New Meme

Is it “memo” with e, like a backwards e-mail? Or it refers to the memory funcition of passes along knowledge. Although this computer is my ancillary brain, I suppose I can buy that. These things seem to be dominating blogs these days. This is my first, and since I still cannot figure out how to run a SF book review site, a SF forum and a SF blog, maybe this will be a good way to figure it all out. Anywho, here goes:

This one’s called “All About Books” and I picked it up from Bill at From a Sci-Fi Standpoint; apparently this one has been passed around like a castrati at a Gothic kegger, meaning that I’m probably the last person to do this one. Here it is.

Hardback or trade paperback or mass market paperback?

Hardbacks for sure, even if I have have to go to a SFBC copy because the true first edition was a pb original. There is just something about a hardback that appeals to me.

Bookmark or dog-ear?

I wont buy a used hb if it has dog ears. No matter what.

Alphabetize by author or alphabetize by title or random?

I’m anal in my alphabetization. I currently have five or six new books to work in, and it really bothers me that I have not gotten to them yet.

Keep, throw away or sell?

I usually keep book around until I have decided whether or not I will ever read them again. If I won’t, I sell them for credit at my favorite local used-book store, Beer’s Books in Sacramento. Rarely will I give them away. I think that people should buy their own books. I used to give books as gifts, but I got tired of the plain stares I got when I asked the people I gave them to questions about the book later. They never read them, IOW. Plus, I’m a tightwad.

Keep dust jacket or toss it?

There is a special place in Hell for people who throw away dust jackets. I fully intend to ask God to let my wife out of it for throwing away a few dust jackets I had sitting on top of the bookshelf a few years ago.

Last book you bought?

Don A. Stuart’s (pseudonym for the legendary John W. Campbell) A New Dawn collection. Truly a great body of work.

Last book someone bought for you?

Last year for my birthday someone gave me a $50 gift card for Borders. I bought a bunch of books with that. Before that? I can’t remember for sure, but my boss buys me books all the time for professional development, and I read most of them. The last one was a treatise on insurance coverage law.

What are some of the books on your to-buy list?

Looking on my Amazon Wish List, I see the following: Four Ursula K. Le Guin books (The Birthday of the World, A Fisherman of the Inland Sea, The Wind’s Twelve Quarters, and Four Ways to Forgiveness), The Millennium, by Upton Sinclair, Aniara, An Epic SF Poem, by Harry Martinson, Kalki and Messiah, both by Gore Vidal, Fitzpatrick’s War, by Theodore Judson, The Atrocity Exhibition, by J.G. Ballard, and at least three pages of others. All of these (and everything on my list) is SF. I have been collecting SF by authors who you would never have suspected of writing SF before, as you can clearly tell.

Collection (short stories, same author) or anthology (short stories, different author)?

Again, Dangerous Visions, for sure. I collect these things as I go along, and I have read most of the major ones already. I want to read some more of the Orbit series, edited by Damon Knight. Three of the books I mentioned above by Le Guin are collections.

Harry Potter, Lemony Snicket, or the velvety embrace of Death?

A bullet in the head, please.

Morning reading, afternoon reading, or nighttime reading?

On the weekends I’m a nooner. Other than that, after I wrestle the tots off to bed.

The books you need to go with other books on your shelves?

I’ll get to it when I get to it. I prefer to buy books based on my more immediate wants and desires.

Do you read anywhere and anytime you can or do you have a set reading time and/or place?

I used to get a lot done on the crapper. Now I read in bed.

Do you have seasonal reading habits?

Who came up with this question?

Do you read one book at a time or do you have two or more books going at once?

I am currently in the middle of nine books, all in various states of completion. I keep notes of everything I want to note in my reviews/essays, and I have a life-long habit of reading multiple books at one time, so I’m good at keeping them all straight in my head.

What are your pet peeves about the way people treat books?

The lemming-like mentality of crowding around the “hottest new thing,” 99% of the time of which is usually the same re-tread crappola.

Name one book you surprised yourself by liking

The Martian General’s Daughter, by Theodore Judson. I got it as a freebie in the mail. I wound up adding a new favorite author to my list.

How often do you read a book and not review it on your blog? What are your reasons for not blogging about a book?

About 18 percent of the time, looking at my records for this year and last (the only years I have been reviewing them).