It’s Thursday and you know what that means…another edition of Booking Through Thursday is here.

This week’s question is: What books do you have next to your bed right now? How about other places in the house? What are you reading?

As the old saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words…

(Apologies for the super-craptasical camera phone picture quality.)

Rundown of the books are: Reading Like A Writer by Francine Prose; The Eyes of the Amaryllis by Natalie Babbitt; Goody Hall by Natalie Babbitt; The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan; Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen; White Cat by Holly Black; Ash by Malinda Lo; Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater; The Invisible Gorilla by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons; A Wish After Midnight by Zetta Elliot; The Metamorphoses by Ovid (which is concealed); Bite Me by Christopher Moore; The Rural Life by Verlyn Klinkenborg; The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot; The Autobiography of an Execution by David R. Dow; and The Hollow by Jessica Verday.

And probably not surprisingly, I also have a stack of books on the floor near my bed, but I’ll spare you. As for having books in other places in the house, um…of course. An easier question would be, where don’t I have books?

Right now my reading is rotating between three books. Having finished The Unwritten Rule on Sunday and slated to complete Dork Diaries (Book 2) today, I will be working Shade by Jeri Smith-Ready into the mix with Stolen by Lucy Christopher and Rumor Has It by Jill Mansell. (I’m a mood-based reader, hence the seemingly random book pool.)

It’s Thursday and you know what that means…another edition of Booking Through Thursday is here.

This week’s question is: Plots? Or Stream-of-Consciousness? Which would you rather read?

Plots.

Unless the author’s stream of consciousness is phenomenal and offers some redeeming quality like insightful character development or makes me ponder something greater than myself such as life, death, or love.

In fact, I’d love to hear about any great stream-of-consciousness stories if anyone has read one. Maybe I might change my mind about it.

It’s Thursday and you know what that means…another edition of Booking Through Thursday is here.

This week’s question is: Do you take breaks while reading a book? Or read it straight through? (And, by breaks, I don’t mean sleeping, eating and going to work; I mean putting it aside for a time while you read something else.)

The default answer (for everything, it seems) is: It depends. Sometimes a book is so gripping that taking a break is near impossible—it even trumps eating and sleeping. For the most part though, I take breaks.

It’s like I have adult ADD or something. But really I’m just a mood-based reader. Sometimes I’m in the mood for something light and fun, other times I want something solid and pensive, then I might want frightening. It all boils down to what I’m in the mood to read at any given moment.

Right now, I’m actually alternating between three different books: two fiction (supernatural fantasy and coming of age drama) and one non-fiction (true crime). For the most part, I try not to read within similar genres. So if I’m already reading a supernatural fantasy, I won’t read another one along side it—mainly so I don’t mix them up.

Frankly, though, I’ve become insane with keeping reading notes which means I don’t need to worry about mixing storylines anyway. (This would require a complete post of its own…which is on my schedule, so look for it soon.)

It’s Thursday and you know what that means…another edition of Booking Through Thursday is here.

This week’s question is: Which do you prefer? Lurid, fruity prose, awash in imagery and sensuous textures and colors? Or straight-forward, clean, simple prose?

Florid or unadorned prose? It’s a difficult decision to make if you enjoy both. But, my preference often depends upon mood and whether said florid prose shifts into the realm of purple and whether the unadorned prose is so sparse as to remove all color.

Two good examples to illustrate my point are The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle (review) and I heart you, You haunt me by Lisa Schroeder (review). (Bet you thought I was going to say Shakespeare and Hemmingway, didn’t you?) I enjoyed both of these books although the former was especially florid:

The unicorn lived in a lilac wood, and she lived all alone. She was very old, though she did not know it, and she was no longer the careless color of sea foam, but rather the color of snow falling on a moonlit night. But her eyes were still clear and unwearied, and she still moved like a shadow on the sea.

While the latter was spare in its language:

I pull out the bikini.
The one Jackson bought me.
The one I wore that day.

I can’t wear it.
I won’t wear it.
Never
ever
again.

I should throw it away.
But Jackson gave it to me.
It’s the last thing he gave me.
So I’ll keep it.
But I won’t wear it.

To me, it all boils down to deftness of the writer and whether I’m in the mood to savor a book or devour it.

It’s Thursday and you know what that means…another edition of Booking Through Thursday is here.

This week’s question is: How do you feel about illustrations in your books? Graphs? Photos? Sketches?

Looking around here (especially considering I just published a book review featuring my own illustration), you might have already figured out my answer, and for the most part you’d be right. But the extended answer would be, it depends.

Do the illustrations/graphs/photos/sketches bolster the story? Are they well done? Are they unobtrusive? And probably the most important question is whether it’s a picture book or tutorial—if the answer is yes, then I most certainly expect some illustrations.

Sometimes I’ll even seek out a book because of its illustrations (or artist) and some of my favorite reads of late are graphic novels.

The pictures often help to spark my own creativity.

It’s Thursday and you know what that means…another edition of Booking Through Thursday is here.

This week’s question is: …do you have any grammar books? Punctuation? Writing guidelines? Style books? More importantly, have you read them? How do you feel about grammar in general? Important? Vital? Unnecessary? Fussy?

This is a subject near and dear to my heart. I could go on forever, but I’ll try to restrain myself.

To answer the first part of the question, I do. While I was organizing and cataloging my books, I decided to organize and catalog my writing, grammar, and style guides separately and learned I had somewhere around twenty (not including books on the craft of writing or storytelling). And yes, I’ve read them. In fact, I refer to some of them on an almost daily basis.

To answer the second part of the question, yes, I do feel grammar is important. It’s more important than some people realize because we often don’t notice it until it’s egregiously bad. Good grammar helps convey a message with ease. Poor grammar, however, stymies it.

With the proliferation of texting, instant messaging, tweeting, and other mediums which limit the amount of time devoted to crafting a grammatically correct message, it’s as though we get to watch grammar die a slow and painful death at the hands of technology.

People may say grammar doesn’t matter as long as the point gets across, and to a degree that’s true. Grammar doesn’t need to be perfect all of the time (and I’ll be the first to admit I have my moments), but it’s important to be mindful of how your grammatical choices enhance or detract from your writing. It takes more mental power to process a passage that uses poor grammar than one which uses good grammar.

It’s Thursday and you know what that means…another edition of Booking Through Thursday is here.

This week’s question is: What’s the best book you’ve read recently? (Tell me you didn’t see this one coming?)

This was a tough decision to make. I’ve read some mediocre books of late, but I’ve read some great ones too and I was having a difficult time choosing between them.

But the winner by a few points is The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan. (Coming in a close second is Generation Dead by Daniel Waters.)

I adored reading The Lightning Thief and its characters and adventuring with Percy. When I finished the book, I was breathless and in a mild state of awe wondering why I had waited so long to start this series. (It’s kind of like Harry Potter in that sense…you’re beating yourself up for being literarily lazy.)

The review is in the queue. Shame on me for still being lazy.

It’s Thursday and you know what that means…another edition of Booking Through Thursday is here.

This week’s question is: What’s the worst book you’ve read recently? (I figure it’s easier than asking your all-time worst, because, well, it’s recent!)

I didn’t have to think too long to find an answer to this question…the prize would have to go to The Well by A. J. Whitten.

Usually I don’t finish books if I feel I will dislike them (since life is far too short to suffer bad books), but I was actually looking forward to reading The Well since I knew A. J. Whitten was Shirley Jump’s pseudonym and during the reading I kept praying it would get better. It didn’t.

The book has not yet been released, so I still have hope that it will go through at least one more round of editing.

It’s Thursday and you know what that means…another edition of Booking Through Thursday is here. This week’s question is:

• Hardcover? Or paperback?
• Illustrations? Or just text?
• First editions? Or you don’t care?
• Signed by the author? Or not?

The answer to all of the above questions is it depends.

Frankly, I prefer softcover and paperback books to hardcover, simply because they’re easier for me to hold and tote around. But, when it’s something I want to keep on bookshelf display, then it’s hardcover all the way.

I don’t much care for illustrations unless they’re done in a flavor I enjoy. There are a multitude of artistic styles and if one doesn’t speak to me, I don’t want to look at the pictures taking up precious space in my book. In that vein, I’ll have a look at the illustrated versus plain text edition before making my decision. (Sometimes, however, price can factor into the equation.)

I’m certain there are a few first edition books around here, but it’s not something I look at when I pick up the book…except when I’m purchasing a book from a thrift store. Old books are quite interesting to me and when they’re only a quarter a pop, I can’t resist. (I actually have a copy of Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court from 1917, though not a first edition. But still…)

This may come as a shock to some of you, but I don’t actually have any autographed books (that I know if…I do have a lot of books). Getting one is on my high priority list, but I’d prefer it be from one of my favorite authors or an author who has touched me favorably with their words in some way. There you have it, my dirty little secret is out of the bag.

It’s Thursday and you know what that means…another edition of Booking Through Thursday is here. This week’s question is:

Do you read any author’s blogs? If so, are you looking for information on their next project? On the author personally? Something else?

I do read author blogs. It’s mainly just to see what they think about, how they write, and glean any valuable insights they may be willing to dispense. And sometimes an author’s blog is just downright hilarious.

Basically, since I enjoy writing, it interests me to see how others approach the craft. Where inspiration comes from, what boundaries they set, what obstacles they overcame, and so forth. It’s rather voyeuristic, now that I think about it.