I am between books. Choosing my next book is a serious matter for me. I oscillate between titles, trying to match the story with how I am feeling at the moment. How do you choose your next book?
I chose “The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared”. I am about a hundred pages in, and am quite enjoying it. You are correct – I like my books to have physical pages 🙂
Well I love Alice Munro. Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage was brilliant. I recently read a book of William Trevor short stories. Loved that too. Do you have any short story recommendations?
That Munro volume is on my “to read” shelf, along with a book of essays by Barbara Kingsolver called “High Tide in Tucson”. My favourite short story writer is Alistair McLeod. His work is steeped in east coast tradition and sense of place.
Ohhh, I didn’t know Barbara Kingsolver had a short story collection. I loved The Poisonwood Bible and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. And I must have read at least something by Alistair McLeod (I’m Canadian too). I’ll add him to my list. Thanks so much!
I’m from Ontario, near Toronto (Belleville to be precise). My daughter returned last year for university at Guelph (she’s home now for summer). She loves it and keeps urging me to move back. Are you near Calgary?
Yes, about 20 minutes south of Calgary. Both my husband and I grew up in southern Alberta, but we lived in Waterloo, Ontario while he attended UW. He did a work term in Guelph.
Choosing a good book can take me quite a while. I hate forcing myself to read a book because I made a mistake buying it. Subject matter is important but that still leaves too many books.
With science books, which I like, sometimes the popular ones are more pseudo science, so I usually research the author, and in most cases they give a small lecture about the book when I check youtube.
As for sci-fi, my next favourite category, I check Amazon and see what books other people bought that also bought books I like. This works quite well. In fact this works well with most books, since similar it directs you to people with similar taste.
Finally, I have to accept that a percentage of books are just not worth finishing. I give those to others as a present lol.
Make sure you tell us the results. We’d be interested to hear how people choose!
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Thank you. Click on “view results” in the bottom right corner of the poll to see the votes.
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Have you picked your new book yet? Looks like you prefer physical books like me 🙂 I’m also between books. I think I’ll go for some short stories.
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I chose “The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared”. I am about a hundred pages in, and am quite enjoying it. You are correct – I like my books to have physical pages 🙂
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Ohhh, I just looked that up. Sounds good! It has great reviews too. Enjoy!
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Do you have a favourite anthology or short story author?
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Well I love Alice Munro. Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage was brilliant. I recently read a book of William Trevor short stories. Loved that too. Do you have any short story recommendations?
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That Munro volume is on my “to read” shelf, along with a book of essays by Barbara Kingsolver called “High Tide in Tucson”. My favourite short story writer is Alistair McLeod. His work is steeped in east coast tradition and sense of place.
LikeLike
Ohhh, I didn’t know Barbara Kingsolver had a short story collection. I loved The Poisonwood Bible and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. And I must have read at least something by Alistair McLeod (I’m Canadian too). I’ll add him to my list. Thanks so much!
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My pleasure! I love to talk about books. What part of Canada do you hail from?
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Me too 🙂
I’m from Ontario, near Toronto (Belleville to be precise). My daughter returned last year for university at Guelph (she’s home now for summer). She loves it and keeps urging me to move back. Are you near Calgary?
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Yes, about 20 minutes south of Calgary. Both my husband and I grew up in southern Alberta, but we lived in Waterloo, Ontario while he attended UW. He did a work term in Guelph.
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Small world! My brother also attended Waterloo. Great school! And Guelph is beautiful. Very green.
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Small world indeed!
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Choosing a good book can take me quite a while. I hate forcing myself to read a book because I made a mistake buying it. Subject matter is important but that still leaves too many books.
With science books, which I like, sometimes the popular ones are more pseudo science, so I usually research the author, and in most cases they give a small lecture about the book when I check youtube.
As for sci-fi, my next favourite category, I check Amazon and see what books other people bought that also bought books I like. This works quite well. In fact this works well with most books, since similar it directs you to people with similar taste.
Finally, I have to accept that a percentage of books are just not worth finishing. I give those to others as a present lol.
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