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Goodreads, you should join.


jdiddyesquire

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This thread has been a great way to find out how people use goodreads. There are those whose only shelves are 'read', 'currently-reading' and 'to-read' (whatever works for you). Then there are those whose shelves are more unusual - I liked 'abandoned-with-prejudice' and 'embarrassed-to-have-read' (I feel your pain). And then there was the person with a shelf of 62 Dragonlance books, and I don't even know what Dragonlance is <blushing>. Anyway, I was inspired to a frenzy of shelf-creation. What a great way to spend the day :-)

I just started making my shelves, and it has been very illuminating! I mean, I knew I read a lot of fantasy/sci-fi, but I didn't realize that's like almost ALL I read. That and classics.

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I'm simply scrambling to remember and rate all the books I've read... (barely done any of them!) before I'll even THINK of reviewing or categorizing them!

The whole joy is in the shelving, for me. For example, my male-female author (and character) discrepancy was revelatory. Also, a huge proportion of the books i've ever read are set in some version of London.

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The whole joy is in the shelving, for me. For example, my male-female author (and character) discrepancy was revelatory. Also, a huge proportion of the books i've ever read are set in some version of London.

Good point, forgot to add my gaiman books...

I'm probably going to shelve stuff eventually, but I need to get the actual books up first :P

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I actually put the Goodkind books in mine that I read. It was embarrassing.

It's probably a really bad idea to talk about this on a westeros thread but I have the whole Sword of Truth series on my shelves. I read them when I was young and before I had much exposure to the fantasy genre so they weren't terrible at first. As I got older and got further into the series the ratings started going down. I'm sure if I tried to read those books again I'd find them unreadable. I like having an accurate listing of the books I've read, so even if it's an embarrassing author like Goodkind I'll still add them.

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I just started making my shelves, and it has been very illuminating! I mean, I knew I read a lot of fantasy/sci-fi, but I didn't realize that's like almost ALL I read. That and classics.

Same here. Well, except for me it was fantasy followed by a close tie between horror and historical fiction.

Ran across a few books that were very difficult to organize - for example, An Imaginary Life by Malouf (great book btw). Is it fantasy? Historical fiction? Both?

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It's funny what different people find too embarrassing to admit reading. I only read the first Goodkind book and I rated it low so I didn't feel bad about putting it on my shelf on there. But I absolutely refuse to list every Star Wars book that I read when I was younger - most all of them up until 2003.

Maybe one day I will go on a spree and 'fess up, but probably not.

I don't know if sologdin actually owns those books, but it sure does appear that they are among his favorites. :P

sandra hill's viking books.

your prior reading history indicates a high likelihood that you will thoroughly enjoy sandra hill.

Go read Robert Stanek. Then come back and thank us.

not very nice.

scratch stanek and add sandra hill.

i always recommend sandra hill and robert stanek in these threads.

oh my goodness. another one!

ZOMGWTF!!!

stanek. sandra hill.

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I'm simply scrambling to remember and rate all the books I've read... (barely done any of them!) before I'll even THINK of reviewing or categorizing them!

I've made no real effort to add books from before I joined Goodreads, because I don't necessarily trust my memories of how I felt about a book and when I read it. I copied and pasted all the minireviews I'd posted in the "What are you reading?" threads here over, but that was about it.

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To clarify, I have actually read (a bit of one book by) Sandra Hill, and it was disappointingly unbad.

I've read a review/blog thing about it, and yes, they seem disappointingly unbad. Her schtick is interesting though, I mean, why vikings?

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It's so hard to shelve things sometimes. I don't know how to categorize things that don't fall neatly into one type or another.

The whole joy for me is multiple, somewhat arbitrary shelves. I delight in shelving books in both sf and fantasy, historical and romance, tagging something vampires and space station, etc.

I've read a review/blog thing about it, and yes, they seem disappointingly unbad. Her schtick is interesting though, I mean, why vikings?

eta - only you know vikings are actually boring.

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I actually put the Goodkind books in mine that I read. It was embarrassing.

I can one up everyone with the Goodkind embarrassment. Not only do I have several Goodkind books listed, but I actually gave the first one a 4 star rating. I thought about changing the rating when I started to add 'friends', but doing so would be a little disingenuous so I might as well own up to it.

I have a reason, but I'm afraid any explanation I give will just make me sound even more desperate to prove to people I'm not a closet Goodkind fan :P

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REG--

that's a slick retrospective. the fake sandra hill recommendation arises out of a mock "what should i read next?" thread that i started many years ago, and xray fake-recommended time-travel-viking-navy-seal-porn therein, which got a small life of its own as a board joke. the fake stanek recommendaton is based purely on his extraordinary efforts to promote his writings, which is more of an internet joke now than a board joke. i have never read either, and never will, and merely fake-rec'ed them to n00bs who had the gall to ask for a narrowly tailored recommendation without bothering to read the stickied rec threads, including wastrel's magnum opus.

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REG--

that's a slick retrospective. the fake sandra hill recommendation arises out of a mock "what should i read next?" thread that i started many years ago, and xray fake-recommended time-travel-viking-navy-seal-porn therein, which got a small life of its own as a board joke. the fake stanek recommendaton is based purely on his extraordinary efforts to promote his writings, which is more of an internet joke now than a board joke. i have never read either, and never will, and merely fake-rec'ed them to n00bs who had the gall to ask for a narrowly tailored recommendation without bothering to read the stickied rec threads, including wastrel's magnum opus.

:D

My posts in this thread were as serious as your recommendation posts... now I'm concerned that some n00bs might have taken you seriously and purchased those authors' works.

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The whole joy for me is multiple, somewhat arbitrary shelves. I delight in shelving books in both sf and fantasy, historical and romance, tagging something vampires and space station, etc.

I guess. I have a hard time categorizing a few books as either. Like, Fahrenheit 451. There's nothing really fantasy about it, and nothing about it screams "sci fi" to me except that it's set in the future. Is that enough to be sci-fi? Is it just literature? What determines whether something is "literature," or is it a meaningless term that would apply to every book if I made that shelf.

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I'm here. I last updated back in 2009, but I did my best to update it in the laziest way possible (going to the linked profiles and adding the books I've read). There are a lot of books still missing off my list, to be sure, but they will have to wait because it is a boring task and I am yawning.

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I guess. I have a hard time categorizing a few books as either. Like, Fahrenheit 451. There's nothing really fantasy about it, and nothing about it screams "sci fi" to me except that it's set in the future. Is that enough to be sci-fi? Is it just literature? What determines whether something is "literature," or is it a meaningless term that would apply to every book if I made that shelf.

I go by a kind of stream of conciousness approach, and just tag all books with any word that comes to mind. You could tag it dystopia, tag it future-but-not-sci-fi, literary-sf, books-i'm-not-sure-how-to-tag, and see what that category looks like a few years down the road. :dunno: I sort of decided at some point theres no reason to go about Goodreads in a way that I don't enjoy, so I stopped, for example, giving things stars, becuase its no fun.

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