Book Blogger Hop: January 2022

 This week I will write on some topics suggested by the Book Blogger Hop. This month’s list include asking if there is a genre you haven’t read, but would like to, whether you have any bookish posters or artwork on your walls, the average number of books you read a month or whether you have attended a book signing. 

None are really questions for an entire post, for me, so I will answer them all, briefly. 

If there is a genre I’d like to read, I just read it. What’s stopping me? So no. I read SF, fantasy, historical fiction and non fiction, biographies, quirky non fiction, true crime, mysteries(preferred cosies) and others. About the only things that don’t interest me are mainstream adult fiction, and I might even read that if it’s funny. I do read mainstream YA and children’s fiction. Sometimes. I’ll give anything a go, once. 

I have some posters, more likely to be film than bookish, but the film is probably based on a book, eg Lord Of The Rings. See? One sentence.

I have no idea how many books I read. I don’t keep track, unlike a student I once had who used an exercise book to note what she had read. (It was July and she had read eighty already). At any one time I am re-reading as many as I’m reading for the first time. So - I haven’t a clue. Right now, I’m re-reading The Grey King by Susan Cooper and A Civil Campaign by Lois McMaster Bujold and making my horrified way through Van Badham’s QAnon And On: A Short And Shocking History Of Internet Conspiracy Cults. I’m still reading Neil Gaiman’s Sandman comic collection, Preludes And Nocturnes. Morpheus, Death’s younger brother, who has spent seventy years imprisoned by a crazy rich family, is now trying to get back his stuff from various people who have helped themselves to it while he was locked up.

Thing is, I have a lot of books I just had to buy, still on my TBR pile. I have started reading them all. 

Finally, of course I’ve been to signings, many over the years - which booklover hasn’t, if they had the chance? 

Mind you, there is a difference between straight signings and book launches. Signings are often by well known authors who are in town, maybe for a convention(at which they do more signing). Book launches are by anyone who has just had a book published. I do sometimes attend those if they are easy to reach by public transport and I know the author, either personally or whose books I enjoy. I don’t often get my books signed these days, because by the time I get to the launch, I have already bought the book in ebook, or I don’t know if I want to keep them. 

Of course, I do have some books signed by the likes of Terry Pratchett or Frank Herbert. I got those either at a convention or at a bookshop signing. Those I will certainly keep! 

The problem I have with books signed by people I know, especially when it’s their first book, is that they invariably - and I do mean invariably! - sign the damn thing “To Sue, thank you so much for your support,” even if I haven’t done anything except buy the book. I find it irritating, I’m afraid. 

I’d rather have my book either signed without my name, which enables me to give it away later, or just “To Sue, hope you enjoy it!” That’s what I do when I sign, unless there is a special reason to do it differently. And they usually have it signed before I can make my request.

Fortunately I mostly buy ebooks now. You can’t sign those! 

So, which of these questions interests you? Genres? How many books you read? Posters? Book signings?