The Sunday Salon: June 7, 2009
I’m doing the Sunday Salon pretty early today. I never do it this early, but if I don’t do it early then I usually don’t have the opportunity to participate. The day just gets so busy. This is the rare weekend in which I don’t have anything planned and it’s rainy out, so it is the perfect day to be inside, drinking tea and going back and forth between reading and working on my blog.
On Being A Monogamous Reader (or …I Decide I Am In Fact A Promiscuous Book Lover)
I am still reading several books at once. Wondering how long this phase will last, but I think I might just be back to the old me. That used to be my prime way of reading, and then last year I made it a goal of mine to only read one book at a time and to finish the book I started unless it turned out to be unbearable. I read each one all the way through before starting another. Supposedly that helps you to keep up with the plot and have a more thorough understanding of what you are reading; a richer & deeper experience. So my experiment was to try being faithful to just one book last year.
After having tried another way, I really do think how you should read books and whether you read more than one book at a time is a function of how your brain works. I think the only thing that changed for me was that I read less books. If I happened to get stuck on a book that I didn’t like or didn’t particularly enjoy, it disturbed my reading pace greatly. I would then only read one book a month or less until I could get back into my chosen book and finish it, and in those instance it made reading feel more like a chore or something I had to be determined to get through, and I didn’t like that. I don’t like to do anything that makes reading unpleasant. I don’t have problems keeping up with plots and character when I’m reading and nowadays I am more often taking notes and recording things in my blog, so it’s easy for me to keep track.
Blog Tasks
Whenever I have had the chance last week I had been tackling categories and tags. That is a project I will continue on this week. They were, and are still, a mess; and at this point I have quite a few posts to go through and fix up. I’ve gotten down to 7 main categories and now I have to go through the tags and see what makes sense to keep and to make sure that all the blog posts have the correct categories/tags attached. There are a suspicious number of posts marked “miscellaneous”.
I decided to use really broad groupings for the categories. As for the tags I’m adding in things like where the book was set, and what year it was published, because I know those are things I am curious about. I figured that would be a good thing for me to track here since I have an interest. How do you divide your categories and tags? Do you have any which are very particular to your blog? Or do they tend to be general? What do you like to see for categories and tags when you’re reading other blogs?
Talk to me people. I really want to know.
13 Responses to “The Sunday Salon: June 7, 2009”
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I just finished cleaning up my labels (in Blogger) in an effort to simplify. I had a hard time with the genre labels, but I think I’ve got some labels that work. We’ll see. Changing them was such a pain.
Beth F’s last blog post..Review: Ceepak Mysteries by Chris Grabenstein
For me, you can tell how much I don’t like whatever I’m reading (or it’s difficult) by how many other books I’ve got going on. At the moment, I’ve got about 7 books going! If I’m really having a good time with a book, there are 2 at the most!
rhapsodyinbooks’s last blog post..Sunday Salon – Review of “Ike: An American Hero” by Michael Korda
What an interesting post! I’m a monogamous reader for many of the reasons you state (it really does allow me to better connect with and keep track of what I’m reading!). Even if it does mean I read fewer books, I’m ok with that because I suppose I feel I’m getting the best reading experience possible (for me at least!). Sometimes I’ll stretch myself and read a fiction title and a non-fiction option because those don’t feel like they compete in my mind, but I don’t often delve into non-fic so that’s rare even in and of itself.
As for tags and categories, since my blog is not exclusively devoted to books (though that tends to be the major focus), the categories are pretty straightforward (e.g., Books, Movies, Food, etc.,), but as for tags? I just use whatever strikes my fancy. I do try to tag books I’ve read with the year I read them so that it’s easier for me to keep track of what I read in a given year, but that, and whatever rating I gave the book out of 5, are about the only things I stick to. Other things I mention are awards, whether it’s part of series, the genre, and anything else that springs to mind! I am probably not an example to follow…
It is rainy here in Frankfurt too.
I always read one novel at a time, though I may have another non-fiction book and short story collection going too.
My tags are a mess and I am finding it a pain in the heinie to clean them up. Am doing it a bit at a time.
I used to be a one book girl, but I have so many books to read that I try to cram as many in as possible. I’m currently reading three different books.
I never pay much attention to categories and tags…sorry!
Amy @ My Friend Amy’s last blog post..The Weekly Review: Week Ending June 6 2009
I’m a promiscuous reader too. I suspect if I experimented the way you did with one book at a time, I would probably find my reading pace slowed tremendously. I am very much a “mood” reader – since my taste is somewhat eclectic, much depends on my mood at the moment. I don’t think I’d enjoy reading only one book at a time!
I’ve recently decided to try to use my tags more like the way you’ve described, tagging things about a post that interest me. I don’t think I’ve really been putting tags to good use, but I have a much clearer picture of what I want to do with them ever since I re-did my template last week.
Belle’s last blog post..Cont’d: Big List of Book Giveaways, Fiction Edition – June 7
My sunday post talks about having less time to read as life seems to get busier during the spring and summer, sounds like you are having the same issues. I alternate between reading one book and read a few.
I haven’t really thought about the tags in my blog. I don’ t really show them.
vivienne’s last blog post..Sunday Salon – lighter evenings!
I have been trying to organise my tags/categories recently too. It has been really hard and I don’t think I’ll ever be finished with it! Good luck sorting yours out!
You’re probably right – the way you read is probably a function of the way your brain works. My pea brain can only keep track of one plot at a time.
Kathy’s last blog post..Family Fun
I tag very generally- fiction, nonfiction, then I tag Jewish interest because I review a lot of books in that area and want my readers to be able to find them. I also tag for some memes and for things like readings/signings and interviews.
As far as how I read, I read two or three books at a time, because I can read for long periods but my attention span is short per book!
Hi there – I just saw your comment on Natalie’s review of Cutting Loose over at Book, Line and Sinker and I just wanted to say thanks! I’m really glad you enjoyed CL!
Great post too – I never used to read more than one book at a time (maybe I had more time? Was less stressed? Don’t know…) Now I feel like there’s so much I want to read and never enough time, so I dip in and out of books. Don’t know how that affects the quality of my reading experience, but I suspect it would be better if I stuck to one at a time, or committed to just letting go of books that don’t capture my imagination enough (that being said, many books ease into a story slowly and deliver a big bang in the second half… I’m thinking Marian Keyes… so it would have been bad to give up too soon…
I am normally a monogamous reader (love that phrase!) but over the last couple of weeks I have been cheating on my number one book! First it was because I had a couple of review copies that I didn’t like which went really slowly, so I forced myself to read 50 pages in each a day, and then whatever I wanted. I haven’t stopped yet though. There are so many books that I want to read and I know I’ll put off reading if I’m forcing myself to read more of a book I don’t like much. So, we’ll see how this continues.
My categories are VERY general. Think type of post – review, giveaway, meme. Then my tags are a little more specific, genre for reviews, which meme for memes. It’s not very complicated, but I would struggle to keep up with a more complex system.
Meghan’s last blog post..Announcing my next giveaway: To Beguile a Beast, Elizabeth Hoyt
My categories are very general, and my tags are even more general than that. I haven’t really explored the usefulness of tags yet, so I haven’t put time into them.
I’m a promiscuous reader too! I wonder if it’s a right brain/left brain sort of thing that determines how you will read?
Kelly’s last blog post..Give Me 15 Minutes a Day & I’ll Give You a First Draft