BTT: Visual

It's been a while since I did a Booking Through Thursday meme.

My shelf...circa 2007.

So … the books that you own (however many there may be) … do you display them proudly right there in plain sight for all the world to see? (At least the world that comes into your living room.) Or do you keep them tucked away in your office or bedroom or library or closet or someplace less “public?”

As much as I'd like to display my books in plain sight, we don't have any of those nifty bookshelves. Nonetheless, I prefer my books neatly stashed away in the bookshelf in my room, preferably padlocked. My brothers have this nasty habit of going through my stuff without permission. They sometimes they tend to pluck my books out of order, or worse, dump them in their own dirty shelves to be forgotten. The nastiest thing one of my brothers did was to grab a David Eddings book from my shelf (all my Eddings series are arranged chronologically, btw) and denied that he even took it. When I went snooping around his stuff, I found the missing book underneath a pile of dirt in their cabinet. I was on the verge of severing our sibling ties right then and there.

I may not be a neat freak in most of my things, but when it comes to my books, I'm a real freak. I should say that my book collection is probably the first thing I'll save if our house is on fire. 

BTT: Disappointment

Name a book or author that you truly wanted to love but left you disappointed. (And, of course, explain why.)

I've never been a big fan of the Lord of the Rings books by Tolkien. The movies, yes. Books, hell no.

I tried reading The Hobbit, but I got epically bored after a few pages in Chapter 1. Perhaps I found Tolkien's wavelength totally different from mine, or I'm just probably stupid. I dunno...the way he described Middle Earth was just too detailed that I found my brain sleeping half the time I was reading.

I guess the Tolkien brand of fantasy just isn't my kind of fantasy.

BTT: The Long & Short of It

Which do you prefer? Short stories? Or full-length novels?

I guess it depends on the story for me. There are some short stories that have a finality to it, thus making it an enjoyable read. But there are some that really call for a more fleshed out storytelling. There are times when I'm in the mood to read a one-shot story, as well as moments when I just want to curl up for hours reading on full-length novel.

But you know what? I've noticed a personal trend that I favor full-length stories, even if I barely have time to read them. I find myself buying novels instead of books of short stories, but if there are really good books on the latter, I also buy it. Thing is, I don't always finish reading it. :p