Weekly Geeks: What I Do and Why I Do It

This weeks Weekly Geek asks about what we do with our books.

Books take us on journeys, flitting us off to other times, people, and places. From ancient caves to medieval castles to modern skyscrapers; from delicate geishas to turn of the century immigrants to future captains of spaceships; books are our path to other worlds. But what about the journey we give our books? What path do books take through our hands?

How do you choose what to read? Is it random or planned? Based on your mood, challenges, titles, covers, topic?

I have a list of books I want to read (in a googledoc spreadsheet, it is colour coded and everything. Why yes I have issues). Usually I have decided which book to read next (I might have next year mapped out completely you know if I was anal thorough and precise) but if I fancy something else I will read that which I am fancying. I have lists because I like lists. I also have lists because I have problems making decisions sometimes. Having the decision already made for me (by me, but still) takes away some of my more spacey tendencies.

What process do you use for reading? Do you take notes while reading? Annotate your books? Just read?

I take notes. In the book. Yup I am one of *those* people. I don’t make notes in all books and definitely not in library books. But if I find that I agree with lots of things in the book. That they touch me in some way I at least underline. In pencil. Never in pen. I don’t like pen in my books. I do sometimes take notes on separate paper as well. Especially with audio books where I can’t flip back to check something when I am writing my review. For library books I use post-it notes. Lots and lots of post-it notes. I also use those little post it notes to identify where I have made notes.

 
What happens when you are done reading? Do you wait to review or write immediately? Do you revisit and revise before posting?

I write my reviews right away. Otherwise they end up in the To Do Pile of Doom (I am a great procrastinator). Also doing them straight away I remember what’s happened and what I thought of the book. I am trying to let the reviews sit a bit before I publish them though because I find that I have had to go back and fix some pretty big errors when I have posted them straight off the bat. So that is one of my resolutions for 2010, let my reviews sit for a day or two.

What other tasks do you go through after reading a book? Is your blog the only place you post a review? Do you keep lists of readings? Catalog genre, page numbers, gender of authors, etc.?

I keep a record of books read on Shelfari. I like the visual aspects of it. I have looked into both LibraryThing and GoodReads and I have yet to be sold that either of them offer me anything I can’t get on Shelfari that I need. I like the visual aspects of Shelfari. However, I don’t like that they seem to have an issue with Swedish books. I can’t find any on there, which is one of the reasons I am considering a switch to one of the others.

What happens to the book when you are done with it? Does it end up in your home library? Go back to a public library? BookMooch?

Because I read most of my books in English and my local library has a pitiful collection of books in English I own most of my books. I am also a compulsive collector so most of the time they go into my home library. When I lived in the UK I was pretty good at giving books to charity and I would like to do that more but I don’t have any appropriate charity shops around here so…I should probably try BookMooch but I am pretty sure that it would cost me more to send books around the world there to get credit than it costs me to buy them new from BookDepository.co.uk (especially since I try to buy as many books from them as possible when I have discount coupons)

Overall, if you had to give someone a "How To" list for your dealings with any particular book, what would it look like?

My How To for Me list is as follows:

1. Make a list of books

2. Break list down into months

3. Choose book from current month

4. Put list in “Currently reading” category on Shelfari

5. Read

6. Write review as soon as finished

7. Log finish date on Shelfari.

8. Tag book on Shelfari with current month and year (current tag December 09) plus current year.

9. Post review on Shelfari

10. Twitter about the review on blog

11. Pick next book