Reader’s Quirks (Sorta)
I like hardbound books more than paperback books. I can’t help it – hardbound books are easier to carry around because you don’t ever have to worry about their covers getting bent at every slight movement, and you don’t have to fear them splitting at the spines like with paperbacks. Course, they’re heavier, thrice as bulky, and more difficult to stuff in your bag, but they’re hardy enough that you don’t need to.
By this time, you can tell that I’m the kind of person who’d rather endure pain than damage her books. It’s mostly true, though I’ve also been known to dog-ear a few favorites here and there. It’s more like: I want my books to live a long life, so I want to preserve them in their best condition as much as possible. You should see my old shelf – I had my books covered with a towel plus the glass just to keep the dust out. On that same note, it’s also obvious that I’m not the type to eat while reading, or the type to read outdoors unless desperate. I don’t use bulky bookmarks, either; instead I use plain paper (I don’t fold it, goodness, no).
The thing is, I don’t really particularly mind if my books get damaged. I think I may have an obsession for trying to keep them looking new, but when I damage them, I get over it fairly quickly (two minutes). It might be because I used to lend books to classmates as a kid, and they always returned to me all bent and ratty, and they always told me that I gave the books to them in that condition. Excuse me? No way! Hence, the obsession.
I think if I had a reader’s quirk, this would be it, the manic obsession for trying to protect my books. You probably have some, too, like reading your books upside down or something. Share and explain!
If you have articles to submit, please to be e-mailing me at yukitsuyk@yahoo.com .
Adventurous Me
Admittedly, I’m not a very wide reader, and I haven’t really read many different books in my life. I’m not very adventurous with what I read. On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the most adventurous, I’d be on a pathetic three.
Anyway, my point is, I’m not widely read, and when I go to bookstores, I seriously don’t know what to buy. Well, I buy it if it’s on sale, or if it’s gay, or it has something to do with main male characters, and if it has as little romance as possible. I’m very loyal to authors. If I know that this so and so author has a book that I’ve liked, I’ll buy his other books, but I’m not the type to pick up a book that’s not familiar to me. (I’ve done so a few times and they mostly all nice, though, like Geisha of Gion, and I think it would be nice if I buy stuff that I choose on my own once in a while, so I can also recommend things to my friends, among other things.)
So anyway, the books that I read are usually recommendations by my friends, Lyn and Pam in particular. I trust their judgment, and they know what I like (crack, main males, crack, crack). I also pick up books that I hear my other friends gush about all the time, or whatever’s familiar. As long as I’ve heard of it before, I have no qualms about buying it, but otherwise, they have to be on sale or very attractive (which means that half of the contents of my book shelf are stuff that you can also find in my friend’s shelves). It usually takes me a very long time to decide if I want to buy something on my own, especially if they’re books that even my very widely read friends are not familiar with. The good thing about it is, my friends are, as I have said, very widely read, which means that I DO get to buy and borrow and read books of different themes. I suppose it’s a vicarious wideness, if I may label it as such.
I don’t know why, exactly, I’m such a chicken about picking up a random book and just reading it. Is it because I don’t want to waste time and money reading a story that I don’t like? I read to enjoy myself, and not really for anything else. I know some of you here read to write, or read to learn. I… just simply do it for entertainment. Of course, there have been many books that I read to gain knowledge from, but mostly it’s just because it’s a good story and I like immersing myself in it. That’s not to say that the way I read is shallow, but it’s more of, I first enjoy it the way I think it should be enjoyed, and breaking the elements down come after I’m done with that (if I want to study it further). Some of you may find my approach very naïve or… dare I say, dumb? though.
If you want your article to be published in this blog, please email me at yukitsuyk@yahoo.com
Abridged or Unabridged?
So here’s a question that popped out in my head when I was looking at my copy of The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas: Abridged or Unabridged?
When a book has been ‘abridged,’ it basically means that it has been shortened and parts of it have been cut out. Of course, ‘unabridged’ means that nothing significantly lengthy has taken out of the book.
Personally, I prefer the unabridged version unless the book is something that I have to read for school. I’d rather read the book in its complete form rather than miss out on anything. People can edit and translate and make the book more readable, sure, but I don’t like it when whole chunks or chapters of it are removed, no matter how unnecessary people say these parts are. I just—I feel cheated! It’s like eating oreos without the middle, or ending up having to sit with just half your butt on the jeepney seat.
My opinion may be because of past experiences. I first read Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer, as well as Dumas’ The Man in the Iron Mask abridged. I didn’t quite enjoy it as much, given that I thought some of the chapters didn’t connect well enough and I was pretty confused when the characters referred to something that just wasn’t in any part of the book. Don’t get me started on the abridged version of Sherlock Holmes – detective stories with missing parts? Blasphemy!
Since then, I’ve tried my best to keep away from abridged books. I find that their book covers aren’t as pretty, anyway. Of course, I still don’t know if a book is unabridged or abridged if it doesn’t say so anywhere on the book cover in big letters, but here’s to hoping that I didn’t get any abridged books last book fair.
What about you?
If you want to submit articles to the RoD blog, just email me or any of the members so we can put it up for you~ My email address is yukitsuyk@yahoo.com.
Your First Book Addiction.
Like other children in their elementary school, my childhood book was Hardy Boys. The truth is, I still get excited when other people talk about it with me, or even so much as mention it. People who were with me last RoD event would know, given that a handful of us spent a good half an hour reliving childhoodz and Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew.
I have an extremely fuzzy memory of my childhood, but I remember that my first foray into obsessive reading came about because of Hardy Boys. Of course, it wasn’t my FIRST book. My first was Peter Rabbit, by Beatrix Potter. It was a very heavy, very large, very thick, and very beautiful book. My parents were cheap back then, so I reread it countless, countless, countless of times before they took pity on me and dug out the random kiddy books in the attic (which belonged to an uncle who had kids older than I was). My parents apparently thought that at Grade 3, I’d like reading books like Cat in the Hat.
When they finally realized that, yes, their baby had outgrown 3-words-per-page books and needed longer things to occupy herself with ( and that it kept her from fighting with her brothers), they handed me a paperback copy of Hardy Boys. Ka-ching! I was in love. For some reason or another, our bookshelves in our attic had a lot of Hardy Boys paperbacks. I went through dozens of them in the following days, weeks, months, until I finished our stash.
I turned to the library in our school. I was delighted to know they had dozens of Hardy Boys titles, too. I would borrow one at recess, finish it by dismissal, then borrow another one again to take home. Seeing as I finished the stash in a month, I went through them all again. Apparently, I was a HUGE fangirl at 8 (but it can also be said that I didn’t have a life at 8, but shhhh). I loved Frank a lot, and always thought Joe was a jock. Chet Morton was often annoying, but Phil Cohen was my secret crush.
I went through other books, mostly all the other detective stories I could find in the library, regardless if they were for my age group or not. I went through Enid Blyton’s stuff, too, and tried out Nancy Drew for a while (my ultimate OTP was Frank x Nancy, in the crossover books). I had a short run-in with Sweet Valley High, the occasional Goosebumps, and as many books as I could get my hands on. (I even stole some of them from our library, but that was covered in the other post.)
Eventually, to my complete and utter delight, I found out that another room in our house had a secret – one of the untouched shelves had the Hardy Boys hardbound books, about 90% complete (as well as a huge pile of National Geographic magazines). I was in heaven! I suddenly had a collection! They were older than I was and I adored old books back then (they were cheap, haha, and I liked to fancy myself a collector). Most importantly — I could finally read Book One, the START of it all! The original 57 were in my hands! (Well, about 45 , since the 0s are missing) The books didn’t really last long. Finished all of them in about a month. The pride of having that many of the books never faded, though, and they’re still with me.
My parents were lenient enough to buy me a few more paperbacks, but I have a suspicion that the only reason they let me was because Goodwill way back sold them for 10 pesos each. Then I sort of ran out of Hardy Boys to read, and went off to other books again (and anime. Oh, anime). In grade six and first year high school, my favorites were the Three Musketeers, Sherlock Holmes, and the Golden Compass. There were the classics, like The Little Men, The Secret Garden, and The Prince and the Pauper. I had my Mills and Boons stint (my mother’s books when she was still young), a mild erotica stage (my uncle’s, I assume), and a Danielle Steel phase. Lots and lots of romance, some fantasy, a bit of sci-fi, a handful of suspense, and crack. The fondness for detective stories and crime fiction remained.
I’ve long outgrown it, of course. Hardy Boys eventually turned to fanfiction heavier books. Still, I have a deep-seated affection for Hardy Boys, and I still remember Frank Hardy as the first ever fictional character I ever crushed on, never mind that he was eternally eighteen years old.
So my childhood was Hardy Boys. What about you?
If you want to contribute your articles about your reading habits/quirks/meme, etc, etc, just e-mail me at yukitsuyk@yahoo.com and I’ll put it up for you~ Also, I thought today was Thursday. Ehehe. orz
More on Coveting Books
I stole books from my elementary school’s library as a kid. Just two, though. You have to understand, as a child of about 9, I had developed this obsession with books and did not have the means to purchase my own (my parents, they were cheap). Also, the ones in our library were very, very, very unloved. I knew this because I was a member of the very tiny reading club in our school, and I had arranged the books a certain way. They were never touched.
Okey, okey, so I was a criminal at 9 and there’s no use justifying it. I didn’t bother stealing the Hardy Boys books (which I was terribly into as a kid) because I had enough Hardy Boys copies that if I were to stack them all, they would be taller than me. However, there were these two hardcovers that I really liked. One was about an old, lonely detective with a daughter he was at odds with, and another was about this girl who got a racing horse and struggled to train the horse (its name was Jet) to race him. Her dad was a veteran jockey who quit long ago, and they’d been cold with each other ever since, up until the dad decided to help her train Jet. (If you know the titles of these, please tell me! TAT)
The detective storybook, I stole in a very embarrassing way – I tucked it down the waistband of my skirt, and then sort of waited until no one was looking and casually walked out with it. There were a dozen copies of it, and no one ever read it, so I thought it would go unmissed (it did).
The second book took some sneakiness. I was in charge of releasing the books to borrowers, so I had some control over the library cards of other people. I waited until the librarian went off somewhere and stamped my card ‘returned.’ Afterwards, I picked up a copy of the book from the library, stamped it with the details of the ones my (lol, my) book had, and waited for her to return. Showed her the fake book, told her I already took care of it, and put it back on the shelf.
Looking back on it – no, I don’t really regret stealing those books (as it is, I can barely remember). There were really no one reading them, and I knew they’d eventually have to be thrown away. What I do regret is completely forgetting where they were stored in our house.
… You can stop giving me disgusted looks now. I’m pretty sure many kids did what I did, too! Actually, I want you to share your own experiences on how far you were – are – willing to go through for your books. Provided that you won’t get thrown into jail for it, of course.
Harry Potter Discussion Last July 13!
Last Friday, July 13, found Pao and I at Powerbooks, Greenbelt while waiting for Pinoy Harry Potter’s book club discussion. We apparently came around too early, though the place was already set up and such, and wandered through the sale racks in the hopes of finding something interesting to purchase (an attempt that failed, though we found a book that tests one’s Sex IQ; I am apparently more knowledgeable at it than he is).
The event itself started at 7 PM, with about a dozen people in attendance. Like for every school year that starts in Hogwarts, the event also started with its own version of the sorting process – Pao and I found ourselves aptly in Slytherin (he was in Hufflepuff, actually, but Khursten swapped with him since she was leaving early). After general introductions and the like, we spent a couple of hours summarizing the first three books of the Harry Potter series, round robin style.
It was, in general, a cozy and comfortable discussion. A lot of us couldn’t remember the exact details of the scenes that happened in the books, though a handful of the attendees apparently had elephant-esque memory for detail. (There was food, which made us very happy. And I feel like bringing out my copy of book three and giving it another read, though… lots of books to watch. I mean, read. Eh.)
After the summary, we grouped according to houses, and participated in a game. The moderator asked us where a certain person, spell, or object first appeared among the first three books. First to answer wins a point, and all that. Pao and I were with this other girl, Eds, I think. The Hufflepuffs won – or did the Ravenclaws? – and we were all given swanky bookmarks with HP7-related questions. Mine is: Is Snape Good or Evil?
(We Slytherins won the first point, but then the rules changed from raising our hands first to standing up first, which effectively killed any and all chances of us winning, and such. We didn’t mind – the Gryffindors were at last place with us, haha, though we had to catch up to their two points near the end of the game. Pao accused me of taking being a Slytherin too seriously. I demanded to know where his House Pride was.)
Afterwards, there was a general discussion on Book 7, The Deathly Hallows, and the various theories fans have spun about it. This went on until the store’s PA said that Powerbooks was closing, effectively and subtly kicking us all out. There was, I think, another event yesterday (Saturday) and today, which involved a Tri-Wizard tournament. The tournament is ending on the 21st, and features a box set of the books plus five grand as prizes.
Oh, and Pao and I decided that our RoD nicknames should be Retarded on Demand. What’s your RoD nick?
On Reading Preferences
There was a discussion in my Livejournal friend’s list a long time ago about this, and I would like to (ramble away with) share my thoughts on the matter. Between light and dark stories, which do you prefer reading? Do you like reading things where Everything Just Goes Wrong for the characters, and the whole feel of the story is usually gloomy and dark, or are you more for the feel-good novels?
On my part, I don’t mind reading dark stories if they have relatively happy endings. I can go through the pain, the hurt, the injustice, the drama, the deaths, and all the frustrations in between, as long as I get my relatively happy ending at the end of the book. It doesn’t have to be a sparkly, happy ever after ending – all I want is some amount of justice for the characters, for the wronged to receive the good that they deserve, and the villains to receive due punishment for all the things they did throughout the story. I feel most satisfied when the story goes full circle, and things finally go right.
My frustrations with dark books usually come out the most during character deaths. Personally, I don’t like it when characters (main characters, in particular) die, unless it really is necessary to off them. When that Important Person in Harry Potter died (not the older one), that made me swear out loud. When some of the musketeers died in the Man in the Iron Mask, I felt this sense of loss that made me unsatisfied with the ending of the book. You get attached to the characters, and then they die for a reason that you sometimes don’t understand, and often not even in a blaze of glory. Very few authors can pull off character deaths well, in my opinion, because some of them feel like they’re killing the characters off ‘just because.’
Along that note, I usually don’t like ambiguous, open-ended books. I like it when the story I hold in my hands has a definite end, when pretty much all of the issues the main characters face in the book are answered or resolved. I want to know what generally happens to the characters after the story. Cliffhangers and open ended stories frustrate me to no end. What about you?
Fully Booked at Rustan’s, Makati
In case some of you (or a lot of you) do not know (I wouldn’t blame people for not knowing, it’s not even in their site), Fully Booked has a branch in Rustan’s, Makati. Yes, THAT Rustan’s. It’s been up and running since November of 2006, although I was first introduced to it around March of this year.
Getting there is simple enough once you’ve managed to get past the perfumed maze that is the Rustan’s department store (and in extension, Glorietta). Make your way all the way up to the fifth (yes, fifth) floor and you’ll end up right smack in the middle of the branch. You might take the other set of escalators, in which case you’ll find yourself stuck in the fourth floor – worry not, just make your way to the other side of the floor and there will be a magical escalator to take you up to the fifth.
The first thing you’ll see from the escalator is UCC, a café of sorts. Immediately to either side of you are the two halves of the branch. Turn to the right and you’ll see the Fiction (young adult, fantasy, novels) area, while to the left is the Non-Fiction (cookbooks, self-help, travelogues) one (I always go to the right).
It’s a pretty small branch, though they are impressively well stocked. If you’re the type who likes your bookstore quiet, then this is the place to go. They also have an array of chairs, tables, and couches, as well as a lot of spas and the café in the area, so there’s definitely no lack of lounging space there. The atmosphere of the store is comfortably cozy, and there are hardly any people around. The design is also very neat – they use more whites here than in their other stores, and it looks perpetually clean. Most importantly of all, it has my favorite bookstore couch.
More on Reading Habits
Do you have a favorite comfortable reading position? Like a particular way you sit, or a particular chair that you can sit on for a long period of time. Do you prefer lying down, or reading with a proper table, or do you just throw yourself on any chair and read? On my part, I have back problems that basically make me incapable of sitting still for long periods of time, especially if my back is left unsupported like if I read while leaning on elbows on the table or sit down on chairs without backrests (although if it’s sitting in front of the computer, I seem to have an iron back – I wonder why).
I like reading while lying down on my stomach, with my chest propped up on a pillow. It hurts the shoulder, neck, and upper back after a while, though, so I turn to my side and read like that. When THAT’s become a pain, I sit up. My last resort is lying down on my back, but that’s a little hard if you’re relying on ceiling light.
There’s rarely ever a bed available, though, and it doesn’t work for bigger books. I still lie down if there’s a long enough chair for it (they are harder to come by for me than one can imagine – I am very large), or try to have as lazy a position as possible without hurting my neck. Sprawled out is usually good. Lately, I’ve found that sitting down properly is actually pretty comfortable, although it reduces my attention span by about half and I never know how to position my arms. Pity I still haven’t managed to learn the basics of sitting down properly.
On another, related note: Do you eat while reading? I generally try not to – I’m Very protective of my books, and there’s nothing more I hate than damaged or dirtied books if they’re mine (except, probably, the sun and staircases). Smears make my heart stop and creases on the spine always, always give me mini-heart attacks. When you’ve found the perfect reading position, though, food seems like it would go so well with your book.
Updates
We’re still a bit behind. We’ve started to touch base with publishers again etc to provide us with news of their latest releases/catalogs so you’ll hear more about our review publication in a bit. In the meantime, the best resource is, as always, Panitikan. The Filipino Writer is also a good place for news about writing markets.
I’ll be posting the next batch of interviews for Profiles in a few days. I’m thinking that a regular Friday update for the site collating goings-on, activities, and site changes should be all right in terms of staying on track. Also rounding up a few Read or Die members to blog for this journal. It’s coming together.
If we still owe you something–banners, books, updates–please hold on a bit more 
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