What I would call my bookstore would probably be a terrible pun or something crazy overpretentious for the area. No Shelf Control or Now We're Booking or something.
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: Last book I finished reading was the Cemetery Boys and I adored it. It's by Aiden Thomas who decided "hey I'm Mexican and queer and trans and there are no books for me, I'm gonna write one " and did it.
5 Re-read is harder. I think that might have been the Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England. I was doing character research for someone I apped, you might know him
35 - Ooh. Terribly underrated. This is a tough one. I know a lot of books I've read have been critically lauded so I'm going to go in a weird direction
I ended up a few years ago in this self-published corner of Amazon where the first Avengers movie was just kicking off so a lot of young, new authors were finding success in writing novels about superheroes and villains, and that was right up my alley because I RP a lot of supervillains anyway
Playing for Keeps y Mur Lafferty, Wearin the Cape by Marion G. Harmon, Confessions of a D-List Supervillain by Jim Bernheimer, and the Villain's Sidekick by Stephen T. Brophy were all adorable little novellas. I'd also throw in Hero by Perry More and A Once Crowded Sky by Tom King though I think those two are starting to pick up
36 - a book that's overrated - I really don't like Watchmen or Alan Moore much at all, really. In undergrad I took a comics class and we studied this book and spent a month on themes and art styles and how pages would mirror each other and it was obvious that a lot of work and heart went into it
But I really don't like the art style and I feel like it was kind of a mean-spirited way to view people and I also don't like books that go from bad to worse in one long downward spiral
39 - too many to count but a big shout-out to my 'gateway' books. The Phantom Tollbooth moved me into "oh shit things can be metaphorical" territory and The Golden Compass led me directly from childhood into young adult books.
40 - We've come this far without mentioning Terry Pratchett so I will just say that Night Watch got me out of a four-year-long depression and a bad friend break-up when I was 17 and I remember that moment very vividly when I decided not to let myself get pushed around by someone else any longer.
Oh and additional 39 in case you want early early childhood - I'm pretty sure the velveteen rabbit traumatized me in a good way and one day I will write a fanfic where sentient toys are not burned in a furnace TOY STORY 3.
𝕧𝕕𝕠𝕧𝕒
: I answered 17 above but I'll say again that it's gonna be a terrible pun like No Shelf Control or These Books Were Made for Reading or some shit
For 22 - neither! I think you should read with what you're comfortable with. Personally I read on a treadmill a lot so e-readers kind of suck for that, but for my mom and grandpa who can't get to a library as often as they like because they don't drive well, e-readers are a godsend for them
47 - I switch mediums entirely. if I can't get into a book, I don't force myself. I start gaming or I watch a new tv show online or something because trying to force myself just ends badly. Sometimes what I also do is I say I'm going to give away books of mine and start making piles to give away and inevitably I start looking at the titles or summaries and
I come from a long family line of readers. My dad was a journalist and an English major who used to read me the Hobbit and Swiss Family Robinson and Treasure Island because he would be away all day and come home at 7 on the train and by that point we'd have an hour together before I'd have to go to bed.
His father used to read the same books to him when he was a kid and used to come home on the same train schedule too, and later on he would read me Charles Dickens and Alice in Wonderland.
My grandfather's mom was an actress who used to read plays to children in hospitals and get him to act them with her when he was a little boy. And her parents would give books to each other for anniversaries and holidays and things.
There were always books in the house so it was just a family thing. Everyone reads. We might all like different books but growing up you just were reading something
If I didn't like a teacher or thought a class was boring, I would just sneak books into class and read under the table. Every single parent-teacher conference was "we like her but she reads too much"
I remember reading my aunt's copy of Pippi Longstockings in 4th grade and getting that book confiscated at lunch time by a teacher who wasn't even my teacher but thought that lunch time was for socializing, not reading. Hated her.
And then later on when I got into my angry depression years, I'd use books to ignore my parents. We had to ban books at the table except for Sunday morning bagel brunch where the NY Times got brought in.
But I think I like the idea of having a private conversation or a world in your head the most: that feeling of escapism and being able to have something in your life where you feel understood and can go when you're feeling frustrated or alone.
I remember being 16 and having no idea what I wanted to be or what college I wanted to go to because I loved reading and nothing else so eventually Dad just gave up and went "fine be an English major" and that was an A+ decision when the economy collapsed
strikes me as weird now because to me "why do you like to read" is like "why do you like to watch movies" or "why do you like to watch tv". It's a media genre. You have to be more specific, like "why do you like this author" or "what kinds of books do you like"
I mean there is definitely a larger topic inside of it to break down if you want to dig into it but I also think everyone has some reason they get enjoyment out of things and sometimes
that can just be something as simple as escapism and doesn’t necessarilyhave to be couched in what’s being said about humanity as a whole or anything. I def have books or shows or whatever that I like because honestly of the absence of that sort of big to do commentary on that state of life, the universe, and everything.
There are few books I really loathe and a few of them were just "oh you thought your life is bad? CHECK THIS OUT" and bam, misery with no end in sight for 2-300 pages
god there was this book I got once and god I never finished it, couldn't, I don't remember what it was even about, but it was called Beautiful Malice and the only thing I remember is you had 3 different flip-flop time frames this story was being told in, and
I could never tell if we were in "Current" "recent history" or "the past" for how much it went back and forth. I just got pissed and never finished it.
I'm all cool with authors trying experimental shit in their writing, go for it, it could be GRAND. But boy, oh boy, this was not. it was just a confusing mess.
The book I'm thinking of specifically is Suffer the Children when it opens with every child under 12 in the world suddenly dropping dead and then it gets worse
15 - most of the 'big' ones are already listed here - Terry Pratchett, the Golden Compass, things like that but I'm going to add a little book by J. V. Hart who wrote the screenplay of Hook.
Because he also wrote a little book called the Capt'n Hook Book about him as a 14 year old at Eaton. It's a cute story but it led to me jumping from AOL RPing directly to Livejournal roleplaying about fifteen years ago.
And led in a long and winding way to me meeting future friends, future roommates, my husband, and all of you incredible people. And without you guys, I might not have started going to therapy, I might not have found the courage to move jobs or go back to school or lose weight or start dating.
My whole community is here and I think the majority of my friends both in person and online are RPers and it's all thanks to going like "well what about this RP media" years and years ago.
confession: i remember you plurking about how horrifying Suffer the Children was YEARS AND YEARS AGO, and it made me........ go spend an audible credit on it
or maybe that's the real horror we read along the way