Happy New Year! I’m a month late, I know, but I haven’t posted in forever. By now, random long breaks shouldn’t be too much of a surprise. However it’s crazy to look at the amount of posts I wrote last year given the amount of books I read. I might do a small recap at a later point, for now I thought a tag is a good way to start the year and here’s one I found over on Kristin’s blog, Kristin Kraves Books.
What book is on your nightstand now?
Call me a bad reader, but I don’t have any books on my nightstand at the moment. You happen to find me in between books and recently I’ve gone with eBooks for the most part. I do keep my Kindle and my tablet there, so one could say there’s both not any and a lot of books on my nightstand at the same time. My nightstand is like Schrodinger’s nightstand.
What was the last truly great book you read?
The most recent read that I greatly enjoyed was We Were Liars by E. Lockhart. I will admit I wasn’t sure about it during the first few chapters, but I ended up loving it. Perhaps the type of story isn’t new and there’s definitely quite a few books with a similar premise, but the execution was outstanding enough to feel really refreshing.
If you could meet any writer — alive or dead — who would it be? And what would you want to know?
This is another question I pondered for a while. I could not come up with one name, but I figured it would be either Jules Verne or H.G. Wells. Both authors are people with a great imagination and I’d love to know how they came up with the ideas in some of their books. Did they ever consider their ideas a potential reality or were they always pure fiction? I would also like to know their thoughts on current technological developments and their impact on society. Would they find things like smartphones a handy tool or would they consider them intrusive distractions?
What books might we be surprised to find on your shelves?
Those who know me would probably be surprised to find a Stephen King book and a few of Sebastian Fitzek‘s books. To be fair to Mr. King, I know most of his work only for their movie adaptations and while it’s not fair to judge him for what the movies portray, I haven’t found the stories appealing. Somehow though I was drawn to Mr. Mercedes, so I got myself a copy. Although I didn’t hate it, it just didn’t work for me, so that’s probably the only Stephen King book I’ll ever own.
For those of you who’ve ever heard my desperately frustated rants about Fitzek’s books, I couldn’t blame you for thinking I either got rid of them or just stopped trying new ones. Well, sorry to disappoint, but in spite of how I have yet to find a Fitzek book with an ending that doesn’t leave me pulling my hair out in frustration, I still feel drawn to some of his premises and I do enjoy the stories even if they don’t end up going the way I would prefer.
How do you organize your personal library?
Honestly for most of my life I have been chaotic and just put books wherever there was a spot free. Therefore there was no real organization. At some point I organized them by size because I liked how it looked. Recently I went with organizing them alphabetically by author dividing fiction and non-fiction. I’ve gotten quite a few new books though and I have another shelf now, so I’ll probably reorganize them again soon.
What book have you always meant to read and not got round to yet? Any you feel embarrassed about not having read yet?
Ok, I’ve gotten The Labyrinth of the Spirits by Carlos Ruiz Zafon just a few weeks after its release in November of 2016 and while I planned to read it several times, I still haven’t. It’s a big, intimidating book! I know I’ve mentioned this a couple of times before. At this point I won’t say this is the year I finally read it, but I promise I haven’t forgotten about it.
Disappointing, overrated, just not good: what book did you feel like you were supposed to like but didn’t? Do you remember the last book you put down without finishing?
Alright this isn’t the last book I gave up on, but it’s the one I don’t think I’ve mentioned so far. The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers. I know, a very beloved and highly praised book… Sorry, but I hated it. I just couldn’t get into it at all. I expected it to be a science-fiction story, it was just a character development essay to me. I read over 60% of it before just putting it down because absolutely nothing was happening.
All I got to read was a bunch of characters getting to know each other in a science-fiction setting, but there was nothing more to it. I’ve heard since that there is in fact a story that’s further explored and developed in the following books in the series, so maybe I’ll give it another try at some point in the future. However I remember the experience of reading that book as boring and unpleasant, so chances are I won’t force myself to push through that again.
What kind of stories are you drawn to? Any you steer clear of?
Stories with some kind of mystery are my absolute favourites. I also love anything that explores technological developments, their effects and the consequences of bad use of new techonologies. Basically anything that leaves me thinking about it and asking questions after I finished it is good to me.
The stories I tend to avoid are any heavily descriptive, character driven stories. I prefer to get to know the characters through their actions, rather than have pages and pages of character description. I also steer clear of romance books because they’re usually strongly character driven and there’s rarely any real conflict or stakes.
If you could require the president to read one book, what would it be?
Honestly, I don’t really know how to answer this question. Ideally I would recommend something thought-provoking. My first instict here is to say Sycamore by Craig A. Falconer, just because of how well it portrays the impact things like big data, targeted ads and augmented reality if used with an ulterior motive.
What do you plan to read next?
A friend got me a copy of The Deep by Alma Katsu for Christmas. I’ve had that book on my list for quite a while, so that will definitely be my first read of the year. I am so excited to have this on my shelf, look at that cover!
So there we are, first post of the year completed. Work, studying and home stuff are keeping me quite busy these days, so I probably won’t be reading 53 books this year. I actually set myself a goal of only 15 and I have taken this month off reading, but I do have quite a few books that I’m really looking forward to reading. I’ll share more about how last year reading went, challenges and plans for this year on another post.
Did you like this tag? If you did, feel free to join and share your answers.
The Melody In Words 
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