Thanks to Bookforager for tagging me for this interesting meme: much as I love these “get to know us better” tags, I rarely manage to fulfill my role due to a chronical lack of time. These days, however, I am enjoying a brief holiday respite, so what better occasion than to finally get around to enjoy a book tag? And here we go…
Do you keep a list of the books you have read?
Oh, indeed! Being cursed with a sieve-like memory, I need to keep track of what I’ve read so I don’t overtax my struggling memory banks. For some time I kept the list of my yearly readings on GoodReads, but for the past year of so, due to something annoying that happened there, I moved to Library Thing, which looks a bit more efficient, at least from my point of view.
If you record stats, what stats do you record?
Stats are not something that I take active interest in: the only exception might be at the end of each year, when I list the books I read to see how they are divided between genres and to get an overall score of my ratings, but that’s all.
Do you give star ratings for books and if so, what do you score books out of and how do you come about this score?
Star ratings are indeed a way to show how much we liked (or disliked) a book, but I’ve always thought that being a graphic representation of a complex set of parameters they are not as flexible as I would like. I’ve been thinking for some time about adding a sort of… recap of my evaluation to the star ratings I place at the bottom of reviews, and will try it out soon to see how that works.
Do you review books?
Indeed! 😀
Where do you put your finished books?
Interesting question! I’m glad you asked… 😉
Since I choose to read only ebooks (for a lot of practical reasons), I have also transformed my… well, shelving habits: there is a folder on my computer where I store the current books (my TBR, so to speak) waiting to be downloaded to my e-reader, and there is a dedicated USB drive where I back them up regularly and where, in a separate folder, I place the read books. All in their own folders with the author’s name. Neat, isn’t it?
Granted, if I want to take a peek at a much-loved book, it’s not as easy as taking it out of the book-case, but it’s not all that difficult either, and I also have far less problems with accumulating dust!
How do you pick your next book?
Mmmm… Much depends on my current mood and/or the level of concentration I can put in a story, so I pick the less demanding ones when I feel tired or I know I will be distracted by other things. Of course any plan can be subverted by the appearance of a much-awaited book on the horizon. In that case I’m totally unable to resist but… who would?
Do you have any other rituals for when you have finished a book?
Most of my reading happens during the long commute to and from work, so the most likely scenario is that I move from one finished book to the next in line, much as a chain-smoker lights a cigarette with the stub of the old one. With the difference that chain-reading is NOT harmful to our health!
And since I firmly believe in… sharing the wonders, I’m tagging a few more fellow bloggers – no pressure, no obligation, but if you can participate I hope you have as much fun as I did with this tag. The lucky winners are (in alphabetical order):
the folks at Bilbliosanctum
Tammy at Books, Bones and Buffy
Sarah at Brainfluff
I feel the ‘do you review books’ question is a tad redundant on the old blogosphere 😂
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Indeed it was! But one never knows… 😆😆😆
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A lot of these tags feel like they are those old emails remade over into tags. You know, those ones from the 90’s with a list of 100 questions prying into every aspect of one’s life? I loved them back then, hahahahahaa!
I was always terrible at making up new questions, but give me a list of questions and whammo, I was typing away like a madman answering them.
I’ve also seen more and more people stop using the star rating and rely solely on a review. Not sure if it is in some reaction to places like GR or a creative bent on the part of some reviewers, or what. However you decide to handle it, I hope it works out well for you.
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Thanks! I had an idea of using some other image instead of stars, to still give a numerical range of sorts, but also adding a short summary to better explain my point of view. For example, a 3-star (or whatever) rating might look like a “meh” comment, while for a debut work that shows promise, despite a few hiccups, it’s meant as encouragement – and a simple image might not convey that at all.
We’ll see… 🙂
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Thank you for the tag.👍📚 I will have to put some serious thought into the do you review books question, tis a tricky one.😂👍📚
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Oh, that it was! I agonized over it for a whole fifteen minutes… 😎
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It’s interesting that you use Library Thing to keep track of books. I didn’t realize they has features like Goodreads (or maybe they are just different). Thank you for tagging me! I don’t do tags very often, but this is tempting😁
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I can’t manage them often as well, but this one did call out to me too strongly to be ignored!
Should you decide to try Library Thing, be aware that you can get a free lifetime membership if you sign up through their phone app 😉
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Thank you for nominating me for this Tag, Maddalena:). I’ve been dreadful at responding to them, but the timing of this one means I should be able to get to it.
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It was the same for me, so I did not let the opportunity slip away… 😉
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I am a sucker for stats! I have my issues with Goodreads, but the one area I cannot fault them is the myriad tools they give users to organize their shelves. I use a lot of tags, and they help me keep track of what I’ve read 🙂
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In that Library Thing is the same, at least as far as the tag system goes. I don’t do anything fancy with the other options, but it’s good to know they’re there… 😊
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Aaaaah welcome to LibraryThing – I’ve been dormant there the past couple of years, but I can’t say that Goodreads has added very much to my life (with the notable exception of finding/coordinating read-alongs), so I’ve been thinking of migrating back. I shall look you up 🙂
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Done! 👍
Library Thing looks like a “quieter” place – for want of a better word – but the huge advantage is that I don’t perceive the same kind of… intrusive control I felt on GR. And what I place there, stays there….
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Thank you so much for doing this tag maddalena! 🙂
Fascinating answers, and you’ve reminded me I need to take a look at Library Thing.
I’m glad you enjoyed this.
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It was fun, so thank *you* for pointing me that way! 🙂
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Out of curiosity, if you don’t mind, what happened to you on Goodreads? 😮 Did you have a similar experience as Bookstooge or was it something else? 😮
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It was a very minor thing, to say the truth, but it annoyed me to no end: I had reviewed two novellas that were included at the end of two novels in a series, and all of a sudden the reviews had disappeared and had been moved at the bottom of the review for their respective books. As I said, no real harm done, but I would have liked some word of warning, as courtesy demands, and not a… surprise coup,
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Wow, that’s quite insane. It’s amazing the stories like these that I hear about here and then. I hope Goodreads don’t turn on me like that. 😮 😮
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I guess that it all depends on how much patience one can exert with these annoyances: mine is always in very short supply… 🙄 😁
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