I first became aware of the term "graphic novel" a few years ago. I thought it meant novels that are, well, graphic in the sense of violence or sex. (I’m a little slow on the uptake sometimes!) My first introduction to a graphic novel/memoir was Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home. (Some of you may know her as the amazing author of Dykes to Watch Out For in all its iterations.) I was enthralled with Fun Home’s story, the illustrations, the form. Since then I’ve read several more graphic memoirs and some graphic novels. A particular favorite author is Shaun Tan, author of The Arrival, Tales from Outer Suburbia and others.
Do you read graphic novels or memoirs? Who are your favorite authors? Which books do you recommend?
If you haven’t read any, why not?
Some people have the impression that graphic novels are glorified comic books, are unsophisticated or don’t qualify as "serious" literature. What do you think? If you track your book numbers, do you count a graphic novel as a book read?

No, I don’t read graphic novels.

I gave them a try, but found I didn’t like them at all. I tried yaoi; God, that was confusing and so not my thing. I blogged about that here.

My husband reads a lot of graphic novels and told me when the first Anita Blake book “Guilty Pleasures” came out as a graphic novel. Another shot, another failure. I hated the art work, I hated how the images in my head were not like the ones in the book.

I suppose it would be different if it was an original novel and not an adaptation, but as far as I’m concerned the less images in a fiction book, the better.

To see what other weekly Geeks have to say about graphic novels, go here.

This week’s Weekly Geeks is coming from Tara SG from 25 hour books

P.A.B.D. has plagued me on and off for my entire life. I know many bookworms who are faced with the same problem. Please read on to see if you have PABD and see how you can help yourself or others suffering from this disorder.

So what is P.A.B.D.?
Post Amazing Book Depression – The over-whelming sad feeling one gets after finishing a great book.

Signs of P.A.B.D.

missing characters

* often includes talking about characters in day to day life
——- ex. I wonder what Katsa and Po are doing.
——- ex. Do you think Cat and Bones will get married?
——- ex. If she doesn’t choose Eric, I don’t know how I’ll survive.
* hearing songs that remind you of certain characters/scenes

• constant rereading of the same book

* extreme cases can lead to the reading of fan-fiction

• stalking of the author

* constantly checking their blog for updates
* Googling interviews in which the book (or series) are mentioned
* joining multiple fansites

• lack of interest in other books

* finding yourself staring at your bookshelf and seeing nothing worth reading
* wandering around the bookstore/library picking up and putting back books

How to live with P.A.B.P.

• Find other books by the same author.

* Is there more in the series?

• Search for books with similar themes.

* Thanks to the hard work some dedicated book lovers, you can find sites that help you find books similar to those you love.
* Use Amazon to see what others are buying that liked the book.

• Have a rebound book.

* Keep a favorite book on hand to immerse yourself in.

• Force a friend to read the book

* This will give you a chance to experience reading the book through someone else.
* You will then have someone to endlessly discuss the book with.

Books Known to Cause PABD
* Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling
* Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
* The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
* Sookie Stackhouse/Southern Vampire Series by Charlaine Harris
* The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Have you had PABD?
What book caused it? How did you deal with it?

I don’t know whether I ever suffered from PABD. I feel strongly about some series and have steadfast opinions about some things, like Bill has nothing on Eric or V is the best brother, but I can live without them.

The other books mentioned above as popular PABD books never held my attention for a long time. The Harry Potter books I can do without. I read them and forgot them. Twilight I gave away after reading and I was glad when  TTTW was over because it was such a tear jerker.

A series I will be sorry to see coming to an end is Andrea Camilleri’s Commissario Montalbano books. I love all the characters, the setting (even though I don’t think I’d want to go there, it’s way too hot in Sicily) and the way he writes. Thank God there are quite a few books out there, so I have plenty to re-read.

Two books I would have liked to continue reading are

Perfume by Patrick Süskind
The story was so compelling and the characters so interesting that I was sorry to see Grenouille die in the end, even though he was so unlikeable. The way Süskind describes scents, smells and stenches is absolutely fabulous, within the first paragraph you are drawn into the story and you never get out of it again before it finishes.

Confessions of Felix Krull by Thomas Mann
If you’d like to know more about this book, please go to this weekly geek post from some time ago.
It has the subtitle “The Early Years” (in German it is called “Der Memoiren erster Teil, which implies that there is a sequel), but there never was another book by Mann about Felix Krull which is a pity. I would have loved to read more. It ended very early when Krull was only at the beginning of his “career” and since he wrote his memoirs in jail at old age (Mann wrote the book in first person) I’m sure there would have been many more stories to tell.

For more Weekly Geeks about PABD please go here.

Last week was the release of the latest installment in The Black Dagger Brotherhood series – LOVER MINE, the much awaited book by J.R. Ward. One of my blogger friend, Pattepoilue from One Book Away From Heaven is having a problem getting past one of the earlier books in the series to make her way to LOVER MINE.

She tossed out a post asking for help in getting her mojo back on or some suggestion on what to do about the book that she just does not want to read.

I am pigging backing on that post and tossing it out here to the Weekly Geeker’s – to see how you guys deal with that book in that series that you are following, that is just not doing it for you.

• What series do you read where you have had an issue with one of the books in the line-up.
• Do you cut the author lose after one miss, or do you have a limit of failed books in a series before you toss in the towel.
• What’s your suggestion for that book that you struggle with in a series.

E.H. posted a great topic this week. Since she mentioned the BDB series I’m going to start with the brothers right away. When I started reading the series I loved it. Up to book 5 I was ok. That one is my absolute favourite, even though the ending sucked, because I’m a V girl all over. Book 6 was a disappointment , so I didn’t bother getting book 7. I only learned from E.H.’s post that there is book 8 out now. Not interested in it anymore.  There you are. I cut the author loose after one miss.

To stay with (paranormal) romance, I also liked the first few Carpathian novels by Christine Feehan, but after a few books I quit reading that, too. The stereotype males with their continuous “little women” were too much even for me. So, no more Feehan for me.

Two series I finished with, albeit with mixed feelings, were the Twilight series and the Harry Potter books. Twilight, because I had to know what the fuss was all about, but I skipped a lot. After I was finished I gave them away immediately. I usually am a re-reader, but I will never read them again, I’m certain.
Harry Potter, because I had to know what happens next and how it will end. However, for me the HP books are totally not memorable. I know, HP fans will stone me for this, but after reading an HP book I forget the plot almost at once. Of course I remember all the basic stuff, but what exactly happens in a specific book is gone. When a new book came out I practically had to re-read the previous ones in order to follow the plot. I found this weird. If you asked me anything about the books apart from general wizardry, Hogwarts, Weasley questions, I wouldn’t be able to answer.

A series I gave up after half of the first book is the No.1 Ladies Detective Agency series. I got the first three books, which shows I was pretty optimistic about it (they also were buy two, get one free), but I didn’t like the first book at all, so no second chance for Alexander McCall Smith.

The series I follow loyally are all detective series.  And with those I never miss one.

I read all Dorothy L. Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey books, all Agatha Chrsstie’s  Poirot and Miss Marple books. On my auto-buy list are the following:

• David Wishart’s Marcus Valerius Corvinus series. You just have to love wisecracking Corvinus.
• John Maddox Roberts’ SPQR series – not for the brilliant detective work, but for the general setting
• Andrea Camilleri’s Comissario Montalbano series. Montalbano is the epitome of manhood for me, I hope that there are many more books to come.

Basically if I read a book in a series and don’t like it, I’m done with the series. For good.

Read what other Weekly Geeks have to say.

 

April is National Poetry Month in the US and Canada. It is "a celebration of poetry first introduced in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets as a way to increase awareness and appreciation of poetry."
Now I’m not one for poetry but maybe I should learn more about this literary form. For this week’s theme, I encourage participants to to help celebrate National Poetry Month by:

• Posting a favorite poem, or
• Reviewing a poem or book of poems, or
• Discussing a favorite poet, or
• Posting a vlog of yourself reading a poem or find a video of someone else reading one, or
• Writing a poem yourself- any form

Or come up with something I haven’t thought of to celebrate and post it on your blog. Let your imagination run wild.

I love Ancient Japanese poetry and haiku. Haiku is a form of traditional Japanese poetry with no title, no rhyme and in three metrical phrases of 5, 7, and 5 moras (sound units). Before Masaoka Shiki came along haiku were called hokku. They became popular in the second half of the 17th century.  When a nobleman entertained in the evening a collaborative poem called Haikai no Renga was created by several poets. The first verse – hokku – had to be done by a renga master and had to follow certain rules, like contain a reference to the time and the host of the evening. Usually this was done by referring to the current season and by honoring the host with an image taken from nature. Matsuo Basho was a master at this and already during his time the hokku became a separate form of poem.

Only in the 19th century Masaoka Shiki gave it the name haiku and made it so popular that it later became known all over the world.

One of my favourite haiku by Shiki is this one:

Oppressive heat —
My whirling mind
Listens to the peals of thunder.

Unfortunately in this translation, as so often, the 5-7-5 isn’t there anymore. A German translation of the same haiku goes like this (and here the translator managed to keep the 5-7-5)

Die Hitze drückend
die Sinne ganz benommen
lausch ich dem Donner.

Here are some links to haiku sites that I recommend (mostly modern haiku):

• A previous blog post of mine about haiku with various links
• Zombie haiku contest
• Haikuforge
• haiQ – a twitter feed, I absolutely love it

Here you can see what other Weekly Geeks say about poetry.

National Library Week is coming up April 11-17, and April is School Libraries Month (2010 is the 25th anniversary). This got me wondering about the state of libraries around the globe.
What’s your earliest memory of a library? What was it like for you? Were you more likely to hang out in the gym or the library when you were in school?
How’s the health of the library system in your community? How do you support your local library? How often do you check out books from the library vs. buying books? Tell us what your favorite library is like and include some photos if you can.

I remember that when I was a little girl I went to the local library with my mother. We had our library booklet where the librarian used to fill out by hand what books we got and when they were due. Then she would fill out the card which stuck in the book with our reader number and due date. The cards she kept. I have no idea what system they used back in those days to keep track of which books were due and who had them. They must have been pretty efficient in organizing.

Then years later I went to another library where they had little punch cards that were punched with a machine, not a computer yet, but definitely technically more advanced than the older system.

I always loved libraries. There was a time when I didn’t go that often, but now, that the kids like to read or be read to, I go more often again. I don’t get that much fiction, which I tend to rather buy and keep, but I’m getting tons of non-fiction there. Our older son has his own library card which he also uses with the library bus that comes to his school every two months. Also both our boys are members of the local church library because the kindergarten goes there regularly. So, at least where I live, the kids automatically get used to libraries from a very early age.

The library system seems to be pretty healthy over here. Our local library has several little branches in the various parts of town and a number of library buses that go to schools. That way most of the school kids have a library card – whether they all use it though, I don’t know. Our library is situated in an old building (not old enough to be beautiful, just old enough to be ugly, except for some parts), but is in the process of being renovated. Some parts of the building are either torn down or cored, so that the library had to move into different other buildings. Quite inconvenient because for kids’ books you have to go here, for non-fiction you have to go to another place…In one of the buildings they have a small cafe with lots of international newspapers where you can hang out for hours reading and watching people. It has a courtyard where you can sit outside in summer. Very nice and quiet.

Whenever we go to the library it is packed. Not that this reflects whether the library makes good money. It is subsidized and only wants money from the readers when books are not returned in time.

You can see a lot of beautiful libraries at Curious Expeditions. But I want to draw your attention to a private library. It is Jay Walker’s library in his home in New England. If I had a library like that I don’t think I’d ever leave my house again. AMAZING!

I had a look around for famous libraries and came across some ancient ones of which only ruins remain.

 

All four images above from flick’r.

To read what other weekly geeks have to say about libraries go here. Oh, and the library in the original weekly geeks post is the Library of Congress.

Many lovers of books and tattoos have combined the two. In my opinion, there is a magic in being able to carry your favorite quote with you wherever you go. I’m far from being the only one who feels this way. LiveJournal has a group called Bookworms with Ink in which people share their literary tattoos and ask for advice before getting one.
And so I ask:

• Do you have a literary tattoo? Please share it with us and tell us why you chose it.

• Do you have any ideas for future literary tattoos? Are there any quotes that you might one day want to have printed on you? (No plans on ever getting a tattoo? Just let us know what you would get if you were to ever get a tattoo!)

• How do you think the author feels about having their work permanently inked on a fan’s body?

Want to see more literary tattoos? Feel free to check out or participate in Tattoo Tuesdays!

About a year ago I already made a short blog entry about Literary Tattoos after I stumbled somehow on a site called Contrariwise Literary Tattoos. 

I do have a tattoo, but not a literary one, so nothing to share here. I never considered getting one either, even though I totally love the idea of having a favourite quote or character (like Max) tattooed on the body. If I ever decided to get one maybe it would be a quote by Oscar Wilde, simply because his quotes are timeless and I have yet to come across one I don’t like. Another possibility would be Emily Dickinson.

Forever – is composed of Nows

maybe. But when I come to think of it, to narrow the choice down to one is probably too hard and I would decide against it altogether.

I could imagine that an author would be more than flattered if his/her work is inked  on someone’s body. Laser removal not considered they carry those words all their lives and take them to the grave. Is their a better and more definite way to express one’s admiration?

This week’s Weekly Geeks is about the following:

Having recently been told that I’m odd because I’m not terribly interested in author interviews I’ve started to ponder whether there are two types of readers…those who stick to the books versus those who like to know more about the author’s background, thoughts, motivations and writing process.

So, what about you?

• Do you seek out interviews with authors of books you’ve enjoyed? Why or why not?
• Do you interview authors on your blog? If yes what did you gain from the interview process? If no is it because you don’t want to or because you haven’t felt able to ask an author yet?
• Do you subscribe to the blogs of authors you like? Which ones? All the authors you like or only certain ones?
• Do you track down author websites or look for biographical information about them elsewhere? Would you skip reading a book if you couldn’t find out anything about its author?
• Have you hosted an author on a blog tour? Was it someone whose books you already read or did it introduce you to a new author?

I don’t think it is odd at all if someone is not particularly interested in an author, but only in his / her books. I’m the same. If I like a book, I only want to know whether there are more from its author. I don’t want to know the biography or the background of the writer.

I don’t seek out author interviews. If I come across one with an author I really like, I might read it and even find it interesting, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to find it. And I wouldn’t interview authors on my blog or host an author on a blog tour for the same reason. Mind you, if authors comment on my blog I enjoy the dialogue, but then it is about a certain book and not about the author him-/herself.

I am a subscriber to several authors’ blogs, not of all the ones I like, but some. Not because I want to find out more about their lives, but rather to get updates on new or upcoming books, excerpts etc.

I definitely wouldn’t skip reading a book just for the lack of information about an author. If I want to read a book, I couldn’t care less about what I can find out about its writer.

This topic brought two books to my mind. There is this German gothic novel called “Vier Tage währt die Nacht” by a certain Dorothea S. Baltenstein. According to the publishing house the author only wrote this one novel in the 1920s before she died at the age of 30. Nobody knew more about her, but the novel was reviewed positively by everybody when it came out a few years ago (it was supposed to be an attic find). Only some time later it turned out that there was no Dorothea S. Baltenstein, but the book had been written by a German teacher and four of his students. It is said that the publisher who eventually bought the novel had required a pseudonym and a fictional author, since nobody would have bought a Gothic novel written by a teacher and a few students.

And then there is the case of Toyotama Tsuno who wrote Japanese poems and had them published in a book called “Gelöstes Haar”. She was supposed to have lived in Paris and died from tuberculosis at a young age (seems to happen often to fictional writers) and only later it turned out that the supposed translator of the poems, Manfred Hausmann, was the actual poet.

So what if the biographical details of the authors were made up and had nothing to do with reality? I liked both and I couldn’t care less about whether it was a fragile Japanese lady living in exile, an equally fragile German lady from the 20s, a group of people experimenting or a German male journalist who wrote them. If that makes me odd, too, so be it.

I haven’t participated in the Weekly Geeks for ages, but it was always such fun, so I think I will try to do it more often again. This week it is an interesting topic for all bloggers: Commenting.

Do you have a commenting policy? For example:
*Do reply to all comments? If you do, how do you do it? Email? On the blog?
*Do you use moderation?
*How do you handle trolls? Flaming?
*How much do you tolerate from a belligerent commenter before you close or delete comments?
Have you ever gotten a comment from someone you admire? An author? A superstar blogger (the ones with the book deals)?
How do you feel about author comments? Are they welcome or do they make you nervous?
Word verification? Yay or nay.
And then there’s spam. How do we combat the evil that is spam?
Talk about your experiences with any of the above. Share your wisdom with other bloggers. What works on your blog? What doesn’t?

OK, I try to reply to all comments. It’s only polite, if somebody takes the time to comment on my blog that I do the same and reply. I usually reply directly in the comments section. Readers can subscribe to comments, so they will know when a new comment has been added.

Comments are moderated only the first time a reader comments. Once the first comment has been approved the next comment appears automatically on my blog. I haven’t had a troll problem yet. So I can’t say what I’d do. It’s the same with belligerent comments. Never had any yet. Spam IS a problem, though, but with Akismet which is a default plugin for wordpress blogs, it can be controlled very easily.

I hate word verification. I often have problems with it on other blogs, so I wouldn’t want to use it on my blog either.

I love author’s comments. In the m/m romance community word about a review seems to get out rather quickly, so I have had a few authors who came by and commented. Even if my review wasn’t all positive they have always commented in a nice way and said they appreciated the time I took to talk about their book. Lately one of my reviews was quite negative, in fact I said I could not recommend the story, and when I saw that the author had commented, I thought “uh oh”, but she was very gracious and had a lot of interesting things to say.

A nice feature for people who comment that I use is Comment luv, another plugin for wordpress. It displays the last (or another chosen) blog post of the commenter’s blog. So, readers can see immediately whether they might find something interesting to read on another commenter’s blog.

The little comment graphic that Weekly Geeks is displaying this week comes from The Vintage Moth, where they offer even more. I think I’ll either use one of them or create my own to stick up in the sidebar. Maybe it will coax readers into commenting more. Bloggers love comments, and I’m no exception.

See what others have to say at the Weekly Geeks blog

This week’s weekly geeks: It’s hard to believe we’re approaching the last quarter of 2009. Soon those of us in the northern hemisphere will be curled up in front of the fire (or solar heater) with our favorite wintry reads, and those in the southern will be off to the beaches with their summer books.
Do you have a plan of what you’re going to read the rest of the year? Have you had a master plan all along? If so, have you stuck to it? What helps you to decide what you’re going to read next? Challenges? Book groups? Or do you have the luxury of closing your eyes and picking any book off your shelf?
I know some of you have spreadsheets and other devices to help you keep track of your books and challenges. (I even succumbed to using a spreadsheet this year after teasing my friends relentlessly about theirs.) If you have online spreadsheets, such as Google, can you give us a peek at them with a link or a screen shot?

I found this question somewhat strange. I don’t have any plan whatsoever, as far as reading is concerned. Reading is mere pleasure and I don’t read according to a plan. I read what I want when I want it. A spreadsheet to organize my reading? Don’t think so.

I loosely use Shelfari for keeping track of what I read but since I only started doing that last year I only have books on my shelf that I could remember. They should have Shelfari 36 years ago! But even on Shelfari I don’t use all the options for tagging and adding information on my books. I’m a member of a few Shelfari groups, but don’t follow them closely either. I’m to fickle obviously – and lazy.

Book challenges: Well, yes, I entered a few this year, but only followed through with one. All the others I gave up sooner or later. Now I’ve got tons of TBR books from those challenges on my bookshelf.

At the moment the books that are sitting there waiting to be read are:

• The Reader by Bernhard Schlink
  That’s the book I bought in English instead of German because of the nicer cover. I’m crazy.
• I capture the castle by Dodie Smith
  Got that because of Claire’s review. Thanks, Claire, for the recommendation.
• Gods behaving badly by Marie Phillips
  Twelve Olympic Gods crammed into a London town house in the 21st century sounds like fun.
• The Beautiful Being by Jessica Inclan
  This will be out end of September, but Jessica generously sent me an ARC. Thanks, Jessica.
• Enzyklopädie der Alltagsqualen by Hannes Stein
  A very amusing book in which Hannes Stein describes everyday ordeals. Unfortunately strictly German.
• Der schönste deutsche Satz
  A book with the entries of the competition of which sentence is the most beautiful first sentence in a German book. By the way, the winner was the first sentence of “Der Butt” by Günther Grass.

To see what other weekly geeks have to say, go here.

This week’s weekly geeks:

Last year, I saw a movie, I think it was called Definitely, Maybe, that got me to thinking. In this movie, one of the girls was on a quest to find a particular copy of Jane Eyre, I forget now the specific reason why. But in the process of her search, she ended up with this massive collection of Jane Eyre books, from all sorts of places and years and styles. She had a shelf that went all the way around her room, filled with these wonderful Jane Eyre books.
It made me wish I had a collection like hers, a collection of one particular title, in all it’s various versions.
So, Weekly Geeksters, tell us, do you have a collection, (or are you starting a collection,) of one particular book title? If so, what’s your story? Why that book, and how many do you have, and what editions are they? Share pictures and give us all the details.

Or perhaps you dream about starting such a collection. What title would it be and what would it take for you to get motivated to start collecting?
Or maybe it’s the works of a particular author you collect (or want to collect) instead a certain book title?

I can’t say that I ever considered starting a collection of one specific title. We have a few different issues of “Dracula”, but I can’t really call them a collection, because they came about by accident rather than on purpose. If you look at the state of our bookshelves (as you can see here, for example), it is not that easy to find a specific book, so it sometimes happens that we buy a book that we already have. Admittedly, after four copies of Dracula we should know by now that we own Dracula in abundance. So I don’t think that we will continue that collection.

Then we have a few issues of “Lord of the Rings”, but that happened when two households were thrown together. So, not a collection either.

I don’t know what would make me collect various issues of a certain book. If I’m not after special editions or signed copies, why would I collect a certain title? Maybe, if the cover art on the various issues is especially interesting. But offhand I can’t think of any title I’d be interested in collecting.

As for authors, again, no. Of course, I have several books of certain authors, but I wouldn’t call them a collection either. I don’t have anybody on a sort of auto-buy list. I don’t have favourite authors whose books I buy sight unseen.

Then again, the only author that comes to mind is possibly Marion Zimmer Bradley. I have several of her books, not all related to the same series. But given the number of books she’s written, my little collection is very small indeed.

To see what other geeks are collecting, go to the weekly geeks.