Alycia's comments
(member since Nov 14, 2008)
Alycia's comments from the The Next Best Book Club group.
(showing 1-20 of 23)
Snape and Neville from Harry Potter
Eric Northman and Sam Merlotte from Dead After Dark
Faramir and Sam from Lord of the Rings
Jacob Black from Twilight
There are more, I'm sure, but these are the ones I love most.
Questions
1) The worst reading experience that you have ever had?
“Forced” reading – reading assignments in high school. I hated almost all the books that were required and did not succeed in my English classes because of that
2) The best reading experience you have ever had?
Reading the Harry Potter series. It literally changed my life. I have become so emotionally involved in the characters and can identify with many of the characters and situations.
3) Which book has affected or influenced you the most so far?
Harry Potter – all, but mostly Deathly Hallows
4) Have you ever read a book that you got really scared of?
I have never really been “scared” by a book, but I have had chills when reading “true account” ghost stories.
5) What do you use as a bookmark?
Bookmarks mostly, but sometimes I’ll use a rubber band.
6) When do you usually read? At home, work, while cooking, in the morning, noon, afternoon, before you go to bed...?
Anytime I can sit still. At home, in bed, at the park, in the front or back yard, waiting in line at stores
7) Do you remember the first book that you read?
No, but I have always been surrounded by books and I can remember always having them around.
8) Which do you prefer - paperback or hardcover?
Paperback – much easier to travel with.
9) What are you currently reading? What page are you on?
I usually triple- or quadruple-book. Today I started on my holiday books, so I have 3 going at once. Eggnog Chronicles, Twelve Dates of Christmas, Christine Feehan Holiday Treasury
10) Do you ever leave "a mark" (deliberate and/or not deliberate) in your books? For example, write in them, underline quotes, coffeemarks or food crumbs and etc.
I don’t ever write in my books, or leave marks on purpose. Many of my books are stained with spaghetti sauce, coffee, guacamole, and other stains.
11) Does the title, amount of pages and the cover affect you when you are considering a specific book?
The amount of pages doesn’t affect my reading decision. Sometimes I get stuck on a title if it doesn’t sound interesting, but that doesn’t stop me from learning about the story.
12) Do you ever browse through to the last pages in order find out the ending?
No, I don’t like spoilers!
13) Have knowing the ending of a book (example, through spoilers or a movie) ever made you decide whether you will read the book or not?
The endings of movies haven’t influenced my decision to read the books, but if the movies are interesting enough I will read the books. I saw HP and LOTR before reading the books.
14) Is there a book that you have read more than five times?
I am on my fifth round of reading Harry Potter, am currently on OOTP.
15) Have you ever been in an accident where the book was the cause? (for example, almost getting hit by a car when reading while walking, or having stacks of books falling on you from a bookshelf...)
No, not an accident, but I was as Barnes & Noble one time during a pretty sizable earthquake and all the shelves were moving and the overhead signs were swaying!
16) Do you sell/give away your books or do you keep them, even though you don't like one of them?
I keep a lot of my books, and donate the ones I didn’t care for to the Friends of the Library or give to friends.
17) Do you bring with you the book when needing to use the toilet? Do you ever read in the bathroom?
No
18) Do you have some kind of book system, where you write down what you are reading, have bought, will read, will buy and etc? (goodreads doesn't count ;))
I used to keep an Excel spreadsheet with my ratings and notes but I haven’t done that in a long time.
19) Do you keep a reading diary/journal?
No, not so much a journal, but I made a “Book of Books” which is a scrapbook of book covers, bookmarks, quotes about books, lists of banned and challenged books, etc
I'm a series fan, especially mysteries.
Some of my favorites:
Harry Potter
Lord of the Rings
Twilight
Dead After Dark (Sookie Stackhouse)
The Princess Diaries
Pirates of the Caribbean: Jack Sparrow
the Aurora Teagarden series
Wine Lover's Mystery series
Cleo Coyle's Coffeehouse Mysteries
John J Lamb's Teddy Bear series
Michelle! I didn't even think about Jack Sparrow as a book crush. Good one!
Carly Alexander, THE EGGNOG CHRONICLES
Catherine Hapka, THE TWELVE DATES OF CHRISTMAS
Lisa Plumley, HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS
Janet Dailey, MISTLETOE AND MOLLY
Christie Rigeway, MUST LOVE MISTLETOE
Jennifer Crusie, SANTA BABY
Shirley Rousseau Murphy, CAT DECK THE HALLS
Kerrelyn Sparks, ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS A VAMPIRE
Christine Feehan, A HOLIDAY TREASURY
I am in your age range and I very much enjoy young adult books. I love the Twilight saga, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings. Right now I am reading The Princess Diaries series and am on the most current book, Princess Mia.
I like to read the lighter stories in between reading some heavy-duty stories, or taking a break from an intense book to enjoy the younger crowd.
I love both the library and the bookstore. I like to "collect" my books and "decorate" with them after I read them. I buy used books, Friends of the Library books, sales and closeouts, and use coupons and membership cards.
Operandi - Well said! I look past the cover because it's the text inside that tells the story.
I've only read 12 from that particular list.
I only counted Harry Potter once as it was only listed a a series, otherwise that would have given me 7 entries.
Same with LOTR, I read the series and on that list it's only one entry.
I do have a few of those on my bookshelf and one on my "to buy" list on my next bookstore trip which is scheduled for tomorrow.
Yummy. I love ramen. I usually drop an egg in to cook with it. At least it adds a bit of protein.
Sometimes I will add some chopped zucchini or sliced mushrooms, makes a nice soup.
I have done this a bit. It's not an illness! My father is in construction and growing up wherever we went, he would talk about materials used, or critique the craftmanship. Whatever your passion, it's fun to indulge!
I'm usually the hostess for parties/holidays/gatherings so I just look at my shelves. When I do visit someone with a library, of course I like to see their book choices.
Carrie Fischer - Postcards from the Edge. It was just rereleased two weeks ago.
Dewey the Library Cat - such a sweet story, I totally cried
The Soloist by Steve Lopez. This is a really good story, the reader gets insight into Skid Row and a look at the mind of a schizophrenic. The movie will be out this month.
My 2 favorite fruits:
Avocado and pineapple
Tell me your two best compliments you have received.
1) About customers... there is a funny line in the movie MALLRATS:
Brodie: "The customer is always right."
Shannen: "The customer is always an @**hole"
After having worked in retail over ten years, this rings so true!!!
2) I am lucky to have a good number of used book stores in the area, but they tend to be hit-or-miss. There is a fabulous children's bookstore not too far away and I love it! It reminds me of "Shop Around The Corner" another poster mentioned earlier, the shop from "You've Got Mail." They have the best selection of kids' books, and some great puzzles and games. I love going in there.
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. I read this in Starbucks, read some in Borders and it totally made me laugh. People gave me looks, wondering what I was up to. "Major Major." OMG, hilarity!
Hocus Pocus by Kurt Vonnegut. Lots of funny parts.
Last night I bought ANCHORS AWEIGH . The author's name escapes me right now. It's a romantic comedy involving a pirate. Should be fun! My box collection of Sookie Stackhouse arrived yesterday so I will be enjoying that for a few days.
My bookshelves are so full that I have them in two deep, so they are pushed back and pushed forward! The ones I wasn't too ecstatic about are in the back, and the ones I liked a lot are in the front. I don't put a book on my shelf until I have read it.
Emilee - There is another good vampire series for teens, the Vampire Kisses by Ellen Schreiber.
There are also some fun Romantic Comedies made for teens by Simon and Schuster. I have read many of them and they are very clean, very appropriate for tweens and teens.
And I have been writing about The Princess Diaries in many of my posts. If you have seen the movies but not read the books, the movies are Disney and very "disneyfied." The books are a bit more mature but so far not graphic or vulgar. (I'm on Book 6)
Jacob from Twilight
Bill and Sam from Dead Until Dark
Snape - I love Snape but don't care much for Alan Rickman
I also love Neville and Oliver Wood.
Boromir, Faramir, Eomer, Aragorn, Legolas, Haldir, Pippin, Samwise... LOTR is full of hotties.
Detective Quinn from the Through The Grinder (Coffeehouse Mystery series)
Michael Moscovitz from the Princess Diaries series
I am currently reading The Princess Diaries by Meg cabot. I'm on Book 6 and am really enjoying it.
I am also currently reading the Pirates of the Caribbean Jack Sparrow series. They give the history of Jack which leads up to his adult life. They are very fast - I can finish them in an hour or two. I'm on Book 11 and having fun with it.
Twilight and Harry Potter are at the top of my list. Some consider The Lord of the Rings to be young adult. The Hobbit is in the children's section in the big bookstores.
