A meme, of all things

I assume y’all are familiar with the concept of the Blog Carnival. I am not altogether keen on them, myself, as they too readily achieve their main purpose, which is to con you into reading Yet More Blogs, which is a Bad Thing. I mean, not your blog, which I’m glad I found. But those other ones, which are good and all, but who has time for them?

Anyway, the the 12th Carnival of Children's Literature has a veritable plethora of fine links (including the puerile but rather magnificent Newbery Jewels, a comment on the Great Scrotum Kerfuffle, of which those of you who avoid what is evidently called the kidlitosphere may be blissfully ignorant), and I decided, in the absence of inspiration, to steal a meme from Katherine Thomsen, who has also recently read The Iowa Baseball Confederacy.

• Hardback or trade paperback or mass market paperback?

  Mass Market paperback. To take into a hot bath.

• Amazon or brick and mortar?

  By preference, brink and mortar. In actuality, I probably buy as many new books on-line as I do in person.

• Barnes & Noble or Borders?

  Borders. Although it depends on the location. There are some pretty crappy B&N stores, and there are some splendiferous ones. Borders seem to me to be more similar, one to another, which is a Bad Thing in principle, but because they are all similar to a perfectly good store, means that they are unlikely to be crappy. Also, I do like to be able to browse music at the bookstore.

• Bookmark or dogear?

  Bookmark. Often, several bookmarks. I have to shake out library books as I put them through the slot.

• Alphabetize by author or alphabetize by title or random?

  Group by author, rather than alphabetize. Well, first group by genre, then have long and tedious mental discussions with myself about which books belong where and the mechanics of genre, then group by author within genre to keep author and series together on one shelf, then within a series chronologically, then when I have had half-a-dozen out on the nightstand, jam them in any-old-where.

  [Edit to Add: my Best Reader points out that this makes it sound as if the result is mostly-organized shelves. Not so. The any-old-where very quickly overwhelms the system.

• Keep, throw away, or sell?

  Keep about half, donate half to a library (generally to sell).

• Keep dustjacket or toss it?

  Keep, until it tears.

• Read with dustjacket or remove it?

  With. Mostly. I use the flaps to mark my place until I get far enough in to make that awkward.

• Short story or novel?

  Novel. I used to like short stories, but I’ve gone off them somehow.

• Short story collection (short stories by the same author) or anthology (short stories by a different author?

  Hm. When I liked short stories, I went for collections, but now when I read them it tends to be in an anthology. I’ll also add that I probably read more short stories on-line than in print, but that’s irrelevant to the question (although, I suppose, I am more likely to read them from an anthology-like site with many authors’ stories, rather than from an author’s site.

• Harry Potter or Lemony Snicket?

  Harry. I read part of the first Lemony Snicket book, and I didn’t get into it at all, which was disappointing. Since then I’ve been wanting to go back and give it another chance, but I have resisted, largely because if I really truly don’t like it, why should I put myself through that? Whereas I really truly like the Harry Potters, so I put myself through the misery of reading them even when they aren’t very good.

• Stop reading when tired or at chapter breaks?

  Chapter breaks. First of all, I’m always tired, so if I stopped when I was tired, I’d never get anything read. Sadly, though, if I’m reading something without chapter breaks, I’ll never get to bed.

• “It was a dark and stormy night” or “Once upon a time”?

  Once upon a time!

• Buy or Borrow?

  Borrow, from the library where possible.

• New or used?

  Oh, used. I like to read the note on the flyleaf. And, you know, four for a dollar off the big table.

• Buying choice: book reviews, recommendation or browse?

  Browse. I enjoy reading book reviews, but I don’t actually read very many of them. If a book is recommended, I will usually put it on the list of things I think I may want to read someday, and then like as not if I come across it whilst browsin’ I will pick it up. A recommendation or review needs to be pretty strong for me to go seek out a book. Although if you catch me in front of a shelf (yours or a store’s) and show me a book and recommend it, that’s a twofer.

• Tidy ending or cliffhanger?

  Tidy ending. I likes me a cliffhanger, but not at the end of the volume, and even the enjoyment of the cliffhangers in the middle isn’t as great as a boffo ending.

• Morning reading, afternoon reading or nighttime reading?

  Yes, please.

• Standalone or series?

  Series.

• Favorite series?

  How about a top five? Vorkosigan, Psmith, Tales of the City, the Cornish Trilogy, the Peter Wimsey books. Subject to change without notice. Contents may vary. Model heavily weighted to career value over peak value. Do not attempt to drive or operate heavy machinery while reading. Some restrictions may apply.

  And assuming that I mean the same thing by series as the question does. That is, Dick Francis books are not a series, but Syd Halley books are a series. The Lord of the Rings is not a series, but the Chronicles of Narnia are a series.

• Favorite books read last year?

  Never Let Me Go. As stated in my Year in Books 2006, the list of Ten Or So Books Your Humble Blogger Enjoyed also included Brideshead Revisited, The Fourth Bear, Becoming Justice Blackmun, The Day of the Triffids, The Book of Story Beginnings, The Time-Traveler’s Wife, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, What's the Matter with Kansas and The Kentucky Cycle.

• Favorite books of all time?

  Oh, my. Red Harvest, Catch-22, The Mask of Apollo, Prince of Foxes, Bleak House, Leave it to Psmith, The Great American Novel, One for the Morning Glory and, I don’t know, James and the Giant Peach. Some of them, anyway.

Most of that y’all knew already, but there it is. Now to bed. Take it yourselves, and have fun with it.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.