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SUMMER READING PART 1

As some of you know I love books. There is a reason I generally do not go into bookstores, and that reason is my finances. If I could I would love to go to a bookstore every single day. My will power is not that great, so I have to steer away. I have eventually realised that even while staying away from bookstores I still buy more books in a year than many people do in their entire lives.  That in itself, that some people buy so few books in their lives, is a scary thought to me.

Even though I cancel nearly every monthly book, I am a member of two book clubs. I won’t hide that it was because of the five free books you got when joining, and the gift cards they send out if you extend your membership. I have always viewed these clubs as clubs for those who like to read a lot, presuming that the members did not blindly let a book dump into their mailboxes every month and read only that book.

If that is the case, they might want to rethink their marketing. I got an e-mail from one of the clubs titled: “Have you found your summer book yet?”

Let’s think about this one. The summer is generally seen to consist of three months, June, July and August, although I presume they mean only July as it’s the holiday month around here. Still, looking at the three-month perspective as the summer is in no way just July, it’s one book for three months. Isn’t that awfully little reading for a time when most people have several weeks off?

Very rarely, and only if I based myself on a lot of rereading of old books, have I bought less than three new books in the summer. Mostly it’s around five, but I read far more than that. This year I bought 10 books, as well as having around 8 or 9 left from my massive book shopping in London in March and will buy (probably) well over 15 on my next trip to London in August.

I just cannot fathom that it’s possible to read only one book in the summer.

I can understand wanting to read more but having a hectic holiday. I can, however, not understand not even trying to read more than one.

I am probably reading way too much into this, I know, blowing it out or proportions. It really is just a small annoyance that I need to get out of my system. It’s just that book clubs are meant to be for book lovers, but it seems to me that they are alienating those who should be the core of the club. In fact I feel more alienated for every ad they send out, because it assumes that you should not read large quantities of books. It’s like those book snobs that think that if you don’t read cutting-edge, extremely artistic books you might as well not read at all. Yes, I want quality books, but I also want quantity.

SUMMER READING PART 2:

What are the books you have read this summer or are planning to read? How many? Do you have a book challenge for yourself (like reading Ulysses) or a series you want to finish? What have you read so far?

My own plans are finishing all the books I bought during my last trip to London, and preferrably also the books I bought this holiday.

Currently I am reading the Night Watch Trilogy by Sergej Lukyanenko. I loved the first book, and I’m now about 150 pages into the last one, Twilight Watch. Not so sure I like the last two as much as the first one. Also I have to say that I absolutely cannot understand those who (on the back of the book of course, if you want to put trust in those quotes at all) compare him to J.K.Rowling. The ONLY things similar are that both are about magic, and both are taking place in the current times and with the magicians being sort of organized and hiding themselves from the non-magicians. That’s IT. Enough to warrant a comparison? No way. The mood, pace and feel of the books are vastly different.

I am also planning to read “Katherine” buy Elizabeth Seton (I think that was her first name) and the rest of the books by Jacqueline Carey, that is, if I can get hold of the last two I lack. Also I bought the Artemis Fowl series and the Septimus Heap series (yay for young adult fantasy when it comes to summer reading) which I plan to start pretty soon. There’s also Polgara the Sorceress and Belgarath the Sorcerer by David Eddings, I bought them in London but haven’t read them yet.

Which reminds me, I really have to put all my books into the book database program I have so that I know which series I haven’t finished and in which series I lack some books. THAT is annoying, having for example the first, third and fourth in a series but being unable to find the second so you can read the last two. Bonus points if it’s really a boring series that you just want to finish up.