Clear off your shelves challenge

I’m not really one for reading challenges, but this one just looked so perfectly suited to me that I couldn’t not sign up for it!

The challenge is hosted at S. Krishna’s Books. The aim is to have a certain percentage of books read from October 1 to November 30 being from your own shelves. However, I’m going to switch things up a bit because I only rarely read books which aren’t from my shelves, and from my TBR pile at that! Instead, I’m going to challenge myself to have 30% of the books I read in those two months be ones that were on my TBR pile at the beginning of the year. I made a list back then, so finding those books will be easy (I keep a list on the shelf with the books).

I would like to do something come January to help get the last of these books off my shelf (my TBR pile isn’t massive, so if something’s been on there for more than a year, I’m probably avoiding it) but I don’t want to just throw them out. Any ideas? Do you have some kind of an annual clearout?

Monday Musings: Reading Music

Today’s MUSING MONDAYS post is about reading music…

Do you listen to music while reading? Does this change if you’re reading in or out of your house? Do you have a preference of music for such occasions?

I sometimes listen to music and other times not. I have a thing about only listening to music when I’m by myself in my room (with rare exceptions), so that’s the only place I listen and read at the same time, though I do often like to read downstairs in the lounge (though strangely, reading is another thing I don’t like to do in private).

As for what I listen to, it varies. Probably most often is the radio, which means that I’m mostly listening to adverts, I suppose…haw haw haw. I sometimes put a CD on (Maximo Park pretty much live in my CD player, but I also have a lot of Einaudi which is great for reading with). I do use my MP3 player, but I find it harder to have music as background music if it’s being piped straight into my skull through earphones, so that tends to be for when I’m doing other things that don’t require as much concentration.

(Having written that, I’ve just thought that I often use my MP3 player when I’m doing my homework…oops?)

What about you? Do you listen to music as you read?

The Sunday Salon: BBAW ends

So BBAW ended on Friday *sniffle*. This is the first year that I participated and it’s been an absolutely amazing experience. I can’t wait to do it all again next year! I’ve had a brilliant time discovering a lot of new blogs (we’ll come to them in a moment) and participating in the memes. I’ve got a lengthy list of new ideas for posts, but for tonight, I’m just going to share with you the list of blogs I’ve added to my feedreader this week:

• Bookmagic
• Book Chick City
• The 3 Rs Blog
• Wordsmithonia
• Sophisticated Dorkiness
• Devourer of Books
• At Home with Books
• Linus Blanket

I’ll be updating my blogroll here soon.

What blogs have you discovered this week?

Illness, and blog aims

So I’ve missed out on a few days of BBAW, which is something of a shame. Unfortunately, I’ve been under the weather somewhat and I’ve spent the last few days lying in bed or staring at a television screen while guzzling cold and flu tablets. I’m glad to say I’m feeling a lot better today, but I’ve missed out on some of the fun and now I have a feedreader backed up rather too many entries.

Thank you so much to all those who commented on my interview with Deb and my other posts! It means a lot and I’ll get round to reciprocating that ASAP.

Today’s BBAW meme is to write 50 words or less about what you love most about your blog and then 50 words or less about where you hope to be in a year’s time. This is a really good one for me as I’ve been thinking a lot this week about where I could go with blogging and the things I could do. BBAW has given me a lot of inspiration and I now have a lot more ideas about what I’d like to do in the next 12 months and I’ll probably write a post on it fairly soon.

And so, without further ado, it’s onto the meme:

What I love most about my blog is looking back at entries I wrote a while ago and seeing what I thought about books at that time and how time has changed my recollections.

In 12 months’ time, I’d like to be posting more often, commenting more on other people’s blogs (and generally more involved in the community) – and reading a lot!

BBAW interview

As part of BBAW, Deb from Book Magic and I exchanged interviews (you can read my answers to her questions here). Don’t forget you can read more interviews at the BBAW site!

On blogging…

You’ve participated in several memes: most recently, What are you reading Monday?, but also Booking Through Thursday, Library Loot, Teaser Tuesdays and others. Which memes are your favourites? Where do you think the balance between original content and memes should lie?

I like the memes, especially What are you reading Monday because that one helps me keep track of my weekly reading goals. But I think memes should only be used to enhance, or supplement and not make up the majority of one’s blog.

We’re both newbies to BBAW – what are you expecting, and what are you most looking forward to?

I don’t know what to expect! But I’m sure it will be fun. I like the sense of community it brings and I really like discovering new blogs. It will be interesting to learn new things about bloggers I already follow.

Compared to many, you’re quite a new blogger, having founded your blog in May this year. Having almost reached the half-year mark, what do you think of the experience? What are the highs and lows – and has it been as you expected?

When I first started blogging, I had no idea what to expect. I didn’t even have a clear idea of what I would be doing, beside writing about books. I’m still tweaking so much, from the format and look of my blog, to the content and even my rating system. I started out giving ratings then stopped because I didn’t have a concrete system.

I had no idea how supportive and helpful other bloggers would be and I am so grateful!

Aside from book blogs, what other sorts of blogs do you read (if any)? Do you have any favourites you’d like to share? Are you ever tempted to blog about other things?

I pretty much just read book blogs. I have a lot of favorites, Wordsmithonia, J.Kaye’s Book Blog, Wrighty’s Reads, and many others. Right now I just blog about books, once I’m more comfortable, I may blog about other things. Probably still books, but more than just reviews and memes.

How do you read blogs? Do you use an RSS reader, or visit the sites themselves? Are you a prolific commenter or do you prefer to stay in the background?

Right now I use my blogroll and visit the sites. Then if I have time, I scroll through Google Reader to check blogs I subscribe to. I try to comment as often as possible but not nearly as much as I would like.

How important is the design of your blog to you? Have you ever considered changing to another blogging platform? Why do you choose to present your blog the way you do?

Blogger is pretty easy to use and serves my purpose for now. I like having gadgets and all the different backgrounds available. I like it to reflect my personality. I’m still working on it, but it is pretty close to how I want it to be.

On books…

Reading some of your archives, I noticed you mention that you have a Kindle. How has owning an ebook reader changed the way you read? Do you prefer ebooks or paper copies? What’s your prediction for the future?

I love my Kindle but that has not changed my love of paperbooks. This just gives me more options. I always carry a book with me, wherever I go, and having the Kindle means I can bring lots of books with me. But I love coming home to a package of books, with their new book smell! Having a Kindle also helps with storage as my bookshelves are overflowing! I don’t think ebooks will replace paperbooks, ever.

You’ve participated in a few reading challenges. Which has been your favourite? How do you choose books for your challenges? Have any challenges made you think again about a type of book, or helped you discover a real gem?

I had never been into Vampire books until I started The Sookie Stackhouse Challenge and now I’m hooked! I’m also enjoying The Every Thing Austen Challenge because I love Jane Austen and even enjoy the Austen knock-offs.

How do you arrange your books? How many do you have? Which books have been on your shelves the longest?

I don’t have my books well organized by I try to keep authors together and separate fiction from non-fiction. I also try to keep by tbrs separate from those I have read, other wise I lose them for awhile. I hold on to all books that I like, so I have several hundred, at least. I do a lot of rereading. I only get rid of a book if I know I will never read it again because I didn’t like it that much. Then it gets donated.

You have several librarything widgets on your blog. I’ve played around with LT and liked it, but I’m a little daunted by the prospect of cataloguing all my books and keeping track of my reading properly. Did you feel the same? How do you use LT now?

I love LT but I have so many books yet to enter. I add every new book but I need to spend some time getting a large chunk of still unlogged books into LT. It will be good once I have them all in, because I have been known to buy a book that I already own!

BBAW – Blog recommendations

Today (as probably everyone reading this post already knows) is the start of Book Blogger Appreciation Week! Today’s meme is to share favourite blogs that perhaps didn’t make it to the shortlist. First, though, I’m going to kick off with a list of new blogs I’ve discovered from reading other people’s recommendations (though I’m sure there’ll be more to come!):

• Fresh Ink Books
• Breaking the Spine
• The 3 Rs Blog
• Devourer of Books
• At Home with Books
• Reading Proust in Foxborough
• Life and Times of a ‘New’ New Yorker

And now for a few of my favourite book blogs:

• The Bluestocking Society – if I had to count how many books I’ve read or wanted to read after seeing them on Jessica’s blog, I’d have to borrow a few extra hands ‘cos I haven’t got enough fingers. She also does amazing work on the Book Blog Guild.
• The Book Lady’s Blog – a few people have already mentioned the hilarity of Rebecca’s Adventures in Bookselling series and I have to agree. I also love how chatty she is and her posts never fail to interest me.
• The Boston Bibliophile – I don’t share all of Marie’s tastes (I’m not interested in graphic novels, for example), but her reviews are always interesting and I’ve picked up a few books I wouldn’t normally have gone for after reading them.
• Restless Reader – not maniacally active, but it was the first book blog I started to read and for that reason, it deserves a place in this list.

Share your recommendations here or in the comments!

I’m running out of room!

I’ve reached that point (again) where I simply don’t have enough shelf space. My bookshelf is full. My two shelves allocated for TBRs are also full, despite my having started choosing my next book to read based on how thick it is (!) and therefore how much shelf space it will fill up.

There are 3 more shelves on the bookcase with the TBRs, but they’re all full already – I have a feeling that some creative reshuffling is in order so that I can increase my collection!