Thursday, July 4, 2013

Kelly from Reading with Analysis

kelly with her dog balboa

Please welcome Kelly, who blogs at Reading with Analysis. Kelly's blog is know for romance reviews.

Questions:


1.      NAME OF MY BOOK BLOG(S): Reading with Analysis

2.      I HAVE BEEN BLOGGING SINCE: February 2012

3.      GENRES COVERED MOST ON MY BLOG: Romance

4.      THE BOOK I HAVE RE-READ THE MOST TIMES:  Pride and Prejudice definitely wins with the most re-reads, followed closely by Persuasion, but I have a list of books that I re-read on a semi-regular basis: Far from the Madding Crowd, In Search of Lost Time, Cry, the Beloved Country, and The Winter of Our Discontent.  I haven’t done as much re-reading in romance since I started my blog, but I’ve got a soft spot for Devil’s Bride by Stephanie Laurens, England’s Perfect Hero by Suzanne Enoch, and The Duke and I by Julia Quinn.  Those three books welcomed me back to the genre after my decade of snobby reading.

5.      MY FAVORITE PLACE TO READ:  My favorite thing in the world to do is to lollygag in bed with a book.  I naturally wake up at about 7 a.m., but on Saturdays I usually don’t need to get out of bed before 9.  I love to spend that two-hour period reading and annoying my husband with my lazy ways.

6.      MY BOOKSHELVES ARE: organized by subject, generally, but Dewey would cry if he saw them.  He’d say, “What kind of madwoman forces Greek and Roman literature to share a shelf and sandwiches them between a shelf of ‘British literature’ and ‘20th Century European literature’?  She knows nothing!”  He’s right, honestly.  And anyway, I actually read 100 e-book romance novels to every 1 paper book have on my interestingly organized bookshelves, sooo…..

7.   A BOOK THAT INTIMIDATES ME: James Joyce’s Ulysses (and, I suppose, Finnegan’s Wake, but I wonder sometimes if anyone actually reads that book or if folk just pretend they have for the dubious benefit of passing themselves as well-read) is the most memorable example of a book I tried to read but could not finish.  The book itself is not all that intimidating… I’m not saying I really understood any of it when I was reading it, but I got through three quarters of the book with no real problem.  Unfortunately, during my reading of the book, I suffered a trauma, and I’ve never been able to pick it back up again.  I’ll never get to the glory of Molly Bloom.  Perhaps it’s for the best.

8.   MY FAVORITE NON-BOOKISH ACTIVITY:  I love to entertain guests in my home. My husband and I host a weekly dinner party at our house, and my job is generally to keep the conversation going and, occasionally, to be unbearably awkward.  I’m fairly decent at both.

9.   MY BOOK BLOG STANDS OUT FROM THE CROWD BECAUSE:  Honestly, I can’t imagine that it does.  I suspect my reading approach to romance novels is a trifle unusual, both because I take them seriously and I have expectations of quality when I approach the genre.  On the blog, I try to approach books in a thematic way, when there are sufficient themes within a book to discuss, or a specific way, to explain what I did (and often didn’t) like about a book.  In other words, I’m shooting for constructive criticism.  Also, just about everything in the world reminds me of an Eddie Izzard reference or a clip from Veggie Tales or a comedy from the 80s, etc., and I like to share those references to keep things fun (or awkward). Oh, and I’m kind of a feminist (like Pol Pot was kind of a mass-murdering fuckhead), and I tend to discuss romance novels through a feminist perspective.  Not sure if all of that makes for a stand-out blog, but there it is.

10.   MY READING PERSONALITY (http://www.bookbrowse.com/quiz/) IS: “All Rounder” – It would seem that I fit equally into all four reading personality categories.  Books and reading comprise a huge part of my life, and I’m forever thinking and talking about them, often to people who really don’t care.  Even though I spend a lot of time reading, I don’t read for reading’s sake, and I hate to waste my time on books that are bad or that are just not to my taste.  I do my best to protect myself from starting books that I won’t like, and I’m getting better about not finishing books that will only continue to enrage me.  Once I’ve found an author whose voice and storytelling I enjoy, I tend to buy up and read everything that author has available.  Finally, although I do tend to stick to the romance genre for my everyday reading, I like to broaden my horizons occasionally by participating in a book club at my workplace and taking recommendations from friends and family.  (Can I just nitpick for a bit, though, about some of the weird homophone issues going on in that quiz? Even the name of my reading type, “All Rounder,” is not quite right...)

8 comments :

  1. Thanks for joining us today, Kelly! My shelves are completely unorganized, although I do try to group books by the same author together. -Ish. At this point I'm just happy if I can get a book to fit in there.

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  2. Exactly! The advent of e-books really saved me, because I ran out of room three hundred books ago. You should see my mom's house... stacks of books lining every windowsill, on top of the shelves, in boxes in the guest room... they are everywhere.

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  3. I'm with you both on the bookshelves. I've run out of room that the book piles I have are becoming pieces of furniture. Stacks with a lamp on top etc. I think next I'll try to make a chair out of them.

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    1. I think that's a fantastic idea... you could have a table top balanced on four stacks of books (perhaps stabilized somehow)... :)

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  4. I'm not usually one for romances, but the books you've listed have really intrigued me - I've clearly mixed chick-lit and romance. I look forward to reading your blog :)

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    1. Thanks! I enjoy reading romance because I'm keen on stories that focus on the role love plays in shaping us and providing value and substance to our lives. It's not easy to find an excellent romance novel, but when I do, I celebrate. (I'm also a fan of cheesy 'love conquers all' stories... sooo...)

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  5. Thanks for stopping by Kelly! I love how you describe and organize your shelves!! As long as it makes sense to you, that's all that matters in my opinion!

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    1. I kept trying to comment last week using my phone (I was on a vacation from computers), but I experienced massive user error... sorry for the late replies! The shelf organization largely reflects my phases of reading... I went through a Greek phase and then a Roman phase, an epic poetry phase (that was fun), a depressive literature phase, etc. It may be that the last four years of reading romance novels is just an extended phase, and my tastes will shift again. Who knows? All I know for sure is that I'll keep reading.

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