book boring, but I still feel a twinge of curiosity – like I want to find out what happens in the end, no matter how badly written it is. That’s when I end up finishing a bad book – but not without skipping a few chapters. But I guess that doesn’t really qualify as reading all the way through.
This week’s question from Booking Through Thursday:
Which do you prefer? Biographies written about someone? Or Autobiographies written by the actual person (and/or ghost-writer)?
I really don’t have a preference. Though it never occurred to me that the only autobiographies I own are the memoirs by Dave Pelzer. All the other biographies I own are about dead people: Audrey Hepburn, Gregory Peck, Cary Grant, and Grace Kelly.
It always, always depends on how the biography or autobiography is written. Sometimes biographies are too gossipy or speculative. Sometimes autobiographies are too censored. When I buy biographies, I usually just want facts, and not information rooted on speculation and hearsay. When I buy autobiographies, I don’t want to read an over-censored piece of crap that doesn’t really give readers any insight on the subject.
Overall, it doesn’t matter whether it’s a biography or autobiography as long as it’s written well, and as long as the information are all backed up by credible sources.
I found an interesting weekly meme, Booking Through Thursday. Since it revolves around something I am very much into – books – I’ve decided to do it every week. :)
This week’s question:
When’s the last time you weeded out your library? Do you regularly keep it pared down to your reading essentials? Or does it blossom into something out of control the minute you turn your back, like a garden after a Spring rain?
Or do you simply not get rid of books? At all? (This would have described me for most of my life, by the way.)
And–when you DO weed out books from your collection (assuming that you do) …what do you do with them? Throw them away (gasp)? Donate them to a charity or used bookstore? SELL them to a used bookstore? Trade them on Paperback Book Swap or some other exchange program?
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