Celebrate Reading Meme

I love books that's why I thought I would answer this meme (from http://mattviews.wordpress.com). I've come across book blogs earlier this year, but I didn't pay a lot of attention to them yet. Surfing through some again ignited my flickering passion for books. I'm even thinking of joining two challenges starting today. I just have to find and/or get the books I will be reading. I will also compile the list of books I've read this year. From this point on, I hope to be a more critical reader so that I could share what my thoughts on the book after reading.

Here we go...

Do you snack while you read? If so, favorite reading snack?
If I do eat, I won't be able to read because my attention will be on the food that I'm eating, like getting my hand out of the package, or determining how I'm supposed to bite it. So no snacks for me.

Do you tend to mark your books as you read, or does the idea of writing in books horrify you?
My books should be as clean as possible. Of course, you can't prevent coffee or other food stains from spilling into (hopefully just) one or two pages. However, marking the books is a big no-no. You just have to preserve them in their pristine state as much as possible.

How do you keep your place while reading a book? Bookmark? Dog-ears? Laying the book flat open?
No dog-ears; laying the book flat open also damages the book. If there's a bookmark available, I will use it. However, atm receipts, grocery receipts or any other small pieces of paper will do. Sometimes though, when there's nothing around I could use (or if I'm just too lazy to find one), I just try to remember which page I'm in and hopefully remember it the next time I pick up the book.

Fiction, Non-fiction, or both?
I'd love to say both, but I have mostly read only fiction.

Hard copy or audiobooks?
I would rather have the hardbound books. However, I can't afford them yet, and besides, you can't carry them around! I think I'd also be bored if I'm just listening to an audiobook. I have my own pacing when I read books so I'd like to stick to that. I could also go back on previous sentences, paragraphs or pages when I have a printed book so it's easier to tie details up and imagine the story in my head.

Are you a person who tends to read to the end of chapters, or are you able to put a book down at any point?
I think I can put the book down at any point, but I prefer to finish the chapter before I do. However, if I've still got a long way to go before finishing the chapter, I usually try to finish at a point where there's no sense of excitement (anti-climactic in a sense).

If you come across an unfamiliar word, do you stop to look it up right away?
I try to infer the meaning using context clues. If I have a pen and the paper I write vocab words in with me, maybe I'd write it down and make a note to consult the dictionary in the near future (which as is most often the case, I don't).

What are you currently reading?
Well, I'm in the middle of one of Katie MacAlister's Dark One novels: Sex and the Single Vampire, but it's an e-book. I recently started reading Conrad's Heart of Darkness, because I brought it along one time when I was applying for work. However, I've started a few other novels which I think I should be reading right now (like The Graveyard Book, Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Catch-22 and Smoke and Mirrors).

What is the last book you bought?
Okay, so the most recent ones I bought numbers four in all: Bangkok Dangerous, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Rama II and Heart of Darkness. Got them from Booksale at SM North Edsa. Silly me, I brought home most of my books because I will be able to start on them, but no, I had started some, but I haven't finished even half of those. And so when I moved back to QC, I had to bring a lot of clothes and couldn't find space for any of my books. So one day while in SM, I thought I'd look at the new location of Booksale and buy one book. I ended up with four. There was another interesting book they had on sale there: Iain Pearson's An Instance of the Fingerpost.

Are you the type of person that only reads one book at a time or can you read more than one at a time?
What I'm reading usually depends on my mood, so if I feel like not continuing with what I'm currently reading, I'll pick up another one. Hopefully I get to finish it or both of them or all of them.

Do you have a favorite time of day and/or place to read?
As long as its quiet and without distractions (like people moving around all the time), I can read well. I also read lying or sitting down, and sometimes standing up. I usually do this at home, but more recently, I have been able to ignore the environment and read in crowded and noisy places like CASAA.

Do you prefer series books or stand alone books?
I'd rather read stand alone books so that I won't be left with the feeling of needing to buy the next one. But I've read a few series, and they're also great (e.g. HP, LOTR, Tales of Earthsea, Dune).

Is there a specific book or author that you find yourself recommending over and over?
It would have to be Neil Gaiman. Reading Preludes and Nocturnes, my first time to read any work by his, is unforgettable. At the beginning, I thought it had lousy visuals. But it wasn't long before it's got me hooked into this world where Endless beings personify aspects of life, and lost ordinary people, just like me, make their way, stumbling at first, but eventually finding the strength to stand up on their own. Since then, I've tried to read his novels and short stories. I love Neverwhere, it's my favorite Gaiman novel. I just love fantasy. I love the way the fantasy world co-exists with the real world that we know. It's there, we just don't know it. And it's our choice what we do with the knowledge of the existence of both.

How do you organize your books? (By genre, title, author’s last name, etc.?)
Oh, I've got no system yet. We only have one bookshelf at home, and it's quite stacked to the limit. Some layers are two or three books deep (for the mass market paperbacks), and I usually put the ones I want to read or re-read nearest the glass door of the shelf.