book meme

A certain Ms. Contemplator did this meme, and it's been ages since anyone else in my little segment of my venn diagram of the blogosphere did one. It's almost like we all did all the good ones and then quit. If you're so inclined I suggest THIS song opened in another tab as your soundtrack for reading. It's Leonard Cohen, and you're welcome.

1. To mark your page you: use a bookmark, bend the page corner, leave the book open face down?
Only book marks ever! I even have favorite bookmarks. My top fave is actually a piece of brown paper that came wrapped around Momma's first and fanciest sushi knife.

2. Do you lend your books?
I hate to. I've lost too many books that way, and I'm probably a bit selfish with my books, but I love all my babies.

3. You find an interesting passage: you write in your book or NO WRITING IN BOOKS!
It's not that I'm against writing in books, though I am, and I don't do it.

4. Dust jackets - leave it on or take it off.
I take it off when I'm reading the book. It gets in the way, and it's too easy to tear it up. When I'm done reading the book I try to remember to put the dust jacket back on.

5. Hard cover, paperback, skip it and get the audio book?
I prefer hard covers because they last better, but really the book is the thing in the end. I don't do audio books, though I'm not against them, but really books are meant to be read and held and smelled. Audio is for music, and audio book listening is music listening time wasted.

6. Do you shelve your books by subject, author, or size and color of the book spines?
Currently I shelve them by author and by suitability for children versus unsuitability for children. Of course shelving also involves shelves, so we won't go into the fact that none of the stacks of unshelved books are unshelved.

7. Buy it or borrow it from the library later?
I usually do the library thing because I'm broke, but if I had money just falling out of my ass you can believe I'd be boring the kids at the bookstore and hitting up some dot coms. I love having books. I love having entire book cases full of books in my house.

8. Do you put your name on your books - scribble your name in the cover, fancy bookplate, or stamp?
I don't even put the kids names in books they are given as gifts. I just don't write in them at all. It's not that I'm against it as such, but I kind of am.

9. Most of the books you own are rare and out of print books or recent publications?
I own books for a variety of reasons. I have random text books and books that were gifts. I have huge piles of books that were bought used so that we could give the boys a big pile of books for Christmas. I have some old and likely out of print books. I have some books that I'll never read and should just get rid of.

10. Page edges - deckled or straight?
Does deckling mean that uneven edges thing? or the sparkly gold thing? Either way I find it hard to do straight stuff, so I'd choose to think of the other kind as not deckled thank you very much.

11. How many books do you read at one time?
One, because more than that means I'm not giving the book its due. Also I'm easily confused.

12. Be honest, ever tear a page from a book?
no, I'd never deface one of my own books, and if I wanted a page bad enough I'd just steal the whole damn book, or buy it. Yeah, buy it! That's what I'd do.

If you choose to do the meme, let me know.