Category: discussion

Aria @ Book Nook Bits will be the new host for Let’s Talk Bookish! If you aren’t following her yet, good check out her blog and give her a follow!

May 13: Making friends through blogging  (Rachel @ A Bookworm in Paradise)

Prompts: Is blogging a good platform for making friends? Is it only new bloggers that are going to make friends with one another? Does blogging allow for connecting with people of different ages and different backgrounds? How easy or hard has it been for you to make friends through blogging?

Welcome to another week here of LTB at DTRH! Today’s topic is about making friends on blogs, and whether it is truly a good platform for that. I know I have my experiences, but I’d love to hear how the rest of you feel too.

While I don’t think any sort of online platform is necessarily the best for making friends, I don’t see why blogging would preclude the possibility. It is usually easier to create friendships over online platforms when there’s more interaction (like in video games) but blogs where you can share common interests can also be the basis of a friendship! The main problem I see is that there isn’t exactly a “live chat” function which can facilitate getting to know one another.

I definitely don’t think it’s just new bloggers with the opportunity to make friends. Though I suppose new people would have more zeal to reach out and make connections, possibly forming the friendships. That being said, I think a seasoned blogger who welcomes a new member to the community would have an equal opportunity to form the relationship, just as much as the new blogger.

Blogging seems to allow for transcending age and background gaps. I think this is mostly because the relationship formed revolves around a common interest, and the interest in a book community has never been barred by something like age. Of course, generational or cultural gaps can always make some relationships difficult, but again, wouldn’t preclude the possibility.

For myself, I think I’ve made plenty of friends in my short(ish) time here! I recognize a lot of names in the community and it’s really nice to feel like different people share an interest and are just so friendly. The community is definitely one of the main reasons I enjoy blogging, and I hope it continues to be so.

What about you all? Have you made any friends in the community through blogging?

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Aria @ Book Nook Bits will be the new host for Let’s Talk Bookish! If you aren’t following her yet, good check out her blog and give her a follow!

May 6: How do you decide what books to borrow or buy? (Jillian @ Jillian the Bookish Butterfly)

Prompts: Do you buy a lot of books? Do you borrow books from a library, or from friends? What do you look out for in books you buy? Are there any book genres you typically buy more of? Do the types of books that you buy differ from the types of books you typically borrow? Do you prefer to borrow or to buy books?

Welcome to another week here of LTB on DTRH! Today’s topic is certainly a good one, and I can’t wait to hear what all of you do. I figure money (and bookshelf space) are the main deterrents but how does one make the choice?

I buy a medium number of books. I think I used to buy more but recently I’d say I’ve been buying a lot less (since I got more acquainted with Libby). I still do try and buy books that look nice and that I know I like, but sometimes I also buy books that are on sale. Bookshelf space in mind, I definitely don’t mind purchasing a book while at a bookstore!

Nowadays I usually borrow off of Libby, or go to a library proper and borrow books off a shelf. The books I read I don’t often re-read, so I would quickly run out of space. However, library and borrowing is less commitment, if the book is that good, I can buy it! I have recently tried to do some book exchanges with friends, which has also been a nice way to introduce each other to good books.

Books I buy are usually something that I imagine would look good on my shelf, and that more importantly I would actually read and enjoy. Although I also think there’s something to be said about buying books for what looks good because that is where it would spend most of its time anyway. Agree or disagree?

I typically buy the most books of authors I want to support, or books I want to read right away without waiting in a long queue of holds in the library. Usually I just wait in the library for something I anticipate just in case it isn’t good, but for authors I support, I will usually go ahead and just buy the book if I happen to see it at the store.

I tend to buy and borrow the same kinds of books: mysteries and thrillers! Although those are definitely prone to being read only once. Still, I like to have a collection if possible. I will tend to judge books more by their cover if I do end up buying it and leaving it on my shelf though. Because I tend to read these kinds of books only once, I generally want to just borrow them (and buy it if it’s really good), rather than just buy it. Thrillers tend to be shorter too, so I can go through them fairly quickly. I think I’d run out of space way too quickly if I just bought every thriller I could get my hands on!

What do you all buy? Or is buying just out of fashion now? There’s something to be said about saving the environment and printing in general, but who can resist the lure of new books?! I know I can’t.

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Aria @ Book Nook Bits will be the new host for Let’s Talk Bookish! If you aren’t following her yet, good check out her blog and give her a follow!

APRIL 29: TO ANNOTATE OR NOT TO ANNOTATE… (ARIA @ BOOK NOOK BITS)

Prompts: …that is the question*. Do you like annotating books? If so, how do you annotate them? Is there a difference for you between ebooks, physical books, and audiobooks? If you’ve ever had to annotate books in school, does this affect your willingness to annotate the books you read for fun? What are some downsides to annotating books in your opinion?

Welcome back to another week of LTB here at DTRH! Actually last week in my exam haze I totally posted the “wrong” topic…! Luckily, this is a free week, so I shall use it to catch up on last week’s topic proper. Sorry about that!

Honestly, I refuse to annotate by doing anything permanent to any book. Even my textbooks, which I know are often annotated, remain completely blank. Something about re-sale value? Though I don’t even usually re-sell all my used books. I guess I was taught (by who…?) never to mark a book, and so I can’t even bring myself to dog-ear them or honestly even write in pencil.

No judgment against those who do though. If it’s your own book, feel free to mark it up however you’d like! In fact, I think there is definitely some charm in seeing notes in a second-hand book. After all, you get a glimpse into what someone else thought about the book, and it also makes you think about whether you agree with what the previous person has chosen to annotate.

I wouldn’t mind marking up an e-book though. As long as it’s erasable, I’d be okay with it. That being said though, if I do make notes, I usually make them on a separate piece of paper rather than writing into the book. After all, if I want to find that note later, it would be more trouble to look through the book and find my note than to have a separate piece of paper pointing to the page number and line I wanted to annotate. As for audiobooks…how does one annotate an audiobook? If you know, please let me know in the comments down below.

I still don’t want to annotate my books even for class. I see the people around me doing it now, but I still can’t bring myself to do it for some reason. I can’t even really think of the reason why, I think it’s just ingrained into me. I imagine that people who annotate their textbooks, etc., are more willing to annotate the books they read too (please let me know if this applies to you!), but I actually have no idea. I think for me, I always want to have the book in a condition where I can share it with someone else, free of my own ideas.

I suppose that’s a bit contradictory, to find it charming that I can read someone else’s thoughts if the book is marked up, yet not want to mark it up myself for the exact opposite reason of not wanting to affect someone else’s reading. I wonder if one way of thinking or the other is actually more dominant in our community…

All in all though, please keep your books in good condition and free of markings if it’s someone else’s book! The number of times I’ve gotten my book back in…horrendous conditions from lending it out…I’m sure many of you can relate. Why do people do that?! I will never know.

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