My mum used to mark a J in the inside cover of library books with a soft pencil, to show that my dad had already read them. Dru Ann Love's record of what she reads evolved into an award-winning, guest-infested daily blog. Where do you sit when it comes to reading notes? Do you keep a record, write reviews, make annotations in the margins . . .?
Dru's Book Musings, by the way.
I keep a record of what I read, here on my blog. I have no memory of why I started except that it was a round-up of my Chrtistmas and New Year holiday reading from 2019-2020 and maybe I didn't want to let go of curling up on a couch with a stack of books and turn, instead, to face the coming year. Which, as I say, was 2020. So here's what I read that Christmas:
A NEARLY PERFECT CHRISTMAS, Nina Stibbe
OPEN THE CAGE, MURPHY, Paul O'Grady
MY NAME IS WHY, Lemn Sissay
THE LADY IN THE LAKE, Laura Lippman
THE DUTCH HOUSE, Ann Patchett
CHRISTMAS ON CORONATION STREET, Maggie O'Sullivan
THE SALT PATH, Raynor Winn
THE INSTITUTE, Stephen King
THE STONE CIRCLE, Elly Griffiths
THE DARK ANGEL, Elly Griffiths
That's pretty typical Yuletide pile: a couple I'd managed to save - Stephen King and Elly Griffiths, a couple of seasonal treats, a celebrity biography - Paul O'Grady, A then adored and now disgraced memoirist ...
And I've been doing it for nearly six years (doesn't feel like that, given the wibble-wobble of pandemic time). One benefit is that it keeps me checking in on my website and stops me forgetting to post events. Like this one!
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Also, it means I've always got a photo handy for Friday Reads on Facebook and Bluesky. It's amazing how many books look great against my tomato-red kitchen bunkers, including the Library of Congress's groundbreaking crime classic THE CONJURE-MAN DIES, by Rudolph Fisher (highly recommend (when the Library of Congress is open for business again)):
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But there are limits, and CRIME INK: ICONIC, John Copenhaver and Salem West's dazzling anthology of short stories inspired by Queer icons was an assault on the eyeballs:
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I know I should probably migrate to GoodReads with all this, or double it up so I've got stuff on GoodReads too, but . . . ( three dots are not an argument, I know.)
And since I've started beating myself up, why don't I write reviews? I love getting reviews (not that I read them) because all hail the algorithm, right? So I should definitely write some. Guess what?
. . .
I do write jacket blurbs and I will boost like Billy-oh when a friend has a new book out. A couple of recents are Cindy Brown's stellar, Portland-set mystery ECHOES OF THE LOST. I wrote: a rattling good page-turner, for a start, but it's also an absorbing character study and a brilliant depiction of a setting and community not often - if ever - found in crime fiction. Unflinching and compassionate, Cindy Brown brings Portland's unhoused citizens sizzling onto the page, showing both their individual humanity and the rich structure of their society. I was as charmed by the background to this excellent novel as I was by the twists and zings of the story itself.
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And for a complete change, There's Amanda Block's wonderful adventure story, THE HAUNTING OF HERO'S BAY. I wrote: The kindly spirit of Daphne du Maurier is definitely watching over this terrific West Country novel: there are smugglers and shipwrecks, secrets and legends, clues hidden in artworks - and in hidey holes. Plus a quirky village full of irresistible characters, not one but two halting and tremulous love stories, and a protagonist whose plight and pluck are equally compelling. The Haunting of Hero's Bay was pretty much the perfect read. I loved it.
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Thank God for the unwritten rule that if you don't write a blurb, it's because you "didn't get to it in time". I love telling people a fabulous book is fabulous, but I'd hate to find myself having to write things like "Fans will be delighted" or "If you loved Gone Girl, you'll like this."
As to the other half of this question - making marks in books? I make notes in my own first editions, to cut down passages for reading out at the launch party (see above, Dec 4, Davis, CA) but that's it. I use a bookmark, I don't crack the spine if I can help it (but reading a heavy hardback one-handed in a hot bath, with a glass in the other, sometimes causes a bit of trauma), and I have used the endpapers for emergency story ideas, but overall my library will be in pretty good shape when my coil's been shuffled off and my house is being cleared.
Although, as one of my nephews once said - about the number of signed books I've got: "It's going to take ages to check these when you're dead, Auntie Catriona. We're not going to be able to just hoy them into a skip." (Lob them into a dumpster) He doesn't foresee being laid low by grief, does he?
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