From Booking Through Thursday:
Do you have “issues” with too much profanity or overly explicit (ahem) “romantic” scenes in books? Or do you take them in stride? Have issues like these ever caused you to close a book? Or do you go looking for more exactly like them?

If language or sex are important to the plot of a book I’m reading, I don’t have an issue with them. In some cases, it’s more jarring when authors back away from strong language – it comes off as phony, and strange. With sex, I don’t really sit at the bookstore and go, “well, I’m desperate for a book that has actual penetration described,” but if it comes up, I’m cool with it.

I will admit that a couple of Laurell K. Hamilton’s books have been off-putting for me, not because I mind the sex (I mean, her male characters are HOT) but because there was more sex than plot, and while I may refer to her work as “Monster Porn” or “Faerie Porn” in jest, the reality is that I do read these for the story, first.

That being said, I have to add that while explicit porn may not float my boat most of the time, censorship is wrong. Just as we all have the power to change channels or turn off a television, we have the power to choose what we read without external forces helping us. If you don’t like it, don’t buy it.

Language has power. You should wield it wisely, but you shouldn’t ever be afraid of it.

Buy a Friend a Book Week is October 1-7 (as well as the first weeks of January, April, and July). During this week, you’re encouraged to buy a friend a book for no good reason. Not for their birthday, not because it’s a holiday, not to cheer them up–just because it’s a book.

What book would you choose to give to a friend and why?

The book I’d choose to fling at a friend would depend on the friend. A shabby-chic decorating guide might go to a friend with a new apartment, a vampire story to a friend who loves them as much as I do. For other friends, I’d probably pick something from their wishlists at places like Amazon.com.

One book that I recommend to everyone is The Eight by Katherine Neville. It’s not new. In fact, I first read it during spring break of my freshman year in college (April, 1989), but it’s thick, compelling, and fun – and every so often I love to revisit it.

Another favorite is Alexandra Stoddard’s Gift of a Letter a tiny little book that really makes you appreciate snailmail.

Either of those would be good random gift books, I think.

Imagine that everything is going just swimmingly. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and all’s right with the world. You’re practically bouncing from health and have money in your pocket. The kids are playing and laughing, the puppy is chewing in the cutest possible manner on an officially-sanctioned chew toy, and in between moments of laughter for pure joy, you pick up a book to read . . .

What is it?

It really depends on my own mood on beautiful days, what I read just for kicks. It might be a decorating book by Alexandra Stoddard, though my favorite work of hers is Gift of a Letter, or it might be something by the always hilarious Christopher Moore. If it’s hot, and I’m missing the beach, I’m likely to go outside with a glass of cold water (with lemon) and a juicy Anne Rivers Siddons novel or a really good mystery, or I might feel like traveling to a new world with some great fantasy or science fiction, or Jen Lancaster’s latest snarky memoir.

Prompted by Booking through Thursday

Okay . . . picture this (really) worst-case scenario: It’s cold and raining, your boyfriend/girlfriend has just dumped you, you’ve just been fired, the pile of unpaid bills is sky-high, your beloved pet has recently died, and you think you’re coming down with a cold. All you want to do (other than hiding under the covers) is to curl up with a good book, something warm and comforting that will make you feel better.

What do you read?

For me, comfort reading, like comfort food, involves things that invoke a cozy setting, and have descriptions of either food or clothing, or are somehow familiar – a favorite author, for example.

Madeleine L’Engle’s works A Live Coal in the Sea and Certain Women are comfort books for me. Laurell K. Hamilton’s work, as much as I love it, is not. Diane Mott Davidson’s culinary mysteries, the really early Nero Wolfe and The Cat Who… books, and almost anything by Maeve Binchy or Marian Keyes qualify as well.

Possibly my favorite ever comfort novel, though, is a book called Mothers, by Jax Peters Lowell that I picked up ages ago, decades even, and fell in love with it. It’s about Claire, a photographer, and Theo, a caterer, both young women who identified as straight, who fall in love, and eventually manage to have a son using artificial insemination. It’s a candid account of two women falling in love in the 60’s and 70’s in New York, and it has food and photography and sweet domestic moments, and a trip out to the beach – all my favorite things – but what I like about it most is that it isn’t a gay novel or a straight novel. It’s just the story of a family who love each other.

What could be more comforting than that?

Booking Through Thursday

So, this is my question to you–are you a Goldilocks kind of reader?
Do you need the light just right, the background noise just so loud but not too loud, the chair just right, the distractions at a minimum?Or can you open a book at any time and dip right in, whether it’s for twenty seconds, while waiting for the kettle to boil, or indefinitely, like while waiting interminably at the hospital–as long as the book is open in front of your nose, you’re happy to read?

While I agree that there are some environments that are more comfortable for reading than others, if the book is good, I have no trouble getting lost in it no matter the location. At home, I read a lot in bed, the bath, and on the porcelain throne. Elsewhere? I’ve found it perfectly easy to lose myself in the written word while in class, on a bus or train, on a plane, or sitting in a bookstore, library, or cafe. I didn’t generally bring books to work, however, because I knew I’d lose track of time if I stopped to read, even over lunch.

Booking Through Thursday website.

There was a widely bruited-about statistic reported last week, stating that 1 in 4 Americans did not read a single book last year. Clearly, we don’t fall into that category, but . . . how many of our friends do? Do you have friends/family who read as much as you do? Or are you the only person you know who has a serious reading habit?

I am fortunate in that I come from a family of readers, and married into a family of readers as well. Some of us have overlapping tastes, some of us don’t, but no matter where we are, there’s something interesting to read, and probably a cozy corner in which to do so.

I’m also pretty selective about my friends – most of them are readers as well. It’s hard for me to comprehend a life without reading for pleasure.