Tuesday Thingers: Quotes

This week, Boston Bibliophile has come up with yet another feature that was something of a surprise to me. The topic: 

Have you ever added a quote to the quotation field in common knowledge? What’s a quote you particularly like from a book, one that you know by heart?

I guess I had noticed the Common Knowledge feature, but as usual hadn’t taken the time to check it out. I really had no idea what it was when I read BB’s question. So my answer is no, I’ve never added a quote. And in the several titles I checked just now, I didn’t find any that had quotes added. Maybe folks are worried about intellectual property problems?

Gee, a quote I like. There are so many – although not a vast number that I know by heart. The first one that comes to mind (possibly because I’m thinking about books and reading right now) is from a poem by Emily Dickinson. Well, poetry and lines from plays are always easier to remember, aren’t they?

There is no frigate like a book
To take us lands away,
Nor any coursers like a page
Of prancing poetry.

I may not have the punctuation right – Emily was always so idiosyncratic in her presentation.  So, do you have a favorite quote to share? To read more responses or participate in this week’s Tuesday Thingers, visit the website here.

Booking Through Thursday: Villainy

This week’s BTT topic is a serious one, indeed:

Terrorists aren’t just movie villains any more. Do real-world catastrophes such as 9/11 (and the bombs in Madrid, and the ones in London, and the war in Darfur, and … really, all the human-driven, mass loss-of-life events) affect what you choose to read?

And, does the reality of that kind of heartless, vicious attack–which happen on smaller scales ALL the time–change the way you feel about villains in the books you read? Are they scarier? Or more two-dimensional and cookie-cutter in the face of the things you see on the news?

Of course, I abhor the sort of wanton violence and mindless cruelty represented in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon back in 2001. I feel fortunate that I didn’t personally know anyone who was killed in those assaults, and I feel great sorrow and sympathy for those who did lose friends and loved ones. It’s a sad fact that all our lives have been changed since that day, and the world will never seem quite as safe or as comfortable as it did before that brutality exploded in our midst.

But having lived through several political assassinations and the Vietnam war, wanton violence and mindless cruelty are, unfortunately, not completely unfamiliar to me. And if I’m honest, I’d have to say that I don’t really believe the events of 9/11/2001 have had any lasting effects on my reading habits or choices. Well, maybe only in that I’ve mostly stayed away from books that are directly inspired by the terrorist attacks, or deal with them specifically.

And I don’t think the knowledge that villainy actually happens in the real world affects my reaction to it in books. Extreme violence or cruelty in books does bother me. But I still love a good scary horror story, or a hard-boiled police procedural, or a fast-paced thriller just as much as I did before 9/11. I don’t intentionally seek out books with violent content or themes, but I don’t really avoid them either. That hasn’t changed.

And I don’t think it will change. As much as possible, I try to divorce myself from the real world when I’m immersed in reading. I try to enter the world the author has created, and leave my day-to-day existence behind for a while. That offer of an escape to a new and different reality is one of the reasons I read in the first place.

Booking Through Thursday: Peer Pressure

This week’s BTT topic:

Have you ever felt pressured to read something because ‘everyone else’ was reading it? Have you ever given in and read the book(s) in question or do you resist? If you are a reviewer, etc, do you feel it’s your duty to keep up on current trends?

I’ll assume we’re talking about reading for pleasure, not for a class or a job. Of course, we’ve all had the experience of being “pressured” to read something that we’re not particularly interested in, because of a school or work assignment.

Well, I don’t know that I ever feel really pressured to read anything just because everybody else is reading it. I’m not usually a follower of fashions, in books or clothing or anything else. I generally find that if I do break down and buy something “just because everybody else is buying it,” I end up not reading/wearing/using the item and swearing that I’ll never do that again. I do keep up on current trends in book publishing – always have – but that’s because I’m interested in the subject, not because I feel it’s a duty or a responsibility.

In the past I seldom read books that I really had no interest in – no matter how enthusiastic the “buzz” about them might be. I’m not saying I’ve never read a book just to find out why it’s a bestseller. I’ve done that often enough (Advise and Consent, The Exorcist, Exodus, The Name of the Rose, the first Harry Potter book, and The DaVinci Code all come to mind, to name just a few) – but I always stuck with titles that sparked some curiosity or interest in me, something more than just a desire to be trendy.

That’s changed just a bit since I’ve started doing reviews online and getting advance reading copies of books – a few of those have turned out to be disappointments, books I would never have read without that obligation. But not many – I generally stay pretty well inside my comfort zone when it comes to choosing reading material, so I only ask for ARCs if the books really look like something I’d enjoy.

Now, as far as the Twilight books go – I’m not a big fan of vampires or teenage angst novels. So I think I can safely say there’s no way I’ll be doing any sampling there, no matter how hot the title might be.

Hello world!

So I’m trying WordPress.  Mostly because I finally got so pissed off with Blogger that I started looking around for another blog host.  So far, I’m fairly content.  Wish they had some “live” support for answering questions.  But what do I want for free, right?

Well, we’ll see how it goes.