Ten Bookish Pet Peeves

I'm linking up with That Artsy Reader Girl for another Top Ten Tuesday.

As far as I can tell from going back through my archives, this is a new one! This week we're talking about our bookish pet peeves. Here are ten of mine!

1. Books that are only available in hard copy
The only books I intentionally read in hard copy nowadays are those with a major visual component, like graphic novels. Otherwise it's very hard for me to find time to sit down and read a print book. Most of my reading is done via audiobook while I'm doing tasks around the house, and the rest is via ebook, which I can read on my phone standing in line at the store or at night on my backlit Kindle screen under the covers where it won't wake the baby. So if I want to read something but it's not available in digital formats, I need to really want to read it.

2. Books that would have been fantastic if they'd just been edited a little better
It's so frustrating when I read a book and think, "This would be fantastic if it weren't for [the constant typos / the inconsistent details / that one plot line that didn't make any sense]." As someone who's done developmental editing as well as proofreading, it's clear to me when a little more attention from a careful editor could have made the book a 5-star read but that just didn't happen.

3. Characters who make irrational or out-of-character decisions to move the plot along
Characters don't have to make the decisions that I would have made, but I need to understand why they're making the decisions they are. I get annoyed when characters suddenly choose to do something that's convenient for the plot but has no rational explanation or is completely at odds with the person we know them to be up to that point.

4. Children whose maturation is wildly out of sync with their supposed age
Look, I have a developmentally delayed kid, and I get that not all kids develop at the same rate, but if a kid is acting way younger or older than their age, I expect it to be commented on. To take one example (The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry), why is a seemingly average 2-year-old being propped up with pillows and spoonfed and then called "exceptionally verbal" when at 3 years she's speaking single words? Or maybe there's a kid whose speech patterns and behavior suggest they're in elementary school, and then after only a few years have passed in the story they're celebrating their 18th birthday. In this kind of situation I spend way too much time flipping back, trying to figure out if I missed something.

5. Excessive focus on a character's identity or difference
I am all for character diversity, and I also think there's a place for books that are specifically meant to teach about certain identities or experiences. I get annoyed when these attributes are slapped on characters in lieu of giving them a personality or when the book dwells unnecessarily on how unusual this aspect of the person is. Go read Writing With Color and get yourself some sensitivity readers!

6. Hints about an epic plot twist that never materializes
This has happened to me multiple times now! The author drops hints here and there that all seem to point to a potential twist or plot resolution, and I get excited when I think I've figured it out, and then... nothing. The plot is predictable, the resolution is a trope, and none of the hints are ever explained. So annoying!

7. Nonfiction authors who make assumptions about their readers
I know Sheryl Sandberg gets a lot of crap for Lean In, but I personally appreciated how explicitly she laid out the narrow audience her book was for. It's much more frustrating to me when a career or self-help book is purportedly for "everyone" but is actually addressed to people who share a multitude of characteristics with the author. Or the many parenting books that assume throughout that the reader is a woman who is married to a man and who physically birthed the child herself, even if they include a throwaway sentence about how "dads can get something out of the book too"!

8. Plot twists that I figure out hundreds of pages before the characters do
I enjoy the feeling of putting together the pieces and guessing what's going to happen, but I prefer to figure it out just a few steps ahead of the characters. If I've figured out a key plot twist early on and then I have to wait for the entire rest of the book for everyone else to catch on, I spend the whole time going, "Why hasn't anyone figured this out yet? Is the reader supposed to know something the characters don't or did I just figure this out really early? Am I wrong? [Usually not.] Can we hurry up and get to the reveal already?"

9. Quotations inserted as full sentences without a clear source (except for an endnote)
This is a major pet peeve of mine with nonfiction books. Rather than saying "As so-and-so said" or "According to such-and-such article" some authors will just put entire sentences in quotation marks in the middle of their writing with no context except for a footnote or endnote that you have to stop and look up. Either invite the other writers into conversation with your text by referencing them by name, or put more effort into synthesizing their ideas into your own thesis, even if that means not directly quoting the great way they expressed an idea.

10. Switching between past and present tense without a clear reason
Some books intentionally have alternating timelines that are told with different verb tenses, which isn't my favorite, but it can work fine. But sometimes this fluidity of tenses serves no clear purpose and leads to confusion, and sometimes (along the lines of #2 above) verb tenses will even switch mid-sentence because the author and the editor(s) weren't paying close enough attention. It's so distracting!

What are some of your bookish pet peeves?

Looking back:
One year ago I was reading: The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Sabriel
Five years ago I was reading: All Creatures Great and Small, Adoption Parenting, and The Guns of August
Ten years ago I was reading: Global Wording

Top Ten Books to Get You Out of a Reading Slump

I'm linking up with That Artsy Reader Girl for another Top Ten Tuesday.

Some housekeeping first: I can not get Disqus to send me notifications as of my last three blog posts. It just stopped working, and Disqus will not provide personal troubleshooting unless you're a paid customer, which is ridiculous. So I apologize for not realizing I was getting comments on here! If anyone has any suggestions (besides disabling and re-enabling notifications, which I already tried), please let me know!

Most avid readers have had the experience at least once of getting into a reading slump. For me, this looks like making excuses to do other things rather than pick up any of the books I'm currently reading. When I do pick up a book, I can't focus on reading because it's not holding my attention. In those times, it's great to pick up a book that sucks you in and can be read in a couple of days. Here are ten of my recommendations if you find yourself in a reading slump.

1. The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson
This book is like Forrest Gump meets Ocean's Eleven where Forrest is now 100 years old. After a century of unwittingly getting involved in most of the major world events, our protagonist leaves his nursing home and falls in with a group of small-time criminals. It's bizarre and funny and the characters are delightful, and the book never takes itself too seriously.

2. Bossypants by Tina Fey
This is the female comedian memoir that every female comedian has tried to emulate since it came out. It's both funny and fascinating, a good combination of jokes, true stories, and life advice that you'll eat up in no time.

3. Dangerous Girls by Abigail Haas
A suspenseful thriller is one good option for getting out of a reading slump. This book is narrated by a high schooler accused of murdering her best friend, told in nonsequential passages flashing between the fatal Spring Break trip and the trial. It's definitely young adult (having my book club of mostly older adults read it was an adventure) but I loved it.

4. The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart
Frankie isn't allowed to join her school's secret society because she's female, but she finds a way to infiltrate it and pull the strings to get the guys to do her bidding and pull off subversively feminist pranks. It's a fast-paced, suspenseful book as you wait to see if and how Frankie will get caught, and also a great read about some of the less-obvious consequences of a patriarchal society.

5. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
If you've somehow managed to get this far without reading this yet, this will definitely pull you out of a reading slump. Even my husband, who rarely reads, blew through this in no time at all because he couldn't put it down. The farther in you go, the twistier the plot becomes!

6. Let's Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson
I dare you to read this without laughing out loud! Lawson is hilarious and weird and has the most bizarre true stories.

7. Pastrix by Nadia Bolz-Weber
"Shit," I thought to myself, "I'm going to be late to New Testament class." So opens this amazing, honest, beautiful, cranky memoir about how to navigate being a Christian when you generally hate people but just can't stop believing in God. This may just pull you out of a reading slump and a faith slump.

8. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
This is another book that my non-reader husband couldn't put down. It's more or less a straightforward adventure book, but set in a virtual world in the near future with a puzzle to solve that requires both skill and knowledge of '80s trivia.

9. Still Alice by Lisa Genova
This book about early-onset Alzheimer's definitely isn't a fun or light read, but I did find it very readable and would recommend it as a book to get absorbed in when everything else is too dense or dry at the moment.

10. When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon
When all else fails, read an adorable YA romance! Unlike most YA romances, which I find too cliché (it was love at first sight!) or dramatic (OMG which boy will I choose?), Dimple and Rishi are both sweet, realistic characters who are trying to navigate conflicting life priorities and expectations.

What books would you recommend for a reading slump?

Looking back:
One year ago I was reading: Infinite Jest and We Should All Be Feminists
Five years ago I was reading: The Age of Innocence and The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Ten years ago I was reading: The Book of Sarahs

Books I Really Liked but Can’t Remember Much About

I'm linking up with That Artsy Reader Girl for another Top Ten Tuesday.

Ah, those dark days before Goodreads... Now I have the ability to call up a detailed review to remind me what I thought of a book, but for my pre-2013 reads that's not the case. Still, this category was challenging because if I really liked a book, I generally remember quite a bit about it, and if I don't remember anything about it, I don't remember if I liked it! These are the ones I came up with that I know I liked but that I read so long ago that I'm super fuzzy on the details.

1. The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama
I read this before he was president, so all his ideas seemed fresh and exciting, but I can't really remember what any of them were. I remember a story about him taking a red-eye flight to vote on a bill and then no one understanding the nuances of his vote... but that's about it.

2. The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest J. Gaines
I remember the premise of this book — a girl born into slavery at the end of the Civil War lives long enough to see the civil rights movement in America — but I couldn't tell you any of the details.

3. Black Boy by Richard Wright
I always get mixed up whether this or Native Son is Wright's autobiography (it's this one), but while I remember the plot of Native Son vividly, I can't remember a single detail of Wright's own life.

4. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
I loved this book in middle school, and I remember one scene near the end, but the book is, what? Like 900 pages? I really don't remember anything else from it. I think I still have my 10-page book report on it, though...

5. Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
I picked up this book in high school when I was sort-of dating a guy from South Africa, which may have influenced why I liked the book, but I remember absolutely nothing about it now except the setting.

6. The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy
This is another book from middle school that I really loved, and I remember the basic contours of the plot, including the big reveal of who the Scarlet Pimpernel was. I couldn't tell you exactly what the Scarlet Pimpernel did, though, except that it had something to do with the French Revolution (I think), or what anyone else in the book did for that matter.

7. The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
I remember listening to this on audio while running on the track in my college gym. I know the premise — one demon writes letters to another demon on how to best influence human beings to sin — but I don't think I could tell you a single one of his "tips." At the time, though, I know I was like, "Oh, that's so true!"

8. A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
I praised this book a lot after reading it, and I know that it manages to be comprehensive (as the title suggests), accessible, and concise, but have I remembered any of the actual lessons from the book? If I have, I couldn't tell you that they came from this book.

9. Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert
This is another nonfiction read that I referenced a lot after reading it, but now I've read so many similar nonfiction books that I couldn't say definitively that any one study or story came from this book.

10. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
I know that this book involves talking animals... and that it's a well-loved classic... but I don't remember a single aspect of the plot now.

Which good books have escaped your memory?

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Top Ten Book-Related Problems I Have

I'm linking up with The Broke and the Bookish for another Top Ten Tuesday.

I feel like this topic has been covered pretty effectively by Buzzfeed, what with the 26 worst things that can happen to a book lover and 17 problems only book lovers will understand, plus the Reader Problems questions I answered not too long ago.

Rather than trying to come up with my own list entirely from scratch, I'm going to first pull the parts of these lists that most resonated with me and then fill in with my own.

1. Getting interrupted while reading
This was something Mike had to learn early on in our relationship, and he still tries to talk to me sometimes while I'm reading. It's one thing if you're like, "Hey, Jess, can I interrupt you for a second?" but if you just start talking to me as if I'm not doing anything particularly important at the moment (SEE: A BOOK) you are going to get evil eyes from me.

2. Not remembering who I lent books to
I try to use Delicious Library to track this, but I have to do it immediately or I will forgot who I lent a book to or possibly that I lent out a book at all. And Mike sometimes lends our books out without remembering either. We had this conversation this past weekend:

Me: What book did we lend to someone yesterday?

Mike: I don't know. I don't think we lent out any books.

Me: Yes. We totally did. Maybe to... [Person A]?

Mike: Nope. We didn't lend her any books. I don't know what you're talking about. I don't think we lent any books out.

Me: No, we definitely did. ::pulls open Delicious Library and starts slowly looking through the entire list of books we own:: Oh, yeah, Dave Barry's Complete Guide to Guys! Remember?

Mike: Oh, that wasn't to [Person A]. That was [Person B].

Me: See?? I knew it!

3. Accidentally getting spoiled
About a third of the way through The Madness Underneath (book 2 in the Shades of London series) I went to the library website to put a hold on the newly released The Shadow Cabinet (book 3). In the course of waiting for the hold to take I read the blurb, which spoiled two major plot points from book 2. Ah! So annoying! This is why I try not to read book descriptions, even for the book I'm currently reading — they can give too much away.

4. Reading too fast and missing stuff
When I get really impatient to find out what's going to happen next (especially if I suspect there is Impending Doom), I will inadvertently start skimming or glance ahead to the next page, and inevitably I miss something and get confused and have to go back and carefully read the page again.

5. Being disappointed when someone doesn't like a book I recommended
I think this is self-explanatory. I try not to be all, "WASN'T IT AMAZING? DIDN'T YOU LOVE IT?" because I recognize everyone has different opinions on things, but c'mon... didn't you love it??

6. Finishing an amazing book and having no one to discuss it with
This is one reason I recommend books to other people, and also why I'm in so many book clubs. Some books are just begging to be discussed. If necessary I'll go read other people's Goodreads reviews of it just to share in the mutual excitement and love, but then I get angry when I see negative reviews of the book (see No. 5).

7. Not being able to join in discussions of the-book-of-the-moment
This is the flip side of No. 6. Because I get most of my books from the library, and I have a giant to-read list, and I'm in a lot of book clubs, my reading is rarely dictated by whatever the "hot" book of the moment is. This means that there's usually some book that everyone wants to talk about to which I can only say, "Yeah, that's on my to-read list! I'll get to it eventually..."

8. Trying to decide whether to bring up how many books I read
I was at book club one time last year and people were talking about their reading goals. Someone brought up how she reads about 60 books a year and everyone started acting like she was the most amazing person ever and asking how she does it and all this stuff. I felt like it was relevant to the conversation to bring up that I was on track to read twice that many books, but there wasn't any way to do it that didn't sound like, "Neener, neener, I read more than you!"

9. Finding a great series that takes a nosedive in quality
It's great when you read a fantastic book and then find out it's part of a series — more to read! More time with your favorite characters! It sucks when the rest of the books in the series are not nearly as good as the first one, or the series ends in a really stupid way (I'm looking at you, The Younger Gods). I hate this so much that I will usually seek out reviews of other books in a series before deciding whether to continue with it... unless there are such major cliffhangers that I'll keep reading just to find out what happens, even if it turns out to be stupid.

10. Having a ridiculously long to-read list
I go back and forth on whether this is actually a problem. At one point I tried to cap it at 200 books (approximately the amount I could read in two years), but I still wanted a way to remember which books to add once I had spaces open up again... so eventually it made sense to just add as many books as I wanted to the list. I've been pretty good about not adding any books this year unless I really, really want to read them, so I can feel like I'm at least starting to make a dent in the list. But I don't think I would ever want to clear out the list completely and have nothing I was particularly excited about reading next, right?

What are your biggest book-related problems?

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Reader Problems: Q&A

I loved this question set shared by Cait at Paper Fury. I'm going to share my own answers here!

1. You have 20,000 books on your TBR. How in the world do you decide what to read next?
OK, it's not quite 20,000, but I do have 371 books on my to-read list right now. I consider this a reasonable amount given that I read 100 books a year. (Then again, a good chunk of those are book club reads not off my to-read list, so it will likely take me more than four years to get through everything on my list.) Books that fit with one of my goals for the year go to the top of the list. I use the Wish List feature on OverDrive to mark all the books I want to read, so when I need one to read next I'll just go to the "Available Now" tab of the Wish List and pick one. I'll also put a hold on whichever is most popular (has the most holds), so I'll read that when it becomes available.

2. You're halfway through a book and you're just not loving it. Do you quit or commit?
I used to never quit reading books, but as time has gone on I've determined that my to-read list is too long and my time is too valuable to waste it on books I really don't care to finish reading. In most cases I'll still finish a book — if it's a book club read, or a classic, or a bestseller everyone's talking about — but if it's a book I picked up randomly and I feel like I'm forcing myself through it, I may just let it go. Last year, I abandoned The Monuments Men and Mo' Meta Blues each halfway through, and The Coldest Winter Ever maybe a quarter of the way through.

3. The end of the year is coming and you're so close, but so far away on your Goodreads reading challenge. Do you try to catch up and how?
This has yet to happen. Last year my goal was 52 books, but I had already reached 60 about halfway through the year, so I upped the goal to 100 and ended up reading 120. However, I kept it at 100 for this year and I'm just barely keeping up so far, so we'll see how it ends up going.

4. The covers of a series you love do. not. match. How do you cope?
This is how my Inkheart series is, with two in hardcover and one in paperback. It's annoying, but I buy so few books as it is that I'm not going to buy another copy of a book just to make everything match.

5. Everyone and their mother love a book you really don't like. Who do you bond with over shared feelings?
One of the great things about book club is that there's usually at least one other person who shares your feelings, or will at least agree that the parts you didn't like weren't that great. If it's not a book club read, then I'll often skim the Goodreads reviews to find some people who had the same reaction I did (and maybe put it into words better than I could).

6. You're reading a book and you are about to start crying in public. How do you deal?
It's been a long time since this happened; books rarely make me cry, and I read at home most of the time. If it's a book where I have to know what happens next, and I'm among strangers (like on public transportation), I'll probably just keep reading/listening and let a few tears out. But if I can wait until I'm home, or I'm around people who are going to have a strong reaction to me crying, I'll put the book down right away.

7. A sequel of a book you loved just came out, but you've forgotten a lot from the prior novel. Will you re-read the book? Skip the sequel? Try to find a synopsis on Goodreads? Cry in frustration?!
It depends a lot on the book. When the third Thomas Cromwell book comes out, I don't feel I'll need to reread the last book because the events of the first and second books were fairly independent from one another, so I imagine the third will be the same (and it's based on history, so I can always Wikipedia the real story to get caught up again). But with The Madness Underneath, I'll probably reread The Name of the Star first because I'm guessing there will be a lot of carryover from the first book and I'll have to remember who everyone is to know what's going on.

8. You do not want anyone. ANYONE. Borrowing your books. How do you politely tell people nope when they ask?
Eh, I'm OK with people borrowing my books, even though I've had a number of books got lost or ruined. It's more important to me to share the stories with people than to keep my books in pristine condition. On my Delicious Library software I can mark who's borrowed a particular book so I know where it is if I'm ever looking for it.

9. Reading ADD. You've picked up and put down 5 books in the last month. How do you get over your reading slump?
Umm... I don't do this. I'm generally reading three books at once (hard copy, ebook, and audiobook), but I won't pick up another one until I'm done with one of them. If I'm terribly bored with all of them (but determined to finish them for one reason or another), I'll try to power through whichever one I'm closest to finishing so I can start on something new that I really want to read.

10. There are so many new books coming out that you're dying to read! How many do you actually buy?
Probably none. I rarely buy books unless I get a gift card to a bookstore. I'll just put them on my to-read list, put holds on one or two at the library, and then read them whenever they manage to come up in my queue.

11. After you've bought the new books you can't wait to get to, how long they sit on your shelf before you get to them?
A long time, since I'm usually trying to finish book club reads and books due back to the library at any given time. I bought Hyperbole and a Half last year and haven't gotten to it yet (in part because of my 2014 reading goal), but I hope to read it soon once I'm done with this month's book club books.

How do you cope with these #BookwormProblems? What other problems do you run into as a reader?

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