Book Would You Rather

This post has been sitting in my drafts folder for honestly months to years because I completely forgot to post it.  I don’t think the person I stole this from is even on WordPress anymore, though admittedly I’m an extremely unreliable blog neighbor.  Apologies if you’re still out there.

Either way, here goes Book Would You Rather at last!

Image via Unsplash

1. Would you rather: read only trilogies or stand alones?

Standalones.  I usually avoid series because I HATE.  Waiting.

2. Would you rather: read only female or male authors?

This one is the worst.  I’m going with female because of Margaret Atwood and Charlotte Brontë, but it kills me that I can’t invite Michael Chabon to the party.

3. Would you rather: shop at Barnes & Noble or Amazon?

Amazon, for I am lazy and prefer to avoid human interaction whenever possible.

4. Would you rather: all books become movies or TV shows?

TV shows because Kavalier & Clay would make the greatest show.

5. Would you rather: read 5 pages per day or 5 books per week?

5 books/week.  Especially if that would mean I just stay at home and read books all of the time.

6. Would you rather: be a professional reviewer or author?

Author, but reviewer is very tempting as I do like to read and provide scathing commentary.

7. Would you rather: Only read your top 20 favorite books over and over or always read new ones that you haven’t read before?

Always read new ones.  It would be sad not to be able to revisit my favorites, but I have too many books on my TBR pile for that shit.

8. Would you rather: be a librarian or book seller?

I AM a librarian.  And convincing people to buy things is not my strong suit, so I’m going to stick with my career decision.  Ask me tomorrow, though.

9. Would you rather: only read your favorite genre, or every genre except your favorite?

Hmmmmm, as a genre denier, this is a rather difficult one for me.  I’d say only my favorite genre because my favorite genre changes A LOT.

10. Would you rather: only read physical books or eBooks?

Physical books.  While eBooks appeal to my lazy nature, I despise staring at screens for hours on end (and fuck Paperwhite).

Feel free to participate, blog neighbors, but I hope you realize almost every one of these scenarios is a catch-22 if you love books.

Summer ’16 Book List

Since I’ll be hiding from the sun all summer anyway, and inspired by my incredibly cool, ambitious blog wife Christa, I’m posting my summer reading list.  Most of these are Humble Bundle impulse buys (once you start visiting Humble Bundle, it’s a downward spiral), book sale purchases that have been sitting too long accumulating dust, and SearchOhio/OhioLINK requests that I can’t (and won’t) stop placing.

I’m cheating a little (a lot) since (a) I’ve already started chipping away at the books on this list, and (b) 8 of these titles are graphic novels.  My more significant goal is to finish reading a book a week during the summer AND actually write a damn book review for each of the books I’ll be reading.

Without further ado, here’s my book list for the summer (quite a lot of fantasy on it…something has to distract me from Democalypse 2016, no?):

1. Queen of the Tearling (Erika Johansen)
2. Invasion of the Tearling (Erika Johansen)
3. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (N.K. Jemisin)
4. The Broken Kingdoms (N.K. Jemisin)
5. The Kingdom of Gods (N.K. Jemisin)
6. Brighton Rock (Graham Greene)
7. Crow Road (Iain Banks)
8. The Mirror Thief (Martin Seay)
9. The Lock Artist (Steve Hamilton)
10. Your Heart Is a Muscle the Size of a Fist (Sunil Yapa)
11. The Passage (Justin Cronin)
12. Barren Cove (Ariel S. Winter)
13. The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage (Sydney Padua)
14. Two Brothers (Gabriel Bá and Fabio Moon)
15. Soldier’s Heart (Carol Tyler)
16. Bitch Planet, Vol. 1: Extraordinary Machine (Kelley Sue DeConnick)
17. Monstress (Marjorie Liu)
18. The Infinite Loop (Pierrick Colinet and Elsa Charretier)
19. Julio’s Day (Gilbert Hernandez)
20. Heart of Thomas (Moto Hagio)

Btw, you can see Christa’s list here and check out book reviews on her blog!

Happy reading!

P.S.  Image via Unsplash.

And Now for Something Completely Different, or: Making a Book Stash

Inspired by Hayley’s project (in turn inspired by Miss Vicky Viola‘s blog), I decided to make a book stash from an old volume of poetry I bought years ago at a book sale.  So yes, my 4/20 post is about a place where you can stash (among other things) your weed.

Supplies:

• A hardcover book that holds no emotional attachment for you (that part is really important)
• White glue (I used Elmer’s; I think more arts and crafts-y people use Mod Podge or perhaps a glue personally melted down from horses [gross, sorry])
• A paintbrush (again, that you have no emotional attachment to)
• Pen/pencil
• Ruler
• X-Acto knife
• Plastic wrap
• Drill
• Heavy book and/or telephone book (if you still get one)

The Process:

1.  Wrap the front cover and first 5 or so pages in plastic wrap to avoid everything sticking together in one big mess.  Do the same with the back cover and last 5ish pages.  You may want to wrap a few extra pages if, like me, you are sometimes overeager with a blade.
2.  Hold the book closed and brush glue on all three sides of the pages. Miss Vicky Viola recommends thin, even coats over a thick blobby coat (paraphrasing).
3.  Leave to dry for at least half an hour under several heavy books.
4. After it has dried, make a box indicating where you will cut.  I measured about an inch from each side, though others have advised closer to 2 inches.
5. To ensure even lines, use a drill to make holes in each corner of your box.  Drill only about 3/4 or into the pages to be sure you don’t drill all the way through.

   

   Unintended advertising for Esther Price chocolates.

6. Start cutting!  (This takes forfuckingever.)  Use your ruler and X-Acto knife to cut a few pages at a time, carefully lifting out pages as you go.
7. Keep going until you’ve cut out 3/4 of the pages (full disclosure:  I went a bit overboard and cut out way more than 3/4).  Or, you know, stop and eat some ice cream.
8. After you’re satisfied with your work (or until your hand starts cramping), coat the book with glue again.  Coat the inside pages where you have cut, around those 1 inch (or more) margins, and along the 3 edges of the book.

   

   I don’t have pictures for this stage, so here’s an artsy picture from Unsplash.

9. To tidy up the top page, glue down one of the front pages you had wrapped in plastic wrap.  Let it dry under heavy books again, then cut a hole in that first page. (I feel like this step didn’t make a whole lot of difference for me, but at this point the X-Acto knife had become almost an appendage and my cutting was probably not as precise as it could have been.)
10. Let the glue dry completely, and DONE.

Important Notes:

1. Do this only with books you have absolutely no emotional attachment to. This is harder than it sounds.  I spent nearly 2 years sending journals to their inevitable deaths, and I still felt insanely guilty cutting into this book of American poetry.  Even though it’s been sitting unread on a shelf for 6 years.
2. You can use your book stash to store valuables, secret documents, or (if you’re me) shit your cat usually bats off end tables (coasters, remotes, laser pointer).
3. Also I’m telling you from a completely objective perspective that these are 10,000x cooler when you use old books or books that are deliberately designed to look old. Also a good use of Twilight (I acknowledge that Twilight jokes are about as original as criticizing the presidency of George W. Bush).

I had fun making this, but don’t get used to it on this blog.  I’d rather be making overly critical and borderline inappropriate comments about films that are embarrassingly aware of how terrible they are.