BTT: In Public

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I don’t know what’s up with me, but I’ve been on a blog-following, blog-commenting streak the past few days. I think cleaning my Google Reader helped, because I started following a bunch of new highly-recommended blogs. :) This is me de-lurking, yo! I hope it lasts.

Anyway, I thought I’d participate in this week’s Booking Through Thursday again because I liked the question. :)

Booking Through Thursday

Do you carry books with you when you’re out and about in the world?

And, do you ever try to hide the covers?

Oh yes of course. I always carry a book in my bag (sometimes two!). I usually have one print book in my bag, and I add another one if I know I’ll be finishing that book before I get back home. I don’t always bring my Kindle because I think I already have more than enough gadgets in my bag. When I do have my Kindle, I leave the print book because there are more than enough ebooks in my Kindle.

But wait, there’s more! I also carry my iPod Touch everywhere and I also have a copy of my ebooks in the Kindle app. I also have most of my e-galleys from Netgalley and Galley Grab there, so if ever I happen to forget to bring a print book or my Kindle, as long as my iPod has battery, I can still read. I just have to turn the WiFi off and don’t listen to music when the “20% battery remaining” warning shows up and it will tide me over, especially for long commutes.

Do I ever hide covers? I don’t think so. Like I said, I’m not much of a cover person, so I don’t care that much. Then again, maybe I’m lucky that most of the books I read and take outside has decent enough covers. I hardly read any romance novels anyway — not that that’s bad, but I know some people who hide the covers in public when reading that! Hee. When I read hardcover books anyway, I don’t bring the dust jacket outside. And ebook readers have done a lot for cover shame.

Except of course, if the cover is just ugly. Like, general, public opinion ugly. You know what I mean about that, right? If you don’t…well, here are some examples spotlighted by That Cover Girl, Capillya.

Get it now?

Then again, if you’re really and truly enjoying the book and you love reading with abandon, this shouldn’t matter right?

What do you think? :)

Posted in: Reading Quirks \ Tagged: , ,

BTT: Multitasking

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I apologize for the scarcity of posts here again! I’ve been a bit busy with real life and work, so blogging has kind of taken a back seat, but just a bit! Last night I went to a concert, and while I intended to read in the morning, I wasn’t able to because I slept the morning away after Ash Wednesday mass. Yesterday also marked the first day of my Lenten sacrifice, which is no bookstores. Ergo, no book buying, too, until Easter.

Anyway, I haven’t been posting much non-review posts in the blog, so I thought I’d participate in today’s Booking Through Thursday. :) This week’s question is:

Booking Through Thursday

Do you multi-task when you read? Do other things like stirring things on the stove, brushing your teeth, watching television, knitting, walking, et cetera?

Or is it just me, and you sit and do nothing but focus on what you’re reading?

(Or, if you do both, why, when, and which do you prefer?)

Oh, I definitely do. Okay, it really depends on what kind of book I’m reading and what I’m doing. Examples:

  • When I’m in the gym and I’m not attending class nor feeling like running, I’d hop on a bike, play some music and open a book. I end up finishing quite a lot of pages (and sometimes even books) when I’m doing that. It’s good to get lost in a book to forget about the physical pain of working out. ;)
  • Again, at the gym, or also when I’m at home. When I’m drying my hair, I tend to have a book open in front of me. Usually, this is an ebook, because it’s hard to keep paperbacks open while I hold a hair dryer and a brush. This is slow reading, but it keeps me from being impatient with my hair drying which really takes some time.
  • Sometimes, when I’m brushing my teeth, I read an ebook on my iPod. I only get as far as two or three screens before I finish brushing my teeth.
  • I tend to read while watching television, but that’s only when someone else is watching with me. Right now the TV is just ambient noise.
  • I read a lot in the car, too. In daylight, I read a book, and if it’s night, I read from my iPod. I used to get dizzy doing that, but now I’ve gotten so used to it that I never feel that anymore.
  • I’ve never tried listening to an audiobook so I don’t know how much work I’ll have done with that. I want to try, though.

Usually, I reserve reading on my Kindle or my iPod when I’m multitasking. Actual books, I focus on it because it’s hard to flip pages when your hands are doing something else. :) I hear hardcover books are easier to use for multitasking, because it’s stays flat on the table. I can’t remember if I ever tried that, though.

This just goes to show how much of a multitasker I am in real life. But they say you never really multitask — you just divide your attention over different actions and switch them around for a quick period of time. Agree?

So, do you multitask when reading?

Posted in: Reading Quirks \ Tagged: ,

BTT: Current

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Booking Through Thursday

I finally caught Booking Through Thursday on time! I have been meaning to do a BTT post for a while but I always forget, and I’ve always been busy just before the week ends. I thought this week’s BTT is simple, but it also helps me to talk about something that the book bloggers have been abuzz with since this weekend. This week’s question is:

What are you reading right now? What made you choose it? Are you enjoying it? Would you recommend it? (And, by all means, discuss everything, if you’re reading more than one thing!)

Speak by Laurie Halse AndersonRight now I am reading Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. I have been planning to get a copy of the book for the longest time but it wasn’t really a priority book for me, you know, the book I absolutely must have and read now. I figure it’s a book that I will eventually get to read, but not anytime soon, you know?

But last weekend kind of bumped this book way way up in my TBR. Long story made short: Wesley Scroggins, associate professor of management at Missouri State University and Christian, wrote a piece about how Speak is a filthy and immoral book, equating it to soft porn for the two rape scenes in the book. He moved to ban Speak and two other books, Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler and Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut out of the school’s reading list because of that reason, and of course, everyone was outraged. Who wouldn’t be?

Now I haven’t read Slaughterhouse Five, but I’ve read Twenty Boy Summer and while I it wasn’t a favorite book of mine, I didn’t think it was bad enough to be banned. People who know me in person know that I am a Christian and I stand by my beliefs firmly, but I don’t avoid every single book that has sex in it. I may not like it, but it doesn’t mean that no one else should read it because it (and I quote Mr. Scroggins): “…glorifies drunken teen parties, where teen girls lose their clothes in games of strip beer pong. In this book, drunken teens also end up on the beach, where they use their condoms to have sex.”

Seriously now.

Anyway, so I’m reading Speak right now, and I’m only about halfway done, and my heart is going out to Melinda. This is a girl who has serious issues of depression and trauma, someone who badly needs help, who needs a friend, who needs someone to listen to. I already know what will happen in the story, but that doesn’t lessen the impact of how Melinda is dealing with her situation.

Melinda’s story is heartbreaking. It’s not easy, and this is just fiction. Melinda isn’t a real person, and my heart is already going out to her. What more for girls who actually had the same experience as Melinda? What more for girls who are ostracized by their friends because they do not know the truth and the girl is too scared to talk about what happened? Because let’s face it: date rape happens. It can happen to anyone. In a perfect world, the victim would have a supportive family, understanding friends and she be able to speak up, move on and be a survivor instead of a victim of that crime. It is possible. But we don’t live in a perfect world. We live in this broken world, one that is filled with sin and brokenness and not everyone has a good support system to help them get over the trauma.

This is why books like Speak exist. To talk about issues that we are afraid to talk about. To help victims find hope, to give them a friend, albeit fictional. You know what they say about books being friends? Well, Mr. Scroggins, it’s true, and sometimes books can be the only friends that some of the rape victims have.

I don’t know if there is such a thing as banned books in the Philippines, since I’m not familiar with our library systems and all, but I hope it doesn’t reach that point here. While I agree that some books may need to be reviewed and discretion should be advised for some books depending on the reader’s age, book banning is an entirely different story. Most especially if you haven’t even read the book yet. That just reeks of ignorance.

I don’t see anything un-Christian about Speak. And I definitely think that banning this would just do more harm than good. Consider this post my choice to Speak Loudly.

Here’s an update from Laurie Halse Anderson about the situation, as well a compiled list of all articles written about Speak Loudly by the Reclusive Bibliophile.

Posted in: General \ Tagged: , , , , , ,

BTT: Breaks

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I owe you guys review. Soon, soon.

This week’s Booking Through Thursday asks about breaks:

Do you take breaks while reading a book? Or read it straight through? (And, by breaks, I don’t mean sleeping, eating and going to work; I mean putting it aside for a time while you read something else.)

I used to be a one-book person, and I refused to pick up other books while I was reading others. But ever since I got into ebooks, I found myself reading more than one book at a time.

Of course, I choose which books I take a break from. If I’m reading something light, it’s easy to take a break from it since it won’t take much effort to jump back into the story. But if I’m reading something a bit heavy, like a classic book for instance, I can’t take a break from it because if I do, I’d have to read from the start again when I pick it up because I’m sure I wouldn’t be able to get back into the story as easy as other books do.

Posted in: General \ Tagged:

BTT: Images, Images.

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I’m sorry for not posting here for the past few days, been terribly busy with other things, like my 30 days challenge in my personal blog, and work and well…work. I’ve still been reading, though, but going through Shades of Grey really slowly.

Yeah, work.

So anyway, I have a couple of reviews lined up, but before that, let’s do a Booking Through Thursday! :)

How do you feel about illustrations in your books? Graphs? Photos? Sketches?

I’m starting to get into some graphic novels, although honestly, it has too much of a comic-book feeling that I don’t feel it’s a real book. But I don’t really mind illustrations in a book. I used to like seeing illustrations in Sweet Valley Kids (haha, I know), and I thought the illustrations in Jasper Fforde’s books are fun to look at. Another book that has funky illustrations is Donald Miller’s Blue Like Jazz, with the rabbit and the astronaut and all. I can’t remember what exactly, because I lost my copy of that book.

So…it’s pretty so-so for me. It doesn’t really change my views on what I read, but I agree that it breaks the monotony of just seeing text. :)

Posted in: Reading Quirks \ Tagged: