Making My Bookish Habit Mean Something - A Bookish Discussion

Things have been pretty quiet lately on the blog, if you haven't noticed. We all reach the occasional roadblock in our blogging careers when life kind of gets in the way for a while. Thankfully, most of us can usually get right back into the swing of things. That's basically what happened around here. After a string of unfortunate dramatic happenings in my life coupled with a boat load of working hours, I kind of found myself not necessarily unable, but more like unwilling to read or blog.

I was in a slump, I wasn't loving what I was reading, I wasn't loving the fact that I spend so much time and money on books because like many "kids" my age, I'm always broke. So basically, in striving to not be as broke anymore, but also striving for this to all actually have a point and do something good that will make me happy and help others, I've come up with a plan:

Actually found somewhere to donate to for
starters: http://www.firstbook.org/
$10 = 4 books!

I've decided that for every book I buy, I will donate either a book or at least $5.00 in some way (monetarily or otherwise) to someone in need, whether it be an actual person, a charity, a private fundraiser. I'd love to keep it as book-focused as possible, but obviously if I'm about to donate in some way and I see a need that isn't book-related, I'll fill it, right?

I came up with this idea while discussing something I saw at work with a co-worker. Bear with my as I tell my little story. I work at a shoe store and a while back a mother and her young daughter, probably about 5 years old, were shopping. The little girl was asking for everything under the sun, like most kids do. As the mother and her child were checking out, I overheard the mother telling the child something along the lines of, "You know the rule. If you want to buy something special for yourself, you also need to buy something for someone less fortunate." The child didn't have enough money (allowance or something, I'm sure) to buy two little trinkets, one for her and one for someone less fortunate, so she didn't buy anything at all.

Now you'd think the kid would throw a total fit and freak out, demanding that the mother buy her the item, and that the mom would eventually give in like a lot of parents seem to do these days. But nope. At 5(-ish) years old, she did know the rule, and it was clear that the parents didn't just make this up on the spot. The girl nodded solemnly and asked her mom if they could come back next week to buy two little trinkets, and the mother agreed. I don't know for sure if they ever came back, cause you know how kids are. They want a toy one day and forget about it the next, but I honestly couldn't believe what I had just witnessed. I knew for sure that that was a rule I wanted to bring into my household when I have kids one day (hopefully many years from now, eek!).

So, after thinking about this for a while, I started to realize that I couldn't expect my child, who will hardly understand the importance of what I'm asking of them, to do this when I don't live my life that way. Why should I get to buy new clothes or gadgets for myself and tell my kid they can't have a toy unless they are able to buy two.

Don't get me wrong, I understand that there would be some exceptions: birthdays, christmas, etc. Also, if I'm buying, say, a new TV, I'm obviously not going to buy two. But I think that this idea I've formed would definitely give me pause before running out and buying a new TV. I would obviously want to do something bigger than donating a book and would really think about whether I needed something so big before I went and got it.

Because I'm a big brat and buy tons of books and lots of other stuff for myself all the time, I'm going to start small lest I go into withdrawals and completely give up on my cause. I'm going to start with books. I plan on donating in many different ways, I just haven't figured them all out yet.

Actually, that's kind of what I was hoping for from you guys: some ideas on how to donate in bookish ways. Small donations, obviously, because I will be buying one or two books at a time, usually. Do you know any bigger charities that work in reading and literacy? Do you have any friends raising money for something book-related (e.g. a teacher in need of books for their classroom, etc.)? Please share with me if you have any ideas!

I need that and I also need your input. Do you think I'm totally crazy? Do you think this is a horrible idea, horrible to impose on myself and my future kids? Or is it something you think you could do?

I'm really excited to do something in my small way that might help instill a love of reading in someone else one day, and I hope that this maybe makes some of you think about ways to give back, too.

I can't wait to give my reading habit a bit more meaning than just stimulating my mind and sharing my love of books with the world, which is pretty darn important as it is. I also can't wait to hear what you all think! Let's talk!!

A.

Bookish Discussion: Spoiler-y Reviews

Hey there! Welcome to my first ever Bookish Discussion post here at i solemnly swear.

Today I thought I'd talk to you all about a pet peeve of mine... and probably everyone's: Reviews with spoilers. Well, not any reviews with spoilers, per se, but reviews that don't warn you of the spoilers therein contained!

Spoilery Blog Reviews
Most of us here are book bloggers, right? We read books, then we write reviews and post them on our blogs. Simple. I think I am with the majority here in saying that this is my blog, so if I want to write a review with spoilers, I'll write a review with spoilers - ya get me? But, I always give some kind of a warning. Either a **BIG** general notice at the top of each post explaining that the post may have spoilers. Or a *smaller* notice closer to a one-line spoiler to make people avoid reading that part unless they choose to.

It's kind of hard to actually read reviews lately because of certain ones that contain spoilers. I'm always afraid to do more than skim paragraph by paragraph because I'm afraid I'll come across something important to the story that I don't want to know!

I do, however, usually trust actual blog posts, more often than not, to give either a spoiler-free review or warn me of any spoilers... I think most of us do it as a courtesy to other bloggers and can trust that other bloggers will give us that courtesy too.

Spoiler-y Goodreads.com reviews
Here's where that little bit of trust I had for blog post reviews goes out the window. I love skimming star ratings on Goodreads of a book I am excited about (or sometimes unsure about) because it opens me up to bloggers I may not follow or who may not even have a separate blog.

What I don't like is that a lot more people post spoilers on Goodreads in my opinoin, and even though Goodreads provides a simple way to show/hide your spoilers at the click of a button, many people choose not to (or don't know how to use it). For the record people, the "Formatting Tips" to your right come straight from Goodreads. It's always on your right hand side of your screen when you're writing any kind of review on the site. It's crazy easy, even for people like me who have no idea what they are doing when it comes to HTML. The second-to-last bullet on the bottom of the list clearly shows how to add the "spoiler link".

I only skim Goodreads reviews now, because I've come across some reviewers with blatant disregard for what I would consider a common courtesy. A couple of times I've accidentally looked at a review that spoils the entire series in the very first sentence of the review: "I can't believe so-and-so died!!!" or "Oh, I'm so glad Sally ends up with Johnny at the end and not Bobby!"

I mean really? The very first line? You couldn't wait to spoil it until further down, in which I can rely on Goodreads to give me the option to read "more" of your review if I actually wanted to? Geez.

Spoiler-y Book Blurbs
Okay, I know this is going to come as a surprise to some of you but, I think sometimes the biggest offenders of spoiling books are the blurbs on the backs of books (or listed as a synopsis on Goodreads/Amazon/Book Depository, etc.). I actually experienced this myself just this month in reading the Vampire Academy series. Maybe it was my own fault, but I was still pretty bummed out when I was halfway through book 2 and decided to check out the specs for book 3 and right in the first line is some pretty important information about an event that happened right at the end of book 2.

Maybe I shouldn't have looked at that blurb since I was only on book 2, true, but don't you think its a publishers responsibility not to put such specific important information right on the back of the next book!?
Yeah... then a few days later I made the mistake of looking at the blurb for the first book in the spin-off series, Bloodlines, which inadvertently spoiled the whole freaking end of the VA series for me. WTF!? Now maybe the first one was my fault, but whyyyy!!

Needless to say, after having all of the major points in this series spoiled for me (which really sucks, because I think I would've liked it even more if that hadn't happened), I refuse to read blurbs unless its a book I know zilch about, and I only skim reviews unless I can see warning signs (or even a notice that the review is spoiler-free) - and of course reviews by bloggers I trust.


So let's talk books! How do you deal with reading reviews on blogs, Goodreads, Amazon, etc. Do you even bother reading them? How about book blurbs? And do you warn people about spoilers in your reviews or do you just leave it all to chance?

Happy reading!

A.