Tuesday Top Ten: Bookish Confessions

I’m participating in the Tuesday Top Ten, something I’ve never done before, because I am in the mood to make some bookish confessions (today’s top ten list).

1)  I gave away or sold many, many boxes of TBR books when I received my first Kindle for Christmas a few years ago. For some reason the new Kindle made me realize that the books I’d been accumulating over the many years with the thought, “This looks interesting,” hadn’t been interesting enough (to me) to tempt me to read them, no matter how many times I’d picked them up and read a page or few. And it was time to free up the air around me instead of having it weighed down with dusty books that looked interesting but weren’t. I know. Heresy. But it made me feel amazingly wonderful to start finding room to walk and move around in my office, instead of navigating around boxes and piles of books.

2)  My original idea of not loading up my Kindle with piles of TBR books that I never get around to reading was successful for a year or two. Instead, I loaded it up with sample. My plan was not to buy books unless I’d already begun them and they’d passed the “might be interesting” test and were definitely in the “interesting enough to buy, store and most importantly–read” test. Impulse-sampling (thinking, “this looks interesting” and grabbing the free sample) almost always will satisfy me, without spending any money. This is a win.

3)  Unfortunately, I have begun snagging the “this looks interesting” books that are free or .99 and my Kindle (or cloud) is cluttered with them. The problem is that I rarely go back through them and find new things to read. Which leads to…

4)  I wasn’t bitten by the iPad bug even though the Resident Storm Chaser has one. I have been totally happy with my black-and-white, eInk Kindles (except I wish they had a whiter page, which is why I may end up buying a paperwhite). But I eventually realized that the reason I don’t go back through my library and browse is because the black-and-white covers just don’t have the power to grab me the way color covers do. And this makes me look longingly at iPad minis or perhaps Kindle Fires. What I should do is start browsing using the Kindle app on my laptop.

5) Which led me to a side-confession, not Kindle-related.  I am way too influenced by book covers. A wonderful book cover makes me click through every time and has on occasion made me buy a book I never read. (The Luxe, I’m looking at you.) The display of these books at BN was mind-blowingly gorgeous. The way the spines lined up was stunning. But I was never able to get into the book. Never. It’s still around here somewhere.

6) I re-listen to audiobooks far more often than I re-read books.

7) I’ve never read one of my all-time favorite novels, Lolita. Instead, I listened to the audiobook with Jeremy irons reading.  i bought the book in hardcover and it now lives in my personal library waiting for me to reread it, and I will, oh yes I will.

8) I have a strange hoarding issue. I hoard unread books that I know are going to be divine. Example: I still haven’t read the last Lymond book, even though I was champing at the bit to get into it as soon as I finished the penultimate Lymond book, and it was already on my Kindle waiting. I still haven’t read Persuasion, many friends’ favorite Jane Austen novel. Though I adore Terry Pratchett, there are many of his books that remain on my TBR list.  There is something so devastatingly final about finishing ‘all’ and knowing they are all gone.

9)  My favorite reading emotion is angst, but only when followed by glorious and triumphant and ecstatic joy. (Yes, I want books to make me feel, damn it, feel.

10) I don’t have enough friends who love the same books I love, but that is because I’m an odd duck and love an odd assortment of books. So I have many friends who love some of my favorite books, and end up reading reviews and book blogs in varying fandoms and genres without feeling a member of any of them.

Those are my bookish confessions on this fine July Monday. What are yours?

[Now, I must get some words written if I’m going to finish the second book in the Fury Triad any time this year. Which is a good thing, because I can’t wait to read it myself.]