Tag: Fun

Liebster Award Nomination

whatcathyreadnext2 Comments

Leibster

Thank you to the lovely Laura at Snazzy Books for this nomination – do check out her wonderful blog. I have to confess I’ve been tagged before for this award but never got around to taking part so this is to redress that oversight.

The Rules

  • Thank the person who nominated you and link to their blog
  • Answer the 11 questions the person asked you
  • Nominate 11 people (comment on their blog to let them know)
  • Ask the people you have nominated 11 questions

Laura’s Questions:

If you had to pick a literary character to marry/enter into a civil partnership with, who would it be?
Mr. Rochester from Jane Eyre
What instantly puts you off a book?
Haha – punctuation, spelling and grammar errors in the first few pages
If you had to pick – favourite 3 authors?
Margaret Atwood (for imagination), C J Sansom (for mystery) and John Buchan (for adventure) – but my answer would change tomorrow…
Most-read series?
A toss-up between Alexander McCall Smith’s Mma Ramotswe and C J Samson’s Shardlake
Tea or coffee whilst reading – or neither?
Coffee in the morning, tea in the afternoon
If you could only eat one food ‘cuisine’ for the rest of your life, what would it be?
British fish and chips – with mushy peas of course!
Ebooks or paper books?
Both – ebooks for convenience, paper books for the look and feel
What do you do with books you don’t want to keep? Give them to friends, charity shops, sell them….etc?
All of the above (except sell)
Favourite book/s of 2017 so far?
Days Without End by Sebastian Barry
Favourite genre?
Historical fiction
Favourite book to movie/TV adaptation?
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro – wonderful book, wonderful film especially the sublime partnership of Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson

My Nominations

I’m going to cheat and invite anyone reading this to take part as I know some of you have been tagged loads of times before or don’t take part in tags.  Or just pick a question or questions you like from the list below and leave your answer in a comment.

My Questions

  1. What book would you most like to unwrap on Christmas Day?
  2. Which living author would you most like to meet face-to-face?
  3. What’s your favourite opening line of a book?
  4. What’s your favourite closing line of a book?
  5. Have you ever lied about reading a book you haven’t actually read and, if so, what was it?
  6. What is the most popular book you’ve never read?
  7. If you were marooned for life on a desert island and could only take one book what would it be?
  8. What’s your favourite book cover published in 2017?
  9. If you could be a character in an author’s next book which author would you choose and what type of character?
  10. Have you ever been fined for taking a library book back late?
  11. Have you ever cheated to find out how a book ends?

Are You Monogamous or Polygamous (When it Comes to Books)?

whatcathyreadnext18 Comments

MonogamyorPolygamy

Do you like to devote yourself to one book at a time and give it all your book love, only then moving on to the next? Or do you enjoy having a number of books on the go, flirting with each as the mood takes you? To put it another way, do you like to read in sequence or in parallel?

I can see pros and cons to both but I’ll ‘fess up now to being a dyed-in-the wool polygamist…when it comes to books.

In Praise of Book Monogamy

  • You can give your full attention to the book – the story, the characters, the writing – without any distraction
  • You won’t have any problem picking up where you left off because it will be fresh in your mind, not obscured by anything else you’ve read in between
  • You’ll get through the book in a shorter elapsed time
  • If it’s a challenging read – a long book, a complex subject or unusual writing style – you’ll be able to apply your full concentration to it
  • It will be much easier to recall when you come to write that all important review
  • No temptation to switch to another book leaving the current one unfinished
  • Ideal for the self-disciplined

favourite                     BookPile

In Praise of Book Polygamy

  • You can switch between books depending on your mood. For example, perhaps a few chapters from something light-hearted when you’re feeling a bit down and then back to something more thrilling when you crave excitement.   Or something gentler and slower for bedtime reading.
  • If you’re struggling to get into a particular book, you can switch to another for a time and go back to the first book later.
  • Less chance of a DNF because of the above
  • You can take a break from a challenging read but, rather than do something entirely non-book related, you can polish off a few chapters of another quite different book
  • You may pick up similarities or common themes between books that you wouldn’t have noticed if you’d read them separately
  • You’ve got more chance of finding a book with the right chapter length to fit those odd reading opportunities during the day
  • Ideal for the multi-tasker

So, do you practice monogamy or polygamy when it comes to books?