How I Read – Book Tag

This tag has been circulating on BookLikes, and since reading them all was so much fun I thought I will just add one of my own

 

How do you find out about new books to read?

I wish it would be harder to find out about new books, since I would really like to add fewer books to Mt. TBR. I mean, it’s wonderful of course that so many great books are being published but where do I find the time to read them all. However, I’m digressing.

Most of the books I find on the internet. I regularly browse Netgalley to find the ‘really’ new books, and a bunch of other sites, like GoodReads, BookLikes and two Dutch book forums (Ezzulia and the FF-Leesclub) where people post reviews and discuss books. Here I find books that I probably should know about. It’s been a great help, also to open up new genres for me to read.

I used to go to the library a lot as well, and just browse their, but since they won’t acknowledge me as a student there (which is ridiculous) I refuse to go there (at least for as long as I’m actually a student).

Browsing in the bookstore I do, but usually the English departments of these stores are rather limited and mostly I’ve already heard of the books they’ve got. Luckily there are some very large (international) stores that can sometimes surprise me (I don’t mind driving 350 km just to get there once a year).

 

How did you get into reading?

I honestly don’t really remember. Although I’ve had the impression I’ve always been reading a lot, I read a lot more now than in my teens. I believe it really started (as in reading great numbers of books) when I discovered online book communities and found that there is so much fun in discussing book.

 

How have your tastes in books changed as you got older?

They have become more broad. I was glad to enter the world of the YA/adult books because there were few children’s books I truly loved. I found most of the (Dutch) children’s novels either dull, patronizing or horribly outdated. When I first emerged from these books I moved into mostly thrillers, but since I’ve started to read a lot of SFF and literature as well. Basically any genre except for romance, that’s still not really a genre I liked to read.

 

How often do you buy books?

I try not to buy books too often. I do request books from Netgalley on a regular basis, but me buying paper books is rather rare these days. (Two in the last three months, even though before that I bought the complete Little Black Classics set from Penguin). I also sometimes get some free books on Amazon, as I still find paying for ebooks something I only do when I can’t avoid it. (I rather pay a bit more to be able to hold my copy if I’ve paid for it)

 

How did you get into reviewing books?

For me, it started years ago when I was active on the very first bookish site I was aware of (watleesjij.nu). They promoted that you’d write a little something about a book on their site and were offering a book a month I think for the best reviews on their site. The rest is, as they say history. Though I had sporadically reviews ARCs, it only became serious business for me after I discovered Netgalley through BookLikes. I was, as you can probably imagine, as a child in a candy shop. I’ve not been able to leave since.

 

How do you react when you don’t like the end of a book?

It depends. If I just don’t like it, it happens, I might just feel a bit disappointed. If it’s a completely stupid and ridiculous kind of ending that doesn’t resolve anything and makes no sense at all, it will start with facepalming (double facepalm if particularly bad) and eyerolling even if no one is around. Then I’ll probably embark on a quest to tell (rage) everyone how ridiculous it was, like with the ending of The Mammoth Hunters. But, not that I’m bitter or anything.

 

How often do you take a sneak peek at the ending to see if there is a happy ending?

Never! Spoilers!

 

Do you use bookmarks in your books?

I’m very glad that eReaders automatically keep track of where you are in a book, because I have a tendency to fall asleep when reading at night and I sometimes forget to put the bookmark in (and being asleep I obviously don’t remember the page number either). Though when awake I use a bookmark when I have one and otherwise I’m just fine remembering it. Also, as a backup system I always try to keep the statuses on GR updated.

 

Everyone who hasn’t yet filled it in but would like to: Please do, it’s a lot of fun to read them!