The ‘How I Choose My Books’ Tag

~ Bookstooge

Thanks to the Orangutan Librarian for putting this tag on my radar. Didn’t want to write a review after a day of setting granite bounds all day, so this was mindless fun.

 

 

Find a book on your shelves or ereader with a blue cover. What made you want to pick up this book?

battlefield_earth_book_coverBattlefield Earth by L. Ron. Hubbard

I first read this in the 90’s and it was my first 1000 page book. You never forget your first time.

 

Think of a book you didn’t expect to enjoy, but did. Why did you read it in the first place?

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Twilight

I read it because it was popular and I still cared about knowing what was popular.  And I did enjoy it. Enough that I read the sequel and that is the book that made me rage.

 

Stand in front of your bookshelf with your eyes closed and pick up a book at random. (I had Mrs Bookstooge pick a random number from between 1-3000 and chose the one it corresponded to in my calibre library) How did you discover this book?

candidate-for-goddessCandidate for Goddess

A small manga series that I read back in 2007. I was on a manga kick for that whole year and was devouring everything that our local library had.

 

Pick a book that someone personally recommended to you. What did you think of it?

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The Great Darkening

My good friend Jefferson asked me to read this, as he knew the guy. It was pretty bad and I had to say so. Thankfully, I don’t know the author, so it was no problem on my part.

 

Pick a book that you discovered through YouTube / book blogs. Did it live up to the hype?

cover

Three by Jay Posey

KrazyKiwi had reviewed this on Booklikes and while it sounded a little off my taste, I tried it. Turned out to be some of the best reading I’d done in a long time. Posey shot up to the top of my radar very quickly.

 

Find a book on your shelves or ereader with a one-word title. What drew you to this book?

71tnypdat0lHogfather by Terry Pratchett

I was doing my initial readthrough of the Discworld novels and this one was pretty much the best. The only one I’ve got in hardcover I believe.

 

What book did you discover through a film / TV adaptation?

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Jumper by Steven Gould

Watched the horrible movie with Anakin Pukewalker and Rachel Bilson [hubba hubba] and figured I should check out the source material. All 3 books in the series turned out to be pretty good.

 

Think of your all-time favourite book/s. When did you read these and why did you pick them up in the first place?

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Way-farer by Dennis Schmidt

Best. Book. Ever. Read this in highschool when I saw it in the SF section at our local library. Spaceships and a dude with a sword in a pose that even I knew was Japanese? How could I NOT pick that up?

29 thoughts on “The ‘How I Choose My Books’ Tag”

    1. Yep, it’s a monster!

      I thought 3 was the best of the trilogy myself. Posey’s new milscifi series, while pretty good, doesn’t have the originality that I found in the duskwalker books.

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  2. Candidate for Goddess!! I watched the anime and loved it – They even showed it on German free TV back then.

    I didn’t know ‘Jumper’ was based on books. Agree that the movie was rubbish, I didn’t even finish it, waste of my time.

    I will still this tag.

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  3. Cool exercise here. Maybe I’ll try it.

    I haven’t heard of Schmidt or Wayfarer, but it looks intriguing! If only I didn’t have so much on my plate already…Still, I may add it to my Amazon list for later. 😉

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    1. Well, I DO highly recommend it. I highly doubt it will impress you the way it does me, as my foundation for it was laid in my middle/highschool years, but it is a fun book.

      What kind of system do you have for your tbr? Anything organized or a potluck of whatever catches your eye?

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      1. Mostly it’s my mood, but sometimes it’ll be influenced by what others inside “my circle” are reading online. Sometimes if something looks cool or if I want to do a duo-review I’ll skip a book to the head of the queue!

        Do you have a system?

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        1. I DO have a system, thanks for asking 😀

          Last year I selected 10 series that I wanted to re-read. I added them to my kindle along with all the series that I am currently reading. So I have approximately 25 series going. I simply cycle through them, whether I “feel” like reading a particular book or not. 25 gives me a good break between so I never get burnt out.

          At the same time, whenever I see an interesting book or books, I’ll add it to my Calibre library [calibre is an ebook manager] with the “tbr” tag. Once I finish a series on my kindle, I delete it and add the next series [by date] from Calibre. It takes about 90% of the “feels” out of things. I do have a “High Priority” collection that I use for books I want to make sure I read within a reasonable amount of time. Sungrazer was one such book.

          Aren’t you glad you asked? 😀

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  4. Love that you did this! And I did enjoy the first Twilight, for all its faults- but maaannn it went downhill massively in the second one- and when a mediocre series crashes and burns it’s just horrific to read. Hogfather is so good! And I watched the movie Jumper too- though Anakin may be a horrible actor, he has a great face 😉 I do plan to pick up the books at some point!

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    1. Technically, it is more of a 3000 review library than straight up ebooks. If it were books I strictly owned, that would have cut things down. Our personal collection is closer to 2K…

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        1. a friend of mine, saying: “tens de ler este livro! é um espectáculo!” (you gotta read this book! It’s awesome!”).
          Utter drivel! I almost did not finish it…

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  7. I totally agree with your comment about Twilight! I’m not really one for the whole vampire hype but the series was SOOO popular and with the movie coming out I felt that I absolutely had no choice but to fall into the circle and read it.
    Likewise, I wasn’t expecting much more than some freaky chick falling for an awkward vampire which is, in a nutshell, exactly what happens. However, all the situations and characters that surround the premise were so enchanting, I thoroughly enjoyed the book to the point of quickly finishing off the series in a matter of a couple weeks!
    I look forward to reading more of your posts in the future… Happy Reading 🙂

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