I Don't want the World to See Me

Nabbed from genagirl

1. Do you snack while you read? If so, favorite reading snack?
While reading on the internet, yes, paper books, no. Sunflower seeds.

2. What is your favorite drink while reading?
My favorite drink for everything, Pepsi.

3. Do you tend to mark your books as you read, or does the idea of writing in books horrify you?
Write in a book? I don't even crease the spines when I am reading them. I work at a library and am constantly pissed off by writing (and food!) in books.

4. How do you keep your place while reading a book? Bookmark? Dog-ear? Laying the book flat open?
Bookmarks. Which I always lose. I have a hundred of them (literally) and sometimes can't find any.

5. Fiction, Non-Fiction, or Both?
Mostly fiction. Think I have read about 3 or 4 nonfiction in the past 2 years.

6. Are you a person who tends to read to the end of a chapter, or can you stop anywhere?
I try for a page break or chapter break if there is one available within a page and a half of when I need to stop. Otherwise, I stop at the bottom of a page (and turn my bookmark according to what side of the page I am on.)

7. Are you a person to throw a book across the room or on the floor if the author irritates you?
Nope. I just go to goodreads.com and bitch about it (like I did with the one I just finished, uugh!)

8. If you come across an unfamiliar word, do you stop and look it up right away?
No. If the word has heavy meaning to the book or a character, maybe, must most the time I don't care enough.

9. What are you currently reading?
I am only a few pages into it, but it is a YA novel called California Blue by David Klass.

10. What is the last book you bought?
For myself...*thinks* I normally use Paperbackswap.com and trade for books rather than buy them. Don't recall buying any this year. I do plan to buy some from K.A. Mitchell if I can find a deal (and some money under the cushions).

11. Are you a person that reads one book at a time, or can you read more than one?
One at a time. Any book that sucks enough for me to look at another, I never go back to them.

12. Do you have a favorite time/place to read?
Pretty much anywhere. I like reading in bed before I go to sleep, but that only lasts a few minutes until the cat is on me and wanting to sleep on my chest.

13. Do you prefer series books or stand-alones?
Mainly stand-alones. I have read many series in the past, and I do currently gobble up all of the Alex Cross books as they come out. I don't actively go seeking out one over the other.

14. Is there a specific book or author you find yourself recommending over and over?
K.A. Mitchell has impressed me after reading one of her books, so I just started going READ HER!! to people. Others in the past have been Bart Yates (OMFG, he needs to hurry up with his 4th book!!! I've actually e-mailed him to flail a little lol). And there are a few books by Michael Thomas Ford that I have enjoyed.

15. How do you organize your books? By genre, title, author's last name, etc?
I have two bookshelves. The one by my bed has mostly unread books on it (and I have a row of books on my desk which are the next in line to read). And my other shelf has books I have read and ones that I am trading on paperbackswap. The only organization on that one are m/m and books I have signed, and a few collections by fav authors.

Somehow, I thought organizing my books at 3am would be a good idea. It is now almost 5am.

At one point, my floor looked like this:

Notice the cat, looking oh so innocent. She enjoyed nudging the tallest stacks of books. When I was moving books off the shelf, it looked much worse than it does in that pic.
The stack of books closest and to the left of my computer are 10 or 11 David Gemmell books that I had been saving for...I dunno. Loved one of his series, so bought a bunch of them over the years, but none were as good as those first books and I have no urge to read them.

So, my way of 'organizing' was to put all the books I have not read on one bookshelf by my door, and all the books I had not read and want to on the bookshelf by my bed. Heh. It kinda worked.

I ended up with a huge pile of books I didn't want (and couldn't post to paperbackswap.com because they were falling apart) and those will be looked over by Mom and tossed. I also posted about 50 more to PBS...a lot older books that I had had when I was a kid (including 5 different versions of Huckleberry Finn)

After pictures (can click to make bigger if you want to try to read titles, lol):

The top row are some things I still need to go through (maybe when I actually have some books to fill that space with) and see what I want to keep. Most I have not read. Next 3 rows are all ones I have read and want to keep (except for the odd stack of books on the 4th row--those are ARCs that I have no other place for. And the last row (which you can barely see) are all ones I have posted to paperbackswap and am hoping to get rid of.



There is another row that I couldn't get in the picture...it is filled with stuffed animals and some foreign language books (spanish, sign language), and a coin collecting book. Next row are all my paperbacks (and a few others) with a second row behind--those books I will eventually end up reading. Summaries all looked good.
Next row=miscellanious crap. Some I have read, some not, and all those binders need to be sorted and tossed out. My flute sheet music is also in there somewhere, too.
The next row is the one I will be working my way through. I have about 3 books by my bed, then I will start in on these...no particular order to them yet. And a picture of RSL that daasgrrl sent me is sitting on top because I had no where else to put him for now...need to find wallspace somewhere :-)
Last row....stack of CDs I no longer want, my Harry Potter books, a binder I need to clean out and keep, and a box of stuff relating to my old computer that I put all in one place back when we were moving and thought I might need...haven't looked at it in 5+ years. So chances are I can get rid of it.

Bleh...past 5am. Bed time.
PS...I did a spellcheck on this before posting and it says there are no spelling errors....seriously?? How the hell did I manage that lol.

Back in February, I took a picture of my massive stack of books by my bedside. Since then, I have actually managed to work through most of them (all of the library books, anyway) and add a bunch more. So, here is a before and after:

Feb 2008,


June 2008,


On another note: Woot gay marriages!

The God Box by Alex Sanchez.

I just finished it a few minutes ago on my break. Wow.

It is about this guy, Paul who is a devote Christian. He has been dating Angie, his best friend since forever. But he doesn't have feeling towards her. He really starts to question his faith when he starts having dreams about other guys. He is from a very homophobic town/area. Then a new guy, Manuel, who is also a devote Christian, comes to school who is openly gay. They strike up a friendship, despite Paul's reluctance to have anything to do with him.


I just love this book. This is the best book if you are looking for a way to find proof that the bible does not look down upon homosexuality. Manuel quotes verses and discusses them with Paul.

This book is way better than his Rainbow Boy's Trilogy and way more intense.

Go. Read!!!

Yesterday, while at the library, I heard coworker mention a booksale at our mall to a patron. Our mall is crap, btw. It has 3 Sears branch stores, shoe store and....something else. But it is also where the new 10 screen theater is going, so YAY!
Anyway, as soon as I finished shelving my cart, I popped over. "Did someone say booksale?"

Every year or so, there is a large books sale of donated book and ex-library books. And on the last day of the sale, at 3, they have all the books for 1 buck a bag.

So I got there about 20 to 3 (was in town with dad, and he dropped me off to do a few other things while I drooled away over the books). 10 to 3, they handed out these paper grocery sacks. Okay, it was nuts with the flock of people everywhere. I was mainly grabbing a bunch of books for Mom (romance, ick) and a few odds and ends for me to toss up online. Filled one bag and was scooting it along the floor (guarding protectively), waiting for Dad to get back as I partially filled another. I should have grabbed a cart from Sears, but oh, well. Once Dad showed up, I asked him if he wanted to poke around nonfiction to see if he wanted anything. He took one look at the crowd and was. "O.O no" so we went up to pay. 2 bucks for 64 books :D
Looking at the fiction tables on the way out, and there were only little stacks of messed up books left. And a few random book pages o.o;;

When I got them home, I resorted out the romances for Mom, and the rest for me.

I joined this one site a month or two ago, and am loving it. www.paperbackswap.com You mail your books that you don't want to someone, and when they get it, you get a credit that you can 'spend' on a book of your own choice. Great way to get rid of things you no longer want. All you pay is shipping. And when you print out the mailing addy for the person to send your book to, that doubles as a mailing wrapper for normal sized paperbacks :D
They have two sister sites, www.swapadvd.com and www.swapacd.com that I have used a lot as well. And the credits can be swapped between sites. You can also buy credits...4.95 for DVDs and 3.95 for books. Which is still way cheaper than buying new, esp for dvds. Anywho, go check them out :D You get 2 free book credits when you post 10 books, and 1 free DVD/CD for posting 10 DVDs/CDs
And, if you join, please list me (amyflug at gmail dot com) as a referrer? :D
3 of the books I am keeping until I get a chance to read them, and 1 I can't trade because it is an advanced copy.

Sooo, that was my big excitement for the day.