A DIFFERENT book meme!

[intertext]

ETA I forgot to mention that I saw this at So Many Books

1. Do you remember learning to read? How old were you?
Believe it or not, I remember the moment of learning to read. It was on a bus, and I was able to read one of the signs on it, or the advertisement, or something. I just remember piecing out the words, and suddenly sign and signifier _made sense_!

2. What do you find most challenging to read?
Things that are of little or no interest or value to me. But, I guess "challenging" means something that I really want to understand but have problems with, so in that case, perhaps the most challenging would be some literary criticism or theory that I wanted to understand but was having trouble absorbing.

3. What are your library habits?
I reserve new books, anything that isn't by some tried and true author. Also I look on the "fast read" shelf every week, and the new books - if I can borrow something before buying, that's great.

4. Have your library habits changed since you were younger?
I tend to treat bookstores more like libraries now that I have the money to buy books without worrying about it. When I was younger, I used to borrow ten or twelve books a week; now I only get a few per month, but part of that is my busier life and inability to read quickly any more.

5. How has blogging changed your reading life?
It hasn't, much, except that maybe I read more blogs.

6. How often do you read a book and not review it on your blog? What are your reasons for not blogging about a book?
Sometimes I don't blog books that are just fluffy popular stuff, like Katy Ffford, or I might not blog a book I did't finish or really hated.

7. What percentage of your books do you get from new book stores, second hand books stores, the library, online exchange sites, online retailers, other?
Hmmm. difficult to say. Probably the majority of the books I buy are from my local independent bookstore (new). I'm trying to be responsible and buy things second hand. Then about 50/50 would be library borrowing and online book ordering.

8. What are your pet peeves about the way people treat books?
Although I have high standards of my own (not marking, bending the spine if possible or leaving face down), I don't impose them on others, but I abhor people who treat books like something disposable. "oh, I've read that" ... therefore it's totally unimportant. I would like people who have borrowed beloved books of mine and never returned them to burn in Hell.

9. Do you ever read for pleasure at work?
Sometimes, but not
often. As an English teacher, I have more than enough "required" reading to do at work without bringing in something I'm reading for pleasure.

10. When you give people books as gifts, how do you decide what to give them?
I try only to give people books that I KNOW they will like - ie have asked for or shown signs of wanting. I don't believe in giving people books that I think they ought to want or that I think they should read - unless it's something that I'm sure the person would love.

Anyone else want to play?

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Oh, this is an interesting one.

May I answer here? (Rhetorical question...)

1. (Learning to read) Like you, I remember learning to read. I remember sitting my mother down, when, in school, we had made our way through the red reader (first grade), and proudly reading it to her. I remember the shape of the word "surprise" and how I could tell, by looking, that it was not the word "something," but it took me a minute to figure out what it was. Both were LONG words...

2. Philosophy. I want to be able to read Kant and Habermas, but I find them almost impenetrable.

3. and 4. As a child, I only ever got books from the library, and I got them at our local library. Now, I go online and request books from a large library network that my local library belongs to. Now I also occasionally buy a book without having read it first at the library, because now I know that if people like me don't buy books, no one will, and I want there to continue to be books sold.

5. Blogging has brought me back to reading for pleasure. I'm so very, very grateful.

6. I very rarely review what I read.

7. Hard to say. Maybe 60-40 library-to-purchase, and of purchase, I'm sorry to say the vast majority are made online, with the remainder being divided up equally between chain bookstores and independent ones.

8. I don't think I have pet peeves. I don't like people to mistreat books, though.

9. No... I'm a freelancer... if I start reading for pleasure, I turn off the billing clock.

10. Oh--much like you, I think :-)

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Racing through...I'm told I started reading at eighteen months. I just remember the frustration of not only sounding out words (two or three asks and the parents would get impatient) but when they didn't know meanings. I learned about idiom and cultural changes early on.

I read anywhere I can, and I don't blog about what I don't like.

[lidocafe.livejournal.com]

I love your learning-to-read memory. I can imagine the drone of the bus, and perhaps the swish-bump of its windshield wipers, and the smells of people's coats, and the faces all aimed forwards or turned to stare out the windows, and the little girl having this profound experience in the midst of the human fug.