So, I missed day 30 apparently..
Day 30 - Your favorite book of all time

I could never pick just one. Never ever, in the entire world.
Books are way to important for me and I love to many different stories to pick just one.
So all of them. :)
And now I’ll shut up about books, until a new one I love comes out.

Speaking of that - the new CHERUB book is in my hands as of this afternoon, so I’m going to read it, and I am so excited. Even after James’ story was finished and I have problems with change in Inge I really adore, I really enjoyed People’s Republic, and have been waiting for ever for Guardian Angel :)

Day 29 - A book everyone hated but you liked

There are quite a few; I guess I forgive authors for things that others might not like. 

I always figure that we aren’t the customers for the authors to please, we are just people privileged enough to be allowed to join this wonderful journey the authors are taking us on, where as the leader in this trip through their imagination they are allowed to take us where they will, however they like. 

It’s their creation, and however they feel that their story should end, is the right one. 

Who are we to complain. (I believe this goes for TV and movies as well, and try so hard to act accordingly to the best of my powers, I don’t always manage, sadly.)

Yes, I will say that I didn’t really like the book, that I wasn’t a fan, but I don’t often mean the story. I will criticize the fuck out of bad writing or shoddy plot development or substandard world building, but the story has to be truly terrible for me to hate it based on the story alone. (Twilight gets yet another nod in this domain) 

Day 28 - Favourite Title

My favourite title of any book I can think of right now would probably be 

Don’t Tell Mum I Work on the Rigs: (She Thinks I’m a Piano Player in a Whorehouse)

It’s actually a pretty good read too - and as I’ve said, I’m not a massive fan of the autobiography. But this came recommended, and I was entertained. 

Day 27 - The most surprising plot twist or ending

Because I read so many books, I tend to see where some of them are going before they get there - the consequence of having read just so many different stories.

I figure it is a sign of good writing when the characters make the same leaps as the reader - when the reader gets too far ahead of the character in terms of understanding what is happening its just annoying. (Obernewtyn books 1-4, I’m looking at you) 

You want your readers to follow the characters - and sometimes feel superiour because they can see things from the outside of the situation and can rationally, but generally, you don’t want them to get too far ahead, otherwise you’ve written stupid characters. 

Like the characters, who when given empirical proof that a character is a vampire/werewolf/alien, refuse to believe it, continue to doubt, all along when the reader knows that this books is about vampires/werewolves/aliens… you just want to shake them and tell them TO OPEN THEIR EYES. Well, I do anyway. 

The same goes with mystery books - I remember reading a book a friend loaned me in year 11, she praised it, said it was fantastic, really full of suspence. I read it, and was like.. umm? really? I’m 50 pages in and I know the bad dude is her boss! How can this be suspenseful.. there is another 300 pages to go. The main character who is searching for her serial killer, is being stalked by him, and she takes ‘till the very end of the book to notice its her boss. After he trapped her. And did the big reveal. I was just like… YOU STUPID LADY, HOW DID YOU NOT SEE?

We talked about it later, me telling her I didn’t like it, the twist was so ridiculously obvious. She never saw it though, was really surprised with the twist. 

But I do not really like to predict where books are going, because that way I can always hope for a twist. I might have an inlking of where it will end up, but I’ll just take each story as it comes. Its more fun that way. 

After saying all that, I did not see the plot twist in The Demons Lexicon coming. I just did not see that one coming! 

Sarah Rees Brennan is good like that :)

Day 26 - A book that changed your opinion about something

I don’t know that I have had my mind changed by a book - maybe reaffirmed, or made me thoughtful, but I don’t think that I have ever gone into a book thinking one thing, and come out thinking the opposite. 

Maybe it is because I don’t have many strong opinions about things, or the things that I do care about I know to be true, because they are my fundamental ideas and mean something to me and nothing will change what I think about those things.

I’m also a pretty open minded person, if you can show me a valid argument, and give reasons for believing it, I will take it in stride. Even if I don’t understand it. Its not for me to question someone’s beliefs, unless they try an attack on mine, no matter how small the opinion is. 

I guess it also has to do with the types of books that I read. While they are very thoughtful and full of ideas and revolutionary concepts - that is what I read them for. 

Day 24 - A book that you wish more people would’ve read

I have lots of those, but I will follow the question to the letter, and narrow it down to a single book.

I’d have to say Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother.

I know that it has been fairly widely read, and has spent time on the NY times bestsellers list - but the ONLY place I have ever seen this book in Victoria/Australia is the cheap $5 book stores where you have to trawl through millions of unorganised books to find anything.

It is really damn hard to find it in common rotation in Australia, apparently.Or maybe I’m not looking hard enough, or they have been bought up and the book stores are forever waiting for stock… even though they can get millions of copies of Shades of Grey in once a week… one can hope, right?

I loved this book, and I honestly think it should be like required reading during high school.

Day 23 - A book you wanted to read for a long time but still haven’t

I have a whole To-Be-Read shelf. Double parked. I buy at a faster pace than I can sometimes keep up with. 

But I’ve been putting off reading the Sanderson-written Wheel of Time books.

Not for any reason except for that I wanted to do an entire re-read before I get to the new one (book 11) cos it had been a while and I wanted to catch every nuance and prophesy in it, but The Wheel of Time is just SO DAMN HUGE, and life got in the way so I only got to book 5 when I last attempted it.And when I have problems reading them fast enough.. haha. (oh, btw: I read really fast.)

So even though I’ve read the first 10, like at least 6 times each if not more, I haven’t read the new ones yet! I figure its been long enough now I’ll just spend this December starting at The Eye of the World, and going right through to the end with A Memory of Light, as its apparently due Jan 2013.

Day 22 - Favourite book you own

I have an entire bookcase of favourite books - and its overflowing.

Wow. My house looks super colourful. I don’t notice the (semi-)organised chaos until I try to take a photo of an aspect! Sometimes I think I have too much stuff, and then I go out and buy more pretty colourful things like books and dvd’s and cute figurines and paints. :)

Day 21 - Favourite book from your childhood

There are a ridiculous amount to choose from, but I will have to say Trixie Belden.

I have all of them. I started reading them when my mother bought me three of them for 20c each from our school fete. She’s told me she remembers thinking at the time: “Should I get them for Shelley?.. What if she doesn’t like them?.. Don’t be stupid - they are 20c each.”

And I will be forever grateful she did.

I loved detective stories as a kid. I read them all. I worked my way through my primary school library including but not at all limited to - The Baby Sitters Club, all the Nancy Drew’s and Hardy Boys. And by the time that I found Trixie I also loved books set in older times, so it was a match made in heaven!

Day 20 - Favourite romance book

Well. I can’t say that I really really love romance books - I can’t even say I like them much. I’m not a very romantic person haha, I can’t deal with ‘oh, cute new boy. Isn’t he cute! Why won’t he look at me/stop looking at me? Now we’ve known each other for a week I can say: WE ARE IN LOVE AND GOING TO LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER…he’s the love of my life, I’m going to love him forever and forever, and oh no. He broke my heart for reasons and I’m going to pine and be sad and mope and die alone. Oh wait, everything is fine, and I will swoon and he will catch me. WE ARE IN LOVE AND GOING TO LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER.’

Not really my style.

Now, books that have a romance sub-plot AND a (good) plot where the characters have to save the world, or learn to use magic of whatever can be fantastic.

Shiver, by Maggie Stiefvater had a romance that I felt was well done, I loved Sam and Grace, I found their relationship to be one of the more realistic (for me - in a world where werewolves are wolves during the cold months and human during summer time) that I have read lately. There are lots of other couples who I adore, like Rose and Dimitri, Jace and Clary, Cassel and Lila, Nial, Irial and Leslie, but I wouln’t classify them as romance books.

Not specifically.

Most books have a romantic element to them, that motivates the characters to do the things they have to do, to do things they shouldn’t. But its not for the romance that I read these books. Some of my favourite books of all time have very little in the way of romance, and it doesn’t detract from the story at all. I hate books (mostly adult books) where the characters hook up for the sake of it.