Are you a book moocher?

On a more light hearted note than my last post (I really, really hope I’m not wasting my time with college…), I’d like to share a great service with those of you who don’t know about it: BookMooch. Here’s a snippet from their about page:

Give & receive: Every time you give someone a book, you earn a point and can get any book you want from anyone else at BookMooch. Once you’ve read a book, you can keep it forever or put it back into BookMooch for someone else, as you wish.
No cost: there is no cost to join or use this web site: your only cost is mailing your books to others.

I only signed up a few weeks ago, but I’ve already done a bit of swapping. For a couple of chess books, two books on Wicca, The Tipping Point, and a book on the Lucasville prison uprising, I’ve received or am waiting on:

• Beowulf: A New Verse Translation
• Auschwitz: A New History
• Ethics for the New Millenium
• The Vinland Sagas: The Norse Discovery of America
  
• Reflections on the Revolution in France
• Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind
• A History of Russia

It’s a great service, at least if you have a few books you know you’ll never read again. For a long while I held onto all of my books, even if I knew deep down that I’d never read them again (or even once, for that matter). I finally saw the light though. If I’m not going to read one of my books, I might as well swap it for something I will read.

As an added bonus, BookMooch has a feature that is tied in with LibraryThing (you do use LibraryThing, right?) Whenever you receive a book, when you mark it as received at BookMooch, there’s an option to automatically add the book to your LibraryThing catalogue.

(Speaking of LibraryThing… WordPress.com chaps, are we ever going to see a LibraryThing widget? If you’re in need of a template for one, here you go.)

Speaker for the Dead

Title: Speaker for the Dead [amazon]
Author: Orson Scott Card
Publisher: Tor Books; Reissue edition (August 15, 1994)
Pages: 416
Book Number: 13

What’s this 52 Books in 52 Weeks thing about?

This entry contains spoilers about the ending of this book, so if you’ve not read the book yet, I suggest you stop here.

I started Speaker for the Dead immediately after finishing Ender’s Game (my post about Ender’s Game is here). My feelings about Speaker for the Dead are quite similar to my feelings about Ender’s Game: I loved it. I actually enjoyed Speaker for the Dead more than Ender’s Game, however, because Speaker for the Dead fixed most of the things about Ender’s Game that I didn’t care for. There were children in Speaker for the Dead, but they didn’t act so childish as the kids in Ender’s Game (i.e., there weren’t any taunts of “farteater” flying around). Another complaint that I had about Ender’s Game was the term “buggers”, used for the alien race the humans were dealing with. The name just sounded stupid to me. Despite Cas’s excellent reasoning as to why they were called that, I still wasn’t crazy about the term, and I found the term “piggies” in Speaker for the Dead to be even worse.

The only other gripe I had with the book were the many Portugese names, and even with that complaint, it’s more a problem with me than with the book. Being a bit obsessive compulsive about the pronunciation of words, including foreign ones, I kept wanting to check to see if I was sounding out the names correctly. However, as I’ve never studied Portugese, I kept having to dip back to the front of the book to read the pronunciation guide again. By about the 100 or 150 page mark, I was fairly confident that I had things down, but up until that point, it was fairly frustrating. But again, that’s just a quirk of mine, nothing wrong with the book.

Having said those few things, I really enjoyed the plot. It was fun to learn about the pequininos (piggies) through the eyes of what was, essentially, a group of piggy anthropologists (xenologers). I liked how the book displayed wonderfully the fact that different cultures can see things completely differently. The bits about how life in general worked on Lusitania seemed a bit stretched to me, particularly in regards to how the piggies themselves grow up, but it didn’t really detract from the story.

I think it’s safe to say that I have caught the Ender virus. I love this series. I was going to wait until I had finished reading Sharpe’s Tiger before I started the third book in the Ender Wiggins series, Xenocide, but while at the library today, I couldn’t resist. So, I am now reading Sharpe’s Tiger and Xenocide at the same time.

Ender’s Game

Title: Ender’s Game [amazon]
Author: Orson Scott Card
Publisher: Tor Science Fiction; Reprint edition (July 15, 1994)
Pages: 384
Book Number: 12

What’s this 52 Books in 52 Weeks thing about?

This entry contains spoilers about the ending of this book, so if you’ve not read the book yet, I suggest you stop here.

I wrapped up Ender’s Game last night right before I went to sleep. It took me about two and a half days to read it.

All in all, I loved it. At first I wasn’t crazy about the bulk of the characters being between ages 6 and 13. I was afraid that, since the main characters were children, the book would be childish. In fact, I didn’t read the book for quite a while because of that concern. It was a poor assumption! The only really childish bits were some of the dialogue from the kids, like when they called each other such things as “farteaters.” Other than that, it was actually quite mature.

The ending of the book caught me off guard. I kept expecting Ender to finish Command School and then be sent off to fight the buggers. Even though the International Fleet had been deceiving him basically since the beginning of the book, it never occurred to me that they were deceiving him about what he was really doing at Command School. That he had actually been commanding real fleets and taking out the buggers was rather cool. While I wasn’t fond of how the I.F. treated Ender throughout the book, after seeing their ultimate plan, it made sense.

Regarding subplots, I enjoyed the exploration of Peter and Valentine, Ender’s siblings, becoming influential political figures on the “nets”. I found it particularly interesting probably because, with a bit of planning, someone could do that now. I was hoping Peter would be taken out by someone eventually, but that didn’t happen. In fact, it went the other way.. he rose to political power!

I’m anxious to read Speaker of the Dead, the sequel, to see where Ender goes with the last bugger queen. I’m even more anxious to see where things head once the buggers come back, which I assume they do.

As a last note, there was really only one thing I hated about the book: “buggers” as the name of the alien race the humans went up against. It just sounds silly. Perhaps I feel that way because everytime I read it, I could hear some Brit yelling, “Bugger me!”

Update: Having now read the first couple of pages of Speaker, I have to admit: “piggies” for an alien race is even more stupid sounding than “buggers.”

A change in my reading plan

For those of you who have been reading for a bit, you know I’m attempting to read 52 books in 52 weeks. You also know that I’ve not posted a review for a while. The main reason for this, obviously, is that I haven’t been reading nearly as much! My reading machine got a bit clogged up when I was trying to read Guns, Germs and Steel, alongside A History of Russia, alongside a book about how Buddhists deal with anger. It was the first two books that really slowed things down. Things then slowed down even more a few weeks ago, when I classes started up for me, and a ton of reading for that was heaped on my head.

Thus, it is time for a change in my reading plan. I have, for the time being, wiped Guns, Germs, and Steel, as well as A History of Russia, off of my list. I was 3/4 done with the first, and only 120 pages into the second. At least until this quarter is over, for my 52 books, I’m going to stick to science fiction, fantasy, etc. – things that aren’t too taxing on the brain! If I good figure out how to create 10 or so more hours in a day, I’d continue reading nonfiction for pleasure while also having to read it for school… but alas, I haven’t figured out how to do that yet. Sticking to fiction while in school will give me a nice mix of both fiction and nonfiction, a mix I should be able to keep up with.

The first book on this new reading diet is Ender’s Game, which I started yesterday. I’m about 150 pages into it, and really enjoying it. I still don’t get why the boys are playing essentially lasertag in null gravity to train to be ship commanders, but that’s okay. It’s still quite an enjoyable read. When I finish it, I may move on to the next in the series. I’m also considering 1984 by Orwell. I may end up checking out some lists of classic science fiction novels, and picking out some from that.

If you have any favorite titles from science fiction, fantasy, or just plain fiction, let me know, and I’ll attempt to get them read. I’ve already got a few recommendations to work from, from this post. (Ironically, in the comments area of this post, I predicted that I might not be able to keep up with 52 books in 52 weeks once classes started…)

Foiled at the library.

I went to the library today to pick up a copy of Body for LIFE, as well as to browse around a bit. (A trip to the library without browsing is, in my opinion, a wasted trip.) While searching for various things at one of the computer terminals, I typed in “tibetan buddhism.” One of the things which popped up, much to my surprise, was The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, which I’d seen on amazon.com and thought looked rather interesting. I thought, great, I’ll go ahead and check that out.

Unfortunately, it was not meant to be. It’s not that the record was wrong; the book is in the library’s collection. The record wasn’t wrong in displaying that the book was available, either: it was right there, sitting on a shelf. Right in the middle of… the reference section. Right in the middle of a section which consists solely of books which can’t be checked out. Argh.

The book isn’t a reference book. Besides the fact that it has printed words on the inside of it, it has no real similarity to say, a dictionary. (Ironically, there are many dictionaries available at the library, all of which can be checked out.) The book is just like the other dozen or so books they have on Buddhism. So what gives?

Here’s what gives: from what I can gather from the reference desk people, they’re forced to put a variety of books into the reference section, even if the books don’t really belong there. Why? Theft. Some books, for whatever reason, are “borrowed” from the library on a rather… permanent basis – again and again and again. They leave the library and never return. The library replaces the book, and then it turns up stolen again (or “lost”, as the catalogue system so politely shows). After three or four instances of a book being “lost”, if the library chooses to replace it again, they do so, but place the book in the reference section, so it can’t be so easily “lost.”

Apparently, a book with a title like “The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying” sends out a message which roughly comes out as, “Steal me!”¹ They couldn’t really remember any specific titles, but the reference people told me that other religious books often turn up missing, along with books about cults, and, of course, the ever popular, books about sex. A quick search at my library’s website brings back a result that I don’t find surprising in the least: The Complete Kama Sutra is, you guessed it, in the reference section. Now what good does that do? None whatsoever! Who wants to strip down to the skin and practice positions from the Kama Sutra in the public library? (Don’t answer that.) Really, now. The Kama Sutra is not something you want to browse with your significant other in the public library.

Anyway: to all of you who are stealing religious books, cult books, and sex books, knock it off. You’re ruining the fun learning experience for the rest of us.

1. I’m wondering if the references to the Egyptian Book of the Dead in the movie The Mummy has anything to do with this. Maybe some teenagers thought there would be ways to raise the dead or some such in this book. Who knows. Tibetan, Egyptian.. Book of Living and Dying, Book of the Dead.. yeah, I suppose someone could make a connection there.

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

Title: Freakonomics [Revised and Expanded Edition]: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything [amazon]
Author: Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
Publisher: William Morrow; Rev&Expand, Roughcut edition (October 17, 2006)
Pages: 366
Book Number: 8

What’s this 52 Books in 52 Weeks thing about?

Ah, yes, Freakonomics: one of those books that I’ve honestly been avoiding for a while, simply because it was on the best seller list. Perhaps a bit narrow-minded of me, I know, but generally speaking, when it comes to books, I don’t like the same stuff as the mass population does. I did, however, decide to pick this up on a whim, when I saw it among the new books at the local library.

So.. how was it? It was excellent, actually! I enjoyed the whole thing, including the bonus materials that were added to the revised edition. (The bulk of the bonus material came from the Freakonomics blog, which I wholeheartedly recommend.) As I touched on in a previous post, there wasn’t really a “theme” to the book. To sum up the book in a phrase: really clever economist asks very interesting (and strange) questions, then uses number crunching to find the answers. Here’s a paragraph from the beginning of the book to display what I mean by “interesting (and strange) questions”:

Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? Why do drug dealers still live with their moms? How much do parents really matter? How did the legalization of abortion affect the rate of violent crime?

These may not sound like typical questions for an economist to ask. But Steven D. Levitt is not a typical economist. He is a much-heralded scholar who studies the riddles of everyday life – from cheating and crime to sports and child-rearing – and whose conclusions turn conventional wisdom on its head.

One part of the book I thought was really enlightening was the chapter on why most drug dealers still live with their moms. Reason? Drug dealing gangs are generally set up like any other business, like McDonalds, for instance. While the top dogs make a killing, the vast majority of the people, whether it’s the folks flipping burgers or the guys on corners peddling crack cocaine, make very little. It was found that the average street-corner drug-dealer made less than minimum wage (not to mention the chances of them being killed while working was much higher than your average fast-food worker).

Reading the book opened my eyes to the fact that, while it’s fairly common for them to do so, not all economists interest themselves solely with stock markets and real estate. The tools of economy can be used for all sorts of things, like figuring out how real estate agents are similar to the Ku Klux Klan (seriously), or ratting out cheating school teachers.

I really did love this book. I’ll sum up my feelings on the book in four words: I want a sequel.

The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret and Science of Happiness

Title: The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret and Science of Happiness [amazon]
Author: Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche
Publisher: Harmony (March 6, 2007)
Pages: 288
Book Number: 7

What’s this 52 Books in 52 Weeks thing about?

This was quite a bit of a change from the last book I read, Awakening the Buddha Within. While both are concerned with Buddhism and meditation, whereas the first book took more of a religious take on the two topics, this one had more of a scientific bent to it, which I really appreciated. Furthermore, The Joy of Living focuses almost exclusively on meditation in Buddhism. In this book, there was no discussion of the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, etc.

It was a nice change of pace to read about the scientific view of meditation. A variety of studies have been done, and while there’s still a lot of work to be done, in short: it’s been found that practicing meditation causes more activity in the left prefrontal lobe of the brain, which has been associated with feelings of pleasure and calmness. It also causes less cortisol to be released into your body, while ramping up the amount of dopamine that is released.

The explanations on how to do the different types of meditations were quite good, the best I’ve read, in fact. The author went over a lot of the issues and doubts a practitioner is all but bound to encounter as he or she meditates, which I found even more helpful than the “how to” bits. His touching of these issues made me feel a bit better about problems I’ve been having with my meditation.

As mentioned by one of the starred reviews at amazon.com, the book really is a “fresh breath from the meditation room.” I have only scratched the surface of what’s available in the world of Buddhist books, but out of the ones I have read, this stands out as the most unique. While others I’ve read covered more about the “beliefs” of Buddhism, this one is by far the most practical one, guiding the new meditator in the right direction.

As a “wow factor” aside, a barrage of tests were run on the author of the book, Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, to measure activity in his brain, via the use of a fMRI. Apparently during the tests, the scientists thought something was wrong with their equipment: in some areas of the subject’s brain, particularly areas that are associated with happiness, there was 800% more activity than normal. After checking things over, they found that nothing was wrong with the equipment. He has since been given the nickname of “the happiest man on earth.”

An update on my 52 books in 52 weeks progress

For those of you who are good at math, if you compare how many books I’ve read with how many weeks have gone by so far in 2007, you’ll see that I’ve fallen a bit behind. To accomplish my goal of reading 52 books in 52 weeks, the easiest thing to do would be to read one book a week (duh), which I’ve thus far failed on. I have no good excuse for it, but I will be honest: World of Warcraft. For a while, it was eating up a bit too much of my time, and reading fell onto the back burner (or perhaps off of the stove altogether onto the floor…) I have, however, cancelled my World of Warcraft account, and I’m now hitting the books again. Here’s what’s on my plate as of right now:

• Working with Anger by Thubten Chodron.
• The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret and Science of Happiness by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche.
• A History of Russia (6th edition) by Nicholas V. Riasanovsky.
• Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner.

Yes, I know – I have also failed miserably in reading one book at a time. I think I’m just going to give up on doing that at this point. Regardless of how many times I tell myself I should only read one book at a time, I end up having numerous books going all at once.

Working with Anger is pretty much what the title says. I have, for as long as I can remember, had a pretty bad temper. Working with Anger approaches anger from a Buddhist perspective, exploring how anger functions, what causes it to arise in us, and how to best deal with it. While it isn’t really a book that you should read once and put away, I’m about half way through it. I figure as I work with the methods provided I’ll be dipping back into it from time to time.

The Joy of Living is a peculiarly pleasant mix of Buddhist philosophy and meditation teachings, quantum physics, and cognitive science. I started reading this one today after picking it up at the library. I’m about 80 pages into it, and really the scientific flavor of it appealing. The book offers up the usual instructions for meditation, but instead of just explaining how to meditate, the author also gets into why such meditation practices work. Pretty interesting stuff.

A History of Russia is.. well, that’s pretty self explanatory, isn’t it? The book is, from what I can tell from amazon.com, the leading textbook on Russian history. It’s certainly far slower going than any of the other books I’m reading – I’ve been chipping away at this one for about a week, and I’m around page 100. It’s not dry, and is, on the contrary, quite engrossing, it’s just slow going due to all of the details. For those who are interested in what point in time I’m at right now in the book, I’m hovering on the edge of the 16th century.

Freakonomics is another book I picked up today at the library. I have honestly been avoiding this book for quite some time, due to it being on the top seller list for so long. I know I’ve been being a snob, but I generally dislike most books that hit the top seller list. However, I finally caved today and checked it out. At around the 100 page mark, I’m thus far impressed. There isn’t really any easy way to describe what the authors are doing; I think the subtitle of the book is actually pretty good. Thus far they’ve compared the Ku Klux Klan to real estate agents, school teachers to sumu wrestlers, and attributed the drop in crime rate in the 1990s to Norma McCorvey, a.ka.a Jane Roe, of Roe vs. Wade fame. And what’s amazing is, a lot of what they’re saying makes sense. While I have not quite got my boot fully out of my mouth yet, while I continue to work on that, I recommend you check the book out, if you haven’t already read it.

Of course, whenever I finish all of these books, there will be individual posts for each of them.

Awakening the Buddha Within: Tibetan Wisdom for the Western World

Title: Awakening the Buddha Within: Tibetan Wisdom for the Western World [amazon]
Author: Lama Surya Das
Publisher: Broadway; Reprint edition (June 15, 1998)
Pages: 389
Book Number: 6

What’s this 52 Books in 52 Weeks thing about?

This is actually the second time I’ve read this book, but the first time I’ve written a full entry for it. When I read it before, I mentioned it briefly on this post, saying that it came across as a bit “new agey”, but that I enjoyed it a lot anyway.

After my second reading of it, I’m not so sure I stand by my initial impression. I don’t know if it’s really new agey, or perhaps it’s just that Lama Surya Das is so at ease and genuinely happy about what he’s teaching. I’m leaning more towards the latter at this point.

Awakening the Buddha Within is one of the most popular introductory texts to Buddhism available right now, and, after reading it twice, I can see why. Lama Surya Das, a native American, has spent roughly half of his life studying the Dharma, mostly in foreign countries such as Nepal. He writes in a very natural style, making it extremely easy to understand what he’s saying. I’ve read a few books on Buddhism that were a bit too technical for my tastes, but this isn’t one of them.

The book has all of the things that one would expect from an introductory book about Buddhism: a brief story about Siddhartha Gautama, the historical Buddha; examining the Four Noble Truths; and exploring the Eightfold Path, which takes up about half of the book. There are also many meditations that you can use for your own practice. Throughout the book are stories from the author’s life, as well as from the lives of his teachers and others, which illustrate the principles of Buddhism.

My only real complaint with the book is that it needs to be longer. Often, Surya would start a section on a new topic, and (in my opinion) not devote enough space to it. About the time he’d be getting into the topic he’d started, the section would end. While this can be frustrating, I suppose the bonus is that the topics he doesn’t thoroughly explore give you something to look into. A few of the topics which he skimmed (such as Lojong and Tonglen practice), I checked out online, and they both have plenty of more in-depth material available. And, of course, I’m sure there are books on the topics as well.

All in all, I really like this book; I actually ended up buying it the last time I was at a Borders in Charleston, West Virginia. It certainly doesn’t explore Buddhism in an exhaustive manner, but I doubt there’s any book that does that.

A Book Meme

I’ve seen this meme on a few different blogs, but I finally decided to do it after seeing it over at Tales from the Reading Room.

Hardback or trade paperback or mass market paperback?

If it comes with pages in-between two covers, I’m generally happy with it. If they all were the same price, I’d probably go with hardback, simply because I like the feel of them more than paperbacks. On the other hand, I’d have to eventually switch back to paperbacks, because I’m sure I’d quickly run out of shelf space, if all I owned were hardbacks.

Amazon or brick and mortar?

Both. When I know what book I’m wanting, I generally buy it from Amazon, because it’s easy (and fast). Being in a small town, the nearest decent bookstore is about two hours away. However, I love browsing at a brick and mortar store. When the family takes a trip to Columbus, they generally have to drag me out of Barnes and Noble. I don’t kick and scream, but I certainly don’t like leaving, either. Those big, cushy chairs are just so nice…

Barnes & Noble or Borders?

No real preference on this one. As noted, I live in a small town with no decent bookstore to speak of. I’ll take what I can get!

Bookmark or dogear?

Bookmark, for sure. I’m one of those people that cries out in dismay if I accidentally tear a page, or even drop the book and bend a page or two. It’s never happened yet because I’m so careful with them, but I think if I broke the spine of one of my books, I just might cry.

Alphabetize by author or alphebetize by title or random?

At this point in time, totally random. There are odd pockets of books that are on the same subject, and a few pockets where the books are by one author (like Tolkien), but for the most part, my shelves are just one big mess. I’ll be lame and say I live dangerously.

Keep, throw away, or sell?

Keep. Keep. Keep. If I have a book that I really have no intention of ever reading again, I’ll consider selling it. But throw away? As in the garbage? Are you insane?!

Keep dustjacket or toss it?

I generally keep all of my dustjackets. They’re not important in the least to how the book reads, but I still like having them. Then again, I keep old computer game manuals too, so what’s that tell you?

Read with dustjacket or remove it?

I always remove dustjackets when I’m reading a book. For one, it gets irritating fighting the damn thing everytime I try to read. For another thing, I hate seeing the top and bottom edges of the dustjacket become covered in those tiny tears, due to laying against things.

Short story or novel?

Novels. I’ve never enjoyed short stories much. About the time I begin getting interested in one, it’s over.

Collection (short stories by same author) or anthology (short stories by different authors)?

I have no real preference on this one, because I don’t like short stories. I do know, however, that I don’t own any collections of short stories by one author, so I’ll have to default to anthologies. The only reason I own a few sci-fi anthologies is because a friend was going to throw them away and I couldn’t stand it. I know. I have a problem.

Harry Potter or Lemony Snicket?

Again, I’ll have to default on this one, this time to Harry Potter. I’ve never read Lemony Snicket. Having said that, I don’t care much for Potter. I’ve read the first two books of the series, and truthfully (please, no rotten tomatoes!), I don’t see what the big deal is. To me, it came across as a sub-par fantasy book with stereotypical characters. There was nothing really there that made me want to keep coming back.

Stop reading when tired or at chapter breaks?

A bit of both! I prefer to stop at chapter breaks, or those wonderful little mid-chapter breaks that (nice) authors put in, but sometimes I don’t get to do this. In particular, when I’m reading in bed, sometimes I just have to call it quits at the end of a paragraph. This generally happens when two variables are met:

1. I’m extremely tired, and know I can’t read much longer.
2. The nearest “break” is the next chapter, which is 50 pages away.

“It was a dark and stormy night” or “Once upon a time”?

Neither. “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit”, thank you very much. If I were forced to choose, probably the latter, because that ignites at least a little bit of hope of trolls or some other nasty fantasy creature.

Buy or Borrow?

I buy most of the time. I do a hefty amount of borrowing as well, but only from the library.

New or used?

If I were a rich man, new books, easily. However, rich I am not, so I reserve my new book purchases for things I can’t usually find used, such as history books. I’m quickly acquiring a large amount of used fantasy and sci-fi books, mostly because I can get them for a quarter a piece.

Buying choice: book reviews, recommendation or browse?

All of the above. I often read amazon.com reviews, and pay attention to them, too. I’ll also take recommendations, particularly from friends who I know enjoy the same stuff as I do. And, of course, I love browsing. The only problem with buying based on browsing is that I can generally find at least a dozen books I’d like to buy, but I can typically only afford one or two.

Tidy ending or cliffhanger?

I prefer tidy endings. I’m not fond of reading three hundred plus pages simply to be left with an ending that doesn’t resolve all of the problems the author has created. Unless, of course, a sequel is on the way. Oddly enough, I suppose the ending to The Dark Tower was a cliffhanger, in a way, and I liked it just fine.

Morning reading, afternoon reading or nighttime reading?

I’m one of those people that generally has a book in hand, regardless of where I’m at or where I’m going. I’ll read at anytime during the day, and just about anywhere, too.

Standalone or series?

Series, generally. If I enjoy the characters in one book, I’m generally quite pleased to find that I can read more about them later. My only gripe with this though, is that I wish authors would learn when to draw the line. Some series just go on too long. The Wheel of Time series comes to mind…

Favorite series?

I’ll join the lemmings and shout out Lord of the Rings. It never gets old. I haven’t read them in years, but for a while, I also enjoyed a few of the Dragonlance series as well. I recently tried to get into the Redwall series at the recommendation of a family member, but I just couldn’t get into the whole mouse thing. Fantasy creatures I have no problem with, but talking mice? No thank you.

Favorite book of which nobody else has heard?

Looking at the books I own, I don’t think I have any that are really obscure. I’m sure I have quite a few history books that the general populace hasn’t read, but I’m sure others have heard of them.

Favorite books read last year?

Lucifer’s Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, Awakening the Buddha Within by Lama Surya Das (which I’m rereading currently), The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla.

Favorite books of all time?

I’m hesitant to say it, because of how much I’ve already gushed about them, but oh well: Lord of the Rings is, by far, my absolute favorite series of books. Having started reading it at around 10, it has honestly shaped my entire character. It kicked off my interest in fantasy, as well as my interest in medieval history, which has since ballooned out to encompass all of history. On the nonfiction side of things, I’d have to say that Hitler by Joachim C. Fest was a great read. It really deepened my interest in the Second World War.

I won’t tag anyone, because I know most people hate it, but if you read the meme and you want to do it, feel free. It’s not like you need my permission anyway, right?