BBAW: You and Your Reading Habits

This is a meme - which I actually meant to do yesterday but my connection was sketchy - from BBAW regarding reading habits.


Answer one of the following questions or all of them in as few words as possible.


Do you snack while you read? If so, favorite reading snack?
Yep. Ginger Ale & Chips

Do you tend to mark your books as you read, or does the idea of writing in books horrify you?
Dog-ear favorite passages, highlighter only for school.

How do you keep your place while reading a book? Bookmark? Dog-ears?
Both, often at the same time.

Laying the book flat open?
Guilty-

Fiction, Non-fiction, or both?
Fiction.

Hard copy or audiobooks?
Hard copy.

Are you a person who tends to read to the end of chapters, or are you able to put a book down at any point?
Can put it down any moment, doesn't mean I will.

If you come across an unfamiliar word, do you stop to look it up right away?
Depends on the word.

What are you currently reading?
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart.

What is the last book you bought?
Death by Denim by Lisa Gerber.

Are you the type of person that only reads one book at a time or can you read more than one at a time?
Usually, two books at a time.

Do you have a favorite time of day and/or place to read?
Anytime is good, places: the bus.

Do you prefer series books or stand alone books?
Shortish series or stand alones. Don't like LONG series.

Is there a specific book or author that you find yourself recommending over and over?
The Bard Academy Series by Cara Lockwood, those books don't get enough credit!

How do you organize your books? (By genre, title, author’s last name, etc.?)
By how much I like them, books I didn't like too much go to higher, harder to reach shelves. Fave books go within arm reach, usually grouped by author, series and chronological order.

BBAW Blogger Interview Swap

As part of this year's BBAW, I participated in the Interview Swap, and I got to meet the lovely Hazra from Advance Booking and interview her. This is my first year participating on BBAW, so I was super excited about doing this interview with Hazra. Enjoy!

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Describe yourself in 10 words or less.
Talkative, fun-loving, sarcastic and quite crazy.

What made you want to blog? And, why books?
Well, I first started blogging because everybody I knew had a blog (you can’t really escape peer pressure anywhere, can you?). I didn’t want to have a journal-style blog or anything, because that seemed a little narcissistic to me. So I thought I’d blog about books because I read a lot. My conversation starter is usually “What book have you read lately?” And since there is only so many times you can tell your friends about what you read and how you found it, I thought the blog would be the best place for me to discuss about books at length without other people changing the subject.

What’s the last book you read that made you think ‘I have to tell someone about this book’?
That would be “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time”. I loved the book; the voice of the character was unique.

From your blog, I gathered you also like movies, what’s the best movie you have seen in the past year?
I’d say Wolverine and Star Trek; I’m a huge action movie fan. Among Hindi movies, it would be Kaminey.

Besides Movies and Books, what other hobbies or interests do you have?
I like listening to music, especially Indian classical music, which I find very soothing. I write a business blog Acerbiz, where I write about the latest developments in the corporate world. I also enjoy fiddling around with electronic circuits.

What are your favorite and least favorite book genres and why?
My favorite genre would be fantasy. I think that fantasy is a area where the author’s creativity is free to run amok. I really love reading about different worlds the authors think up. I also like literary fiction, because most of the books I’ve read have been very well-written.

I fall asleep over self-help books; I just find them very boring. I also don’t read much romance. I wouldn’t say I dislike the genre, but the few romantic books I’ve read disappointed me. There are exceptions, of course, I enjoyed Nicholas Sparks and Nora Roberts.

As to why, I grew up amidst male cousins, reading a lot of “guy” books: thrillers, mystery and the like, so romantic books haven’t been around. But you’ve given me quite a lot of recommendations which I must check out, so I’m not writing off romance as my least favorite.

What author, dead or alive, would you most like to meet?
I’d love to meet Roald Dahl; he’s one of my favorite authors.

Right now, what book are you eagerly waiting for?
Among new releases, I’m waiting to read Fire by Kristin Cashore (I haven’t read Graceling, but since this is a prequel, I don’t think there will be any loss of continuity), Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger and The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown.

Among other recent books, it would be The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Annie Barrows and Mary Ann Shaffer, The Hunger Games and Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins.

What’s the part you like the best about blogging?
I think I love meeting new people. The blogosphere has booklovers from around the world; talking with them and hearing what they have to say gives me a new perspective of things. And looking at how prolific some readers are, I’ve been inspired to read more.

Over all, how has your blogging experience been?
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

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Well, that's pretty much it for this post. Again, it was great fun to do this and I want to thank Hazra for the interview.



PS - Let me know about your own interviews by saying Hi! to Mr. Linky

Love Letters from a Duke by Elizabeth Boyle

Miss Felicity Langley has a goal in mind: to marry a Duke. Not just any old Duke will do, of course, she has her heart set on Lord Standon, heir to the Duke of Hollindrake, with whom she has been corresponding for near 4 years... or has she?

Certainly, Lord Standon stopped writing around the time his grandfather died and he became the new duke, but she's sure everything is an innocent oversight. They are practically engaged, anyway, and she's sure any moment he will come around and swept her off her feet. Conveniently, she has relocated to London along with her twin sister Tally and their dear cousin Pippen, and has 'borrowed' a house just a few blocks away from the Duke's.

The Duke in question, who really rather go by the name of Michael Thatcher, returned from Spain to find not only that he, the third son of a third son, was now the Duke but that his grandfather had practically betrothed him to Miss Langley. Not particularly intersted in marriage, Tatcher sets out to straighten things up with Felicity... only to arrive at her doorstep and be taken for a footman.

Thatcher knows he should tell Felicity the truth, but he also wants to find out what was on the letters Felicity wrote that made his very stuffy grandfather think she would make him a fine duchess and wife, so he sticks around, playing the part of footman as she gets to know Felicity with all her mad-cap notions and beguiling smiles.

This was the first Elizabeth Boyle book I have read and I was pleasantly surprised by it, it was full of humor and memorable characters. My only problem with it was that the mistaken identity plot went on for a little bit too much for my taste. But other than that the book is very enjoyable.

1/2

Practice Makes Perfect by Julie James

To say that Payton Kendall and J.D. Jameson do not get along would be an understatement, both of them are senior associates at one of Chicago's most prestigious law firms and have been at war with each other for nearly 8 years. Payton thinks J.D. is a spoiled, rich boy who got ahead in life thanks to his family's name and fortune, while J.D. thinks Payton is an uptight, tree-hugging feminist; and while they might be a little right about each other, they are a lot wrong.

When just a few weeks before they get to be made partners of the firm Payton and J.D. find themselves working together to lure in an important new client, everything can happen.

I've to say this is a very funny book, I didn't quite expect it to be so - even after reading Julie James' first book Just the Sexiest Man Alive - but I was happily surprised. Actually, at times it reads almost like an romantic comedy with a bit of old-Hollywood flair, and I mean that in the best sense.

The story is fast paced and it was very entertaining to see J.D. and Payton battle it out for the win and even act silly a time or two and, through it all, I liked them both.

Grade

Book Gossip (#16)

Book Gossip # 16 - A cover, a summary and a follow up. Plus a couple of heads up!

Well, okay, the cover and the summary are of the same book, Julie James' Something About You, due out March 2, 2010

FATE HAS THROWN TWO SWORN ENEMIES...
Of all the hotel rooms rented by all the adulterous politicians in Chicago, female Assistant U.S. Attorney Cameron Lynde had to choose the one next to 1308, where some hot-and-heavy lovemaking ends in bloodshed. And of all the FBI agents in Illinois, it had to be Special Agent Jack Pallas who gets assigned to this high-profile homicide. The same Jack Pallas who still blames Cameron for a botched crackdown three years ago - and nearly ruining his career...

... INTO EACH OTHER'S ARMS
Work with Cameron Lynde? Are they kidding? Maybe, Jack thinks, this is some kind of welcome-back prank after his stint away from Chicago. But it's no joke: the pair is going to have to put their rocky past behind them and focus on the case at hand. That is, if they can cut back on the razor-sharp jibes - and smother the flame of their sizzling-hot sexual tension...

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On a follow up to Book Gossip #15, it has been confirmed that Lisa Kleypas' upcoming books Married by Morning and Love in the Afternoon (the 'Me' in this title was a typo) are bout about the Hathaways - Leo and Beatrix respectively. I so can't wait.

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And, onto the heads up!

First, there are some good news about Maureen Johnson over at The Compulsive Reader.

And second, for those of you eagerly awaiting The Van Alen Legacy (which comes October 6), Melissa de la Cruz is posting Daily Mini-Exceprts of it via Twitter.

That's all!