Recommendations: More Complicated Than You Think

I was struck by Melissa's very excellent post yesterday, which both summed up my own current malaise with reading/picking a book to read and made me think about a problem I have in general with recommending things.

I am so completely overwhelmed by choice that I'm actually finding it hard to just read one book. And when I do pick one, like I started a book I was really looking forward to that I got at ALA (not Carnival of Souls), I find it to be...mediocre. Not worth finishing. Trust me, it was a huge disappointment since this book should have been everything I love in a book and it was the first book in weeks I'd really invested the time and energy to read. Anyway, I wrote a bit about this on tumblr before.

But she also wrote,

I'm reading book blogs, book reviews, feeling meh, about everything. Feeling that I can never quite understand how the reviewer truly feels. Where are the books where there is no logic, no rhyme, no reason? It's different than like. It's different than, oh, yes, that was a good book. It's even different than that was well written. I'm talking about pure, inarticulate, head over heels in love books where you just scream Read it! Read it! YOU HAVE TO.

The last time I was really enthusiastic about anything on this blog it was not a book, but a TV show. And I know of at least 4 people that started it, but I definitely got the general sense from all of them that they sort of felt like....why do you like this so much? And it's that sort of reaction, mixed with the fact that I'm so used to constantly interacting with an assortment of people with different tastes, that makes me really reserved in expressing unabashed love for anything to the point of being evangelical. In fact, I almost commented on Melissa's post that the last book I really felt that sort of love for was Jellicoe Road but then I remembered she has tried to read it several times and doesn't like it.

So I think I've been really conditioned through blogging to do the thing Melissa describes, to talk about a book and its strengths, to express a level of acceptable enthusiasm without ever going overboard. Because to just be like...READ THIS BOOK it's awesome, only sets people up for disappointment. And yet...

At the same time I agree with her that I'm LOOKING for for that kind of enthusiasm from people. I'm so weary of reading things that only disappoint me, that I'm letting other people read everything first. I'm really carefully choosing the books I choose to invest my time in because I want a good return for it. I want to read the books that connect with me and have something to say. I want my mind to be blown, I want to fall deeply in love with characters and worlds that exist only on the page. I want to change and become a different person. I want to know what people are talking about when they reference the classics.

There's no exact formula. A story about girls shipwrecking on an island and trying to survive is made up of everything I should love, and yet...I don't. A European World War II story is something I would normally turn my nose up at, and yet I was riveted--turning the pages and weeping through the story. The most recent thing I've watched on recommendation is Avatar: The Last Airbender, something that if described to me I would probably not even consider. But two of my favorite people online (who are very different from each other, btw) both like it, so I had to watch it you know? And surprise! it's a lot of fun.

So I guess I rely and depend on recommendations. And to be honest, I think knowing what a blogger likes is becoming more and more important. I've realized that just because I like a blogger, that doesn't mean I will like the same things they do. Finding that compatibility is so hard. And relying on the crowd, as opposed to the individual, is becoming more and more important maybe?

How do you feel about this? Do you feel reserved in expressing your love for books or maybe you just don't often feel the kind of love Melissa describes? Or are you on the opposite end of the spectrum where you are always shouting with enthusiasm about what you love? Have you ever read/watched something that was so enthusiastically recommended only to discover you didn't like it at all? Do you have a go-to person for recommendations?

Btw, I love to talk about recommending books a lot, I think, here are some simliar posts:
Literary Identity, The Weight of Recommendations, and More
Love Me, Love This Book

Reflecting on the Year in Books and Book Blogging

2011 feels like it was a big year for change in a lot of ways--in publishing, books, how and why we read what we do, and also book blogging itself. Maybe some of these changes are just changes for me...I once rode in on a new wave of book blogging and now something else has taken its place and at times I feel a bit lost. I've had to evaluate exactly what I'm doing and why and what matters most to me in all of this, otherwise I'd probably just stop altogether...I very nearly did this year, after all. I've watched some of my own favorite book bloggers drop the title of book blogger--something we used to be proud of that sort of...bonded us together as a community? others leave Twitter, many go professional, and still others nearly disappear altogether. I used to feel like I had a sort of segment of the community that I belonged to, but there have been so many divisions now, some of them ugly, some just the natural way things progress as time passes. And yet...despite all of this, there's a warmth I feel when in the company of fellow readers, a way that blogging about books is a part of my life that I don't want to lose. YOU all are part of my life and I don't want to lose you even if I can't be a book blogger in the way that I used to. And so I guess that's what I learned at the end of the day, that what I value about book blogging the most are the connections and friends that I've made along the way, and the way I've learned to think smarter and better about what I read. There's something so comforting about knowing that while we each live our own lives, we also share a sort of life on our blogs. I like it. Let's not kill it completely okay? Evolution is a weird thing, and this evolving as a blogger thing has been one of the most interesting for me, because I certainly never expected to find myself at this particular point. In short? What I care about: reading good books, talking about them, making and keeping good friends, being smarter, and having a record of what I've read in a year. What I don't care about: Discovering the next great book, having a million readers that I have no interaction with, marketing and selling books just for the sake of marketing and selling books. Admittedly, I used to have a lot of internal conflict over some of these, but not anymore.

As far as the actual title of book blogger...well I still consider myself one because that IS what I blog the most about, but it doesn't really matter to me one way or another. I didn't originally create this blog to be a book blog and I do blog about other stuff so if that doesn't make me a book blogger so be it.

But! On top of all that stuff, I thought this post I wrote back at the beginning of the year was very timely. In A Dying Way of Life, I discussed how I could see our bookish way of life coming to an end. And since then I watched another used local bookstore close and just today (well on Thursday when you read this) I learned the local Book Warehouse is closing. I just feel so much grief and some of it is ridiculous because it's not like I NEED physical bookstores, it's just that I have a really hard time letting things go. I don't know if I will like a world better where we all read on electronic devices and our interests are even more divided and fragmented than ever before. I will miss just browsing the shelves, eavesdropping on complete strangers' bookish conversations and just being in a place where books matter. Who knows what 2012 holds? I wouldn't be surprised if one of the big things that happens is that even more bookstores close.

In other news, a few other of my favorite posts this year:

My post about Reader's Block

Jealousy and Book Bloggers

I also admitted that I prefer female authors to male authors, and don't feel guilty about it. Much.

And just for nostalgia's sake, my tumblr post about missing the early days of book blogging.

I'm sure the coming year will bring many other changes to my blogging life and reading life, and hopefully personal life as well. But I do hope I'll be back at the end of 2012 to review the year once again. :)

Social Media: The Chicken or the Egg

Soooo.....the other day on Twitter I just happened to see Syfy tweet this*:



This immediately caught my attention because I think it speaks to what the social internet experience is ultimately about: the idea that no one has to be lonely again. You can find someone with your same interests no matter how unusual or rare. I mean I never would have imagined in a million years when I started blogging about books just how universal the experience of being a bookworm was. Or that there were other people who liked to both read and watch TV and didn't consider one or the other a waste of time. The desire for that connection is what drives people first and foremost to the social connections we have available to us online, not necessarily the hunger to find something new.

Of course, all that talking about things on the internet, on the Twitter and Facebook spaces made the people in the business of selling things sit up and take notice and try to figure out how to capitalize on these public places where people were talking. It's really easy after all, to create a Twitter account and engage in a discussion. It's even easier to spam, unfortunately. And that's where the sort of irony is to me, social media takes the painstaking time of building relationships, the careful maintenance of your reputation online and the time to learn the ropes, it's in no way easier or faster than many other ventures, but it is a different opportunity.

So the idea that the product that exists already, i.e. TV driving people online makes so much sense to me. It's how I operate, if I watch a show I love and feel that itch to discuss it more and crack it open and figure it out and understand how other people feel about it, I'll search for it online. It's no secret that I'm obsessive and finding someone in your limited circle of friends in real life that feels the same way can be impossible! But the very fact I'm reading about it online or discussing it with others means that I'm not using that time to watch another show. There are only so many hours in the day and you have to make choices. It works the same with blogging about books of course, the more time you spend discussing your blog and building connections with other bloggers the less time you're actually reading.

But of course at the same time, I can't deny the influence my online connections have had on me in return. My own reading expanded so much because of blogging, I tried so many books I never would have without blogging (and fell madly in love with them!), watched films that often turned out to be my favorites of the year that I would never have heard of without people I met online telling me about them. I definitely feel like what ever originally drove me to seek out a social experience online centered around something I loved in turn led me to many other things I grew to love as well.

One of my big goals for 2011 was to do more social reading and I failed miserably. I had everything in place...the Faith and Fiction round table for example. But the books we chose as a group ended up being really hard for me to get into and the discussions often ended up falling off quickly. I wanted to do two readalongs but ended up only with this one squeezed in at the end of the year, which I'm already behind in. My online book club, comprised primarily of very busy book bloggers, chose books I couldn't always get to easily and stopped meeting early because we simply have too much going on in our lives and difficult time zones to manage. I want to figure out how to remedy this for 2012, to find the right kind of social reading experience. One of the first things I'll be doing is reading and discussing Lilith with Hannah, another thing I failed to do this year! If anyone has any ideas I'd be really open to hearing them! I know there are a few reading circles, but they often choose books I would never read.

I'm curious though as to what you think about this overall. Has the trade-off been worthwhile to you? Do you discover more that you love from online social connections or do you feel like it cuts into your time to do other things you love?



*He was referencing Facebook likes and how the number of likes is proportionate to the length of time the page has been up.

Unsolicited Advice--When in Doubt: Disclose

If there's one thing that seems to be annoyingly true, it's that I learn things the hard way. Another way of saying this with a positive spin is that I learn by experience.

This isn't all bad or unfounded as I constantly tell myself, we all learn by doing or experience. Failure should never been seen as negatively as it is, because we can't really learn without it. Of course our failure can hurt others and cause permanent damage to things we love. But that's another story for another day.

One of the oft talked about issues in book blogging is disclosure. Do you disclose where the copy of the book you're reading came from? Do you disclose your relationships with authors, publishers, book stores, etc.? When I started out I didn't disclose anything because I felt it didn't make a difference in my reviews. But as time passed, I changed my mind because it's not really about me and what I feel, but rather about arming someone with all the information they need to make their own decision. Anyone who knows me well, knows I don't just write glowing reviews of books but since this is the internet, not everyone knows me! And my reviews can be read by someone just reading my site a single time.

This lesson was hammered home even more for me last year when I did a little bit of freelance online publicity work for authors. Despite the fact that I had a prior relationship with the authors I worked with, someone clued me into the fact I needed to be more obvious about my changed relationship with them. I realized in a flash how important it was to disclose upfront because I absolutely didn't want their names dragged through the mud because of me and my own failure. In fact, that's one of the reasons I realized I couldn't really do that work, I wanted to be able to talk about the books and authors I loved freely and I feel my blog and Twitter are my biggest ways to influence online.

Anyway, all this was brought to mind recently as some more high profile bloggers and bookish people have come under scrutiny for not disclosing all their sources of income. One blogger said they were honest and absolutely nothing had changed about the review policy or procedures. While this may be true, the problem remains that this is the internet. We don't all know each other. But even more than that, it's not that they are doing anything wrong, it's that the appearance of wrongdoing exists. It casts a shadow not only over individual bloggers but book blogging as a whole.

And the popular Twitter hashtag Friday Reads was brought up this past weekend as some people ventured onto their website and discovered they charge for giveaways. I myself haven't participated in the meme for a long time for various reasons but I have nothing against the folks behind Friday Reads choosing to do this, I understand that giveaways on that level take a lot of work. But I can also understand the surprise one might feel, especially since it seemed like Friday Reads started out as a grassroots internet phenomenon, something done for the pure joy and love of reading. Learning it's a small business can certainly be a shock to one's system! I found the variety of responses to be interesting on Friday....some people were actually accusing those who raised concerns of hurting reading. But is there concrete evidence that Friday Reads has raised the reading rates? It may help the sales of particular books. In any case, I'm sure that what happened will not hurt Friday Reads overall and any increased transparency and disclosure is a good thing.

I think I've just come to realize and would encourage that when you have any doubt at all, disclosure is the best way to go. It's not about you and whether or not you're an honest or trustworthy person. It's about giving people all the information they need to make their own decisions. It's about being absolutely clear so that there is never any doubt as to your intentions...it's ultimately about keeping the focus on the great books we read and talk about so they don't get overlooked or even worse have their names all mixed up in some stupid controversy where we explain why we didn't just mention we received review copies or talk to the author on Twitter everyday upfront.

It's not hard, it takes only a little bit of time, and in the long run, I really think it's worth it.

Jealousy and Book Bloggers

photo © 2010 Sandra | more info (via: Wylio)


The awesome Maggie Stiefvater tweeted a link that caught my attention yesterday and I've been thinking of it all day. It was a response in an advice column for writers about jealousy. The entire advice column is made of gold and will provide you with hours of distraction if you haven't read it before, so please don't leave yet, stick around for what I have to say!

I love the book blogging community. I've found it to be a really fun place and also really supportive. I've traveled cross country multiple times to see friends I've met in this community and I've laughed and had fun, and geeked out over books, and stayed in your homes, and I LOVE YOU ALL OKAY?

At the same time, there's an undercurrent of tension I often feel that occasionally explodes out into the open in the form of attacks on other bloggers that I feel are motivated by jealousy. And I'm not really surprised by that...with the increasing attention placed on bloggers by the publishing industry we are more than just a group of friends loving books together, we are also seeing our blogs used as marketing tools, and opportunities present themselves. And some blogs have huge readerships and get every ARC they could ever want and exclusives with authors and invited to private lunches and breakfasts at BEA and are getting hired to write reviews or speak on panels or other job opportunities and that's just the way it is.

And OF COURSE we sometimes feel jealous of each other. We are all doing the same thing here, we are all giving up our time and loving books and writing about them and trying to figure out Twitter and RSS and html and paying for giveaways and ignoring the people in our lives so we can finish that book in time for the blog tour. Some of us have more money than others and can travel to conventions and book festivals. Some of us live closer to big cities where there are more opportunities.

I have to confess I am sometimes envious of what other bloggers get. I was envious of everyone that got Forever by Maggie Steifvater, Legend by Marie Lu, and Pure by Julianna Baggott ARCs at BEA. When some book bloggers got iPads to promote a TV show I was already planning on watching--I'm not going to lie I felt a little bit of envy then, too. Not because I don't think they deserve them, but how come I'm always ignored? When @atrandom was tweeting about bloggers night out in New York, I felt envious of all those living so close to such great opportunities, when I have to drive at least an hour just to get to an independent bookstore.

It's the nature of what we do. We first got on our computers to squelch the silence, to create a space that was ours to talk about books, to build bridges out there in cyber land, to find others who are thinking about stories the way we do and loving the way words are spun together to capture truths about life. We wanted to know and find the other people who were wide eyed with delight over the books we've read and loved and to come out of our bookworm closets. For some of us, this is the strongest connection we have to other readers and for the first time we discovered that those bookish habits and quirks of ours were not ours alone.

Of course we have other goals and with increased opportunities to connect with authors, publishers, booksellers, and others the landscape has changed and continues changing. We find it's possible to develop new goals for our blogs and take them into a different direction.

As this continues to happen, though, I suspect the jealousy factor will continue to play a role. There are people would blame it on so many of us being women, and others who would suggest it's just about the free stuff. I don't really think it is, though. While I'm sure we all love whatever perks we get, the truth is that I don't think we're given enough credit for our blogs. Our blogs are our babies, if we were authors they would be equivalent to our books. I know many of us spend hours a week on our blogs. We think about them a lot. Some of us bare our souls. We travel to learn how to be better about blogging, we spend money on hosting, design, and more. And when opportunities come up it feels like validation that what we're doing is important. Someone has noticed our blog is worthwhile! Our work matters. If you scale it down, it's the same way we feel when we get a comment or watch our subscriber number rising.

So that's why I think this advice column can be relevant to us as well. Our personal success as a blogger has nothing to do with anyone but ourselves. If someone else is successful, it doesn't mean we aren't and it has nothing at all to do with us. (I heard Sarah Wendell spoke on that at the Book Blogger Convention, that we have to define our own success and that's so true!) Just because we aren't getting all the big ARCs or aren't invited to be part of the hot new promotions, or being asked to moderate panels, or even if we only have ten readers, that does not mean we're not successful. If you are writing what you want to write, and reading what you want to read, and enjoying it and contributing to the larger conversation about books--then congratulations.

Are book bloggers influential? I think so. I watched some of Klout's Twitter chat yesterday and they posed the question, "what is influence?" The most popular response had to do with actionable results and that's generally the kind of influence publishers are looking for, I'm sure. Are people buying the books you talk about? And yes I've been influenced by a lot of bloggers to buy books or to read them and blog about them myself. But one person said they saw influence to be more about provoking thought and I couldn't agree more. There are book bloggers who have had a huge, I would say life changing influence on me, not because of the books they write about but the way they write about them. They've opened up their own lives and thoughts to me in such a way that much like reading a really great book, I was able to consider ideas different than my own.

You could be having that very same influence on someone without ever knowing it! You could mention something in a review that rocks someone's world, or introduce them to a book that will change their lives. I feel like this is the sweetest kind of influence any blogger can have. It goes beyond selling copies of books and it matters.

I am of the belief that one book blogger's success is a success for us all, it's why we have BBAW Awards. I think when we celebrate one of us we are celebrating all of us. We are part of something bigger, I often think, than our individual blogs. We are all part of the big ongoing conversation about stories and how we receive them and we are helping to shape and influence the future of them as a collective group.

But individually if you are loving the reading and you are writing what you want and enjoying the heck out of it, then don't let anything else get you down. When the occasion to be jealous arises, remember how awesome it is to even be able to do this book blogging thing. Remember that you matter. What you do matters if it brings you joy.