New Start

Eeek and apologies! Nearly a year has gone by since my last post... confession over, my reading (for pleasure) year has been restricted by my study and work commitments but I've still managed to accrue quite a wide variety of books to share. However I have a problem. Unless a book is particularly memorable/ enjoyable or I've just finished it, I don't necessarily remember who wrote it or it's title. For someone who reads widely and in significant quantities this is obviously a frustration. So earlier this year I resolved to start a reading diary. This was initially a simple notebook but I've never been good at keeping diaries or journals, and blogs.... sigh. I start with a flurry of activity for a few weeks then other interests will take over. For me, recording the fact I've read the last book becomes far less important that moving on to the next one.

Which brings me to a new social media site called Riffle. This is a Pinterest-like site for books with each title displaying a cover. Unfortunately being a U.S creation there are only American editions but for this book jacket nerd there is great pleasure in making visual the lists of  books I've read.
You can search for the books you've read by author and title, create 'lists' of books, and make recommendations to other Rifflers by rating books with stars. Experts on a particular genre or subject  can create lists to which other readers can subscribe. Notes can be added to books you've read and a wish list of books you have yet to read can be maintained. Very useful as an aide-memoire to ensure you get the next book in a series as soon as it's available.

For someone like me this is a good way of making lists. It's online, so I can access it at work and on my mobile. I don't have to remember to carry the notebook around with me, I can add to any list as and when I have the time. As a form of procrastination it is delightfully limited, after all you have the fun spending a productive few minutes adding to your lists and then you're done, break over and back to work!
If you're thinking of joining up you can find me under LPRob :)

Happy reading all!

My new eReader

I bought an ereader this week.

Now, depending on your individual attitude towards new reading technology and the iconic nature of the traditional format, you will have thought, "So, which one?" or (with corresponding gasp of horror) "Why?"

Until very recently I would have placed myself firmly in the "Why?" group. I am, as readers of this blog will know, passionate about the book.  I love the covers and designs, the tactility of the printed word, and yes, I am a 'sniffer' of books. I love the buildings and furniture we create to house books (see my Pinterest board 'Favourite Book Places') and the accessories we use with our paper friends. For those who can relate to this perhaps you feel I have turned to the dark side. That I, who professes such affection, even mild obsession with the paper book format, has lost any credibility with all right thinking bibliophiles.

However I made my decision to buy and use an ereader for practical purposes. A student reads a lot and not for pleasure it must be said. Most of the journal articles and reference texts I need to consume are weighty, dry, academic tomes which can be extremely expensive to buy, and almost impossible to borrow as an online student. An ereader allows me to download PDFs of articles from the required reading lists and read them without having to log in on the computer. I also save a few million trees because I won’t have to print out stuff  I’m not going to use.

I’m fairly sure I’ll never be converted to reading from an ereader as a preference. To me an ereader is a tool which provides some practical benefits of storage and convenience. It can’t possibly provide me with the same pleasure as a bookshelf full of lifelong favourites displayed in all their glory.

Oh and for those ereader converts who have read this far (with admirable patience) and are still asking “so, which one?”…. I went with the Kindle…. Yes yes I know but it’s all I need.

Books I've read this month

Lately, because I don't have much time to read for pleasure, there seems to have been waaaay too many tempting titles around for my liking. Isn't that always the way though? I imagine when I've finished studying for the year I'll be desperately hunting for something new to read. Usually I select my recreational reading from the Good Reading Magazine, the Weekend Australian book review or a quick trot around the library for a random selection (half of which are usually returned unread).

In the past month I've read the first two books in the Hunger Games trilogy... I've put the third on hold 'cos now I need to know how it ends! I have to say I'm NOT a lover of YA fiction per se. But I'm a sucker for a good story well told and Hunger Games is. I'm not saying it's great writing, just a very good read.

'A Sentimental Traitor' by Michael Dobbs... Dobbs has been one of my fave authors since 'House of Cards', so if you love a decent political thriller then give it a go.
By-the-by I see that 'House of Cards' is being made into a major TV series with Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright, due out next year. They are setting it in the White House though so it won't be the same as the brilliant BBC series from 1990.

At the moment I am reading 'The Woman Who Died Alot' by Jasper Fforde. This is the seventh in the "Thursday Next' series which started with 'The Eyre Affair'. If you haven't come across his work before he is hard to define but I describe it as a combination of  fantasy, police procedural, political parody and satire. It's incredibly funny, clever and all set in an 'alternative' England. Thursday Next is the lead character and a 'literary detective'. Her adventures are woven in and around books and libraries and the characters in them. I don't want to give away any plotlines and perhaps my description in the previous sentence is not grabbing you, but I promise you it's worth trying.

Pick N Mix

Here are a few of my favourite internet trawl results from the last two months. Enjoy.

8 Lovely Bookshops I never get tired looking at bookshops. I prefer to be in them with money and time to spend, but for now pictures will have to do.

13 Bookends  I wonder if people use bookends anymore? I love the idea but my bookshelves are rarely empty enough for books to require the support of a bookend.

Library Cats  I sorry if you hate cats... for me books and cats are part of my DNA 

Paintings with Books  OK this guy is an artist but obviously has way too much time on his hands!

Many Writers, One Story

If you haven't seen it yet there is a fantastic project taking place on Twitter for the Brisbane Writer's Festival . Individual writers contribute 160 characters at a time to build on the story once a day.

http://www.bwf.org.au/default.asp?PageID=99&n=Gallery

 Check out the tag #BWF50

Book Recycling

What happens to all those millions of books worldwide which people don't want to read anymore?
Like most booklovers I regard the mistreatment of the book as an affront to civilisation but there is no doubt that many books aren't worth the shelf space. Pulping, burning (dictators' favourite choice), and dumping in landfill, are effective, if unimaginative options for the destruction of the more humble book. I've become a collector of book repurposing options.

Chris Scott

 One of my favourites and easily the most beautiful examples, involves an unknown artist in Edinburgh who used books to create a series of sculptures with literary themes. They were left anonymously with attached thankyou notes explaining the artist's work.
Enjoy :)
Updated 16/08 : this is the article Mysterious Paper Sculptures which originally informed this post. I couldn't find it earlier!

The Rise of the Book Trailer

OK at the risk of sounding totally out of touch with 21^st century book culture, I hereby announce I have never read an ebook and I don’t own an ereader. Yes, yes I know, where have I been?

I appreciate all the advantages ebooks give the modern reader, ease of storage and transport of thousands of titles; cheaper access to new books the ability to increase font size for the visually impaired etc…. I just don’t want those advantages enough to give up the physical reality and tactile pleasure of print on paper.

However one aspect of the ebook revolution does inspire me and this is the book trailer. Publishers and authors have been creating small videos to promote new books since the early noughties and they bring the visual pleasure of the traditional book cover into the digital age.  With the seeming decline in physical bookshops the opportunity for publishers to reach readers and market their wares is disappearing.  Book trailers have started to fill that space. They vary in quality and the content ranges from the author statically reading sections of the book to elaborate multimedia presentations complete with animations and music score. In an article from The Guardian, Lindsay Irvine asks whether book trailers are useful and suggests how they may change the very nature of the book as we know it.

Google ‘book trailers’ and you’ll find any number of sites specialising in providing a space for authors to post promotional ‘vids’ many of which give some stunning teasers to the content.  BookTrailers for Readers is a wiki created by teacher-librarian, Michelle Harclerode which contains many professional and student produced book trailers of children’s and YA fiction. Book trailers are being used to promote adult fiction and non-fiction as well but the obvious attraction of the book trailer is to encourage people to read more.

Author A.J Walkley gives some insight into the benefits of book trailers to authors in her blog on Huffington Post.

I’d be interested to hear comments from those who use ereaders and their experience with book trailers. Do you use them to select your next read?