Quality or quantity

In this post: Booking Through Thursday, Thursday Thirteen, Favorite Things

Which is more important? Quality for you reading? Or quantity?

My sidebar may not show much that would match what this blog claims to be, eg. widgets like "books read" or "currently reading..." Not that I don't have those but I'm just taking my time dissecting books, writing reactions on the margins, and connecting with the stories in mind and heart. I savor quality.

Thursday Thirteen:  song titles that begin with I. Anything you like or reminds you of something?

1. I'll never love this way again by Dionne Warwick
2. I miss you like crazy by Natalie Cole
~ seen these live

3. I've never been to me  by Charlene
4. I don't want you to go by Lani Hall
5. I will always love you by Kenny Roger
6. I just can't stop loving you by Michael Jackson
7. I don't wanna miss a thing by Aerosmith

8. I miss you (Klymaxx) reminds me of high school
9. I need to be in love (Karen Carpenter) love playing this on the piano
10. I'm not in love (10cc) once quoted this as an FB shoutout; a lengthy, animated interaction ensued

11. I can wait forever by Air Supply
12. I can't fight this feeling anymore by Reo Speedwagon
~ easy to sing on karaoke

13. I will survive by Gloria Gaynor
 ~ reminds me of an embarrassing moment: I sang and danced along this song on MTV confident I was doing it in a completely empty restaurant corner. Now I didn't notice a new group of hotel guests piling in or I didn't immediately realize they were humans; Through the glass wall I saw they were tall and huge I could think of only one comparison - gods spilling out the courtyard of Campanile Redditch from Mt Olympus. It was too late when I abruptly stopped mimicking Gloria Gaynor. The French rugby team had just seen someone looking like an idiot.

Tara Road quotes

In this post: Second first time - Booking Through Thursday, Quotes from Tara Road - Thursday Thirteen, Favorite Things

We all know the beauty of reading a really wonderful book for the first time—when everything about the story and the writing and the timing click to make a reader’s perfect storm … but it’s fleeting, because you can never read that book for the first time again.

So … if you could magically reset things so that you had the chance to read a favorite book/series again for the first time … which would you choose? And why?

And then, since tastes change … Do you think it would have the same affect on you, reading it now, as it did when you read it the first time? Would you love it just as much? Would you risk it?

Rowling's Harry Potter series - the mystery of magic, Austen's Pride and Prejudice - the fun of being spectator to a set of social norms of time gone by, and Crichton's Timeline - physically going back hundreds of years as actual subject of scientific research will always thrill me til the last page. And as far as affect goes, I think it will only be better.

Thursday Thirteen: quotes from Tara Road by Maeve Binchy. These quotes are all from the first two chapters only and are generally about people. I picked those that sound familiar. Are there any you relate with or don't, agree or disagree, like or dislike? Feel free to object and share your thoughts.

1. "Men might regard travel as fast. Men preferred to marry safer, calmer women. Women who didn't go gallivanting too much."
-I love travel and I do whenever I can. Is that why I always seem to be single?.... lol

2. "I'd love to be able to look into the future and see where we'll be in two years' time.  Wouldn't it be great if we could take a peep?"
- have you ever been to a fortune teller? did it come true for you?

3. "It's very hard to know what a job was going to be like until you were in it and then it was too late."
- 'been there, got the t-shirt'

4. "Prosperity had come to Ireland in the early eighties and the property market was the first to reflect this."
- it will be nice to find this has some actual similarities (from non-fiction media) with Ireland's economy in the early 80s

5. "Fellows don't like being questioned about feelings."
- when forced, I think they will 'copy & paste' :D

6. "1982 was a terrible year for films stars dying."
- I remember reading a brief biography of Grace Kelly from a magazine in the early 80s

7. "The secret of the universe is timing."
- any idea of its origin?

8. "There's no point in working anywhere unless we know what it's all about. It makes it twice as interesting if you know all that's going on."

9. "All mothers are difficult."
- are they not?! Mine is impossible at times. We have a volatile relationship ;p

10. "Wasn't it wonderful the way people saw their own situations?"

11. "There were plenty of men but no one man."
- I sooo relate

12. "There was great satisfaction in having lovely possessions. If you couldn't have a streamlined figure, flawless make-up, exquisite clothes, then having a perfect room was a substitute."
- no one will be left behind with nothing

13. "And I spend my life saying look at my frizzy hair. It's a very annoying part of being a woman., we're never really satisfied with the way we look."
- did Rapunzel ever had similar annoyance?

Neither a borrower

In this post: Booking Through Thursday, Thursday Thirteen, Favorite Things

...how do you feel about borrowing books from friends? Is this something you like to do? Does it make you feel uncomfortable or rushed while reading? Does it affect how you feel about the book you’re reading, pressured into liking it?

The reason I normally do not borrow books is exactly feeling uncomfortable and rushed while reading. I feel what I like to feel or think about the book though, borrowed or not, but I express it only when asked. If I don't like it I'll find a nice way to say why.

Thursday Thirteen:  books for 9 baht each (usd 29 cents). Dasa Books does it again - set readers / book lovers in a frenzy with their crazy blow-out book sale. Do you have a spree when books go as low-cost as this and the choices are many?

1. Milk glass moon by Adriana Trigiani - I bought it for the cover
2. Violin by Anne Rice - I have never read an Anne Rice before
3. Burning Marguerite by Elizabeth Inness-Brown - the cover makes one feel mysterious

- by Maeve Binchy
4. Tara Road - about home exchange; my current read. A big ramshackle Victorian mansion is prominent in the blurb so right into the check out counter
5. Nights of Rain and Stars - the setting sounds charming to me: Greek tavern above a small village of Aghia Anna
6. Copper Beech - who wouldn't like what People promised?  "as soothing as a cup of tea"

~ I like browsing this kind of books with my morning coffee
7. Climate Change: what's your business strategy? by AJ Hoffman & JG Woody
8. Great escapes short story collection by various authors
9. The care and feeding of ideas by James L Adams
10. Beyond engineering by Michael Hammer

11. Carolina moon by Jill McCorkle - Carolina reminded me of my recent talk with an aunt about a possible visit to the lovely state in the future
12. The bad mother's handbook by Kate Long - Observer says it's "a funny and wise picture of the impatience and indescribable love of family"
13. Tulip touch by Anne Fine - I'm in the mood for alliteration

Tragedy or comedy?

In this post: Booking Through Thursday, Thursday Thirteen, Favorite Things

All other things being equal (good writing, enthralling story, etc), which would you rather read—something serious, angsty, and tragic? Or something light, fluffy, and fun? Or a blend of both? (Since, really, isn’t that how real life works?)

A blend of both! I love balance. And I like that applied to what I feed my head. Or is that what you call wanting a little bit of this and that?

Thursday Thirteen: Oxymorons. There are pairs quite recognizable at first glance such as agree to disagree, anticipated serendipity, astronomically small, authentic replica, adult children, or anxious patient. You may have mixed reactions to the following:

1. arrogant humility sometimes visibly implied in some churches or among religious people

2. smiling Martial law mentioned not just once in sophomore high Social Studies class. I remember my eyebrows climbing up my scalp thinking how can smiling be managed around routine tortures or unexplained floating corpses

3. accurate horoscope I went to a fortune teller a couple of months ago; what started as giggles at these words turned to a burst of laughter

4. definite maybe a colleague's favorite expression for and about the state of things at work

5. American English is it the same way as when you say English American?
6. academic fraternity / sorority - debatable; can be offensive to some
7. amicable divorce made me chuckle. I don't think hell can ever be amicable
8. alone together sounds rather tender in a way

9.   auto pilot ?how?
10. new classic too much enthusiasm in advertising a book?
11. almost pregnant  I don't get it, do you?
12. affordable housing is housing really unaffordable?
13. loud silence any relation to the deafening one?

It's personal

In this post: Booking Through Thursday, Thursday Thirteen, Favorite Things

"Do you have a preference between “person” in the books you read? Do you prefer third-person to first-person? Or don’t you care? And … why??"

No particular preference. What's important to me is I understand and enjoy the story. I'm a margin scribbler. I tend to scribble reactions on the margin regardless of whoever is narrating. I'm comfortable 'talking back' to you or to him, her or them. But if I really have to choose then okay, first person it is.

Thursday Thirteen: books written in the first person. I read different views about first person narration. Difficult, tricky.... What do you think? Do you have any recommendation? Or if you prefer stories narrated in third person, any title you'd like to share?

1. The Murder of John Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
2. Black Beauty by Anna Sewell (horse's point of view)
3. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
4. The Walking Drum by Louis L'Amour
5. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
6. The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt
7. The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd
8. White Oleander by Janet Fitch
9. Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood
10. The Weight of Silence by Heather Gudenkauf
11. The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
12. The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness
13. Paper Town by John Greene