Pick-a-Shelf discussion
Welcome & Ice Breakers
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Introduce yourself
Wow, great intro, Jim. And I like your shelf pick. You're going to have us laughing all month!
Hello! I joined because I have a bad habit of only reading a couple of authors that I know I love. I need some diversity!!! Thanks for putting this group together! It sounds great!
Welcome to the group Trisha!! Hope you enjoy it as much as the rest of us!
Welcome to the group. It is definitely a great way to try new genres!
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Hello, my name is Steven. I'm 30-something, married with one child, and a fan of reading. I don't always spend as much time as I might like reading. Audiobooks have helped increase the number of books I've enjoyed recently. (While I rarely feel I have much time to read, listening to an audiobook can be done while I'm doing almost anything.) I'm a fan of Podiobooks.com and Librivox.org as they're both free.
What? Another married man with children? I was starting to think I was an accidental occurrence (you can just hold the comments from the peanut gallery). Glad to have you on board (pun intended).
Welcome Steven!! It is always exciting to have another member. Now if I can only get my husband to join the group!
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Jim - It is soooo tempting to become that peanut gallery!!
I'm glad to be here. I just have one wee one, and she's too tiny to do much reading yet. (She's one.) She enjoys being read to, and by all accounts she does enjoy books. She mostly loves to chew on them, but with time she'll be figuratively devouring them instead.Jim, I suspect that most of the current male reading population either have genre bias (and so are not interested in this group), or are not on the Internet -- let alone on this site. Is that your suspicion as well?
"Genre bias" - I love that, Steven. Welcome to the group!
Hahaha! My husband is pretty close on the genre bias!
Steven, most of the guys I know that do read, read a lot of speculative fiction (SF/F), some bestsellers, and a lot of biographies. I'd say that your 'genre bias' is a pretty good descriptor.As for 'on the internet', I don't agree with you on that. I think more men use the internet on a daily basis than women. But maybe that's just been my experience with my group of friends and acquaintances. I feel it is more of a site specific imbalance than a message board imbalance in general. Most of my photography boards or political boards I visit have a disproportionate number of men posting. They aren't quite as unbalanced as the GR community (not that I'm calling anyone unbalanced) but as still lopsided.
My "on the Internet" comment was influenced by the fact that my father sticks mostly to SciFi, while I have a grandfather that will pick up and read any book he finds sitting around. (Sometimes to the dismay of his grandchildren.) My grandfather has no interest in email, let alone anything more complex. I suspect that many of the readers of my grandfather's generation are similarly not picky about genre.I agree that the Internet, in general, has for many years had more men on it than women. Personally, I don't know whether this is still the case or not. I suspect that the more the Internet becomes an ordinary tool of communication (as opposed to a shiny new piece of technology) the more we'll see things settle out.
That being said, in American culture right now you do see some things being predominantly of interest to one gender or the other. I blame part of it on a broken concept of what it means to be a particular gender. The feminists have done great things for women, but it appears to have created a bit of a disgusting backlash among some men.
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Jim - as for unbalanced - it takes on to know one, lol. (the peanut gallery has awakened)
Welcome Steven, it is nice to have some new stimulating discussion. I'm sure you'll love this group, I've only been a member for a few months and I love it.
Hi, my name is Dylan and I love to read. I will read just about anything and I'm sure that I read everyday. I prefer to read fictional books and physical books to e-books, but I do enjoy reading fan fiction and excerpts of books online. Probably my favorite genre is young adult science fiction, I'd love to be able to write and publish a YA SF one day.
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http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/2...
This thread includes a link to the shelf we are reading off of.
Welcome Dylan! I hope you are able to write that book someday! Of the Science Fiction books I have read, the young adult ones have been my favorite!
Hello all,I'm Lauren from West Australia, aged 32, definitely a reader that gets stuck in genre for years at a time! Hope to break the habit decisively here (the latest pitstop has been YA vampire novels ).
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Welcome Lauren! You'll be unstuck before you know it!
Welcome Lauren! I have also read my share of YA vampire books. :)
Welcome, Lauren! We will definitely help you get unstuck! Or possibly just stuck in some other genre. :)
Hi I'm Karen,I'm 36 and live in Edinburgh U.K.I work as a Lab Tech in a school and while I can access this site on my work computer when I tried to take the What kind of Reader are you quiz it was blocked.That's right I work in a school that blocks access to a book site,afterall what have books got to do with schools.I picked this group because I tend to read crime and thrillers so hopefully i'll pick up addictions to a few more genres
Welcome to the group Karen! I'm sure this will help you expand your genres, or in many of our cases, find a new one for addiction!
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Might as well give this a try. Call me Bury, I am 16 and live in Indiana. Generally, I have always liked to read books. I am also helplessly addicted to the computer.As for favorite genre, I do not really have one. I used to love mysteries but now I do not read them much. I can't say I care for most other specific genres i.e. scifi/fantasy, romance, etc. Just general fiction or nonfiction for me. Things I can learn from are the best.
Do not always participate in the shelf challenge buuut I like to read the discussions.
Welcome Karen & Bury :0)What I really like about this group is you can participate any way you feel comfortable whether that be following discussions, monthly shelf reads, challenges or all of the above.
We just like having everyone here and chit chatting especially about books we enjoy.
:0)
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Welcome to the group Bury! The discussions are fun to follow in this group. I do have my good share of chuckles as I read sometimes. Mu family is from Indiana and my brother is at Purdue, right now. Try not to get too snowed in over there!
Hey im keely and i live in newcastle australia and i love reading. I love Vampire Academy series and Gallgher Girls and cannot wait till it comes out. I like the aussie books Girlfriend Fiction beacuse they are awesome. I Love reading Magic in Manhatten series and looking for parties and potions me and my friend cannot find it anywhere. Keely
Welcome Keely! I hope you have fun in this group.
hey everyone, I'm Emily. I'm 20 years old and a junior in college majoring in art and psychology (eventually art therapy). I'm new to the site but definately excited about it. I joined the group to help keep my selection well-rounded and I'm always interested in trying out new genres. Can't wait to get started!
Welcome Em :0)Art therapy sounds like a very interesting career path.
Welcome to the group, Emily!! I hope you enjoy this group as much as I do.
Mod
Hi there. I'm Jen, I've recently joined Goodreads as an author, but I also love to read, which is why the title of this group caught my eye. I'm mid forties, from Melbourne, and write erotic romance for Red Sage in the US. I read romance (of course!), paranormal, detective/mystery, young adult, historical, sci fi/fantasy, pretty much anything and everything fictionwise except horror, and probably not as much non-fiction as I should! Looking forward to seeing the chats/comments.
Welcome Jen! I hope you enjoy the group!
Pick-a-Shelf
Books mentioned in this topic
The Time Traveler's Wife (other topics)Little Women (other topics)
The Poe Consequence (other topics)
The Hunger Games (other topics)
Divergent (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Sarah J. Maas (other topics)Candice Fox (other topics)
J.D. Robb (other topics)
Patricia Briggs (other topics)
Kristin Hannah (other topics)
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Tara, I have not read Mona Lisa Awakening. But now that I've read some of the reviews, I just might. I admit that I started reading romance for the sex. Some are better than others in that regard. I often read a book together with my wife out loud. Anymore the books we read in this fashion are either very suggestive romance novels or outright erotica. I thought of choosing erotica as the shelf for the month but thought the backlash would be too strong. But who can argue with humor? (*No. I don't believe in smiling.* - not a very good argument, huh?)