This week’s Book Blogger Hop question: Do you think a book’s title is important?

A book’s title is possibly THE important thing for me.  I pick up some books by way of word of mouth, and in that case it will usually be a friend telling me something about the story (and why I should love it). And I read a fair number of books because I’ve read the author before and want to see what else they’ve written.

But a lot of the books I read?  Either I click on a book review, or I pull a book off a shelf.  And in either case, whether it’s a post title or the spine of the book, the first thing I have to go on is the title.

The funny thing is, with a few exceptions (The True Meaning of Smekday or The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland come to mind), the title doesn’t stay all that important to me.  I wouldn’t say that I particularly love the titles of most of the books I particularly love.  But there has to be something about the title that caught my eye to begin with!

Do titles make a big difference in what you read?  Or do you find books in a way (word of mouth, for example) that makes the title less important?

This week’s Book Blogger Hop question: Do you ever get comments from authors when you have posted or tweeted your review?

Despite all those links back to authors’ sites, as far as I know, no author has noticed the link-back. Or at least, they haven’t told me about it! I have sent letters or emails to a few favorite authors, usually mentioning a review, and received lovely letters back.

Gordon Korman seemed happy to get a letter about Semester in the Life of a Garbage Bag, commenting that it’s nice to hear a response to one of his older books. Juliet Marillier complimented my review of Wildwood Dancing (and responded to my comment about the “twist” ending). And Geraldine McCaughrean wrote me the best letter ever when I wrote to her about The White Darkness—and mentioned that she had recently had lunch with Richard Morant, the audiobook voice of Titus, and shared my review with him. I had not intended for the comment about “a voice worth following to Antarctica” to reach the original source…but she told me he was “appropriately tickled.” !!

After those kinds of responses, I keep meaning to write more letters to authors (Catherynne Valente, Marissa Meyer and Jim C. Hines all come to mind as recent favorites) but alas, that falls under the category of, if only there was more time…

Have you ever had an author respond to a review? Are there favorite authors you’d like to write to?

This week’s Book Blogger Hop question: Do you feel comfortable enough approaching a stranger when you see he/she is reading a book to ask what they are reading?

Definitely not! I can cheerfully chat away to the anonymous strangers of the internet (and all you regular readers too!) but I’m not one to go stroll up to strangers in the real world. If I see someone reading, I’ll usually try to angle around to (discreetly!) see the book title. I might conceivably comment if the title turns out to be a book I like…but to be honest, the whole situation just doesn’t come up much! It’s rare to see someone reading in public (I’m not on public transit enough, perhaps) and in the vastness of book titles, it’s rare to see one I recognize.

I also feel like someone with a book out is sending, at the least, a subtle “do not disturb” signal. I have never forgotten the day I was eating lunch in my office building’s communal kitchen, book in hand, trying to savor my thirty-minutes of quiet…and someone from another office would not take the hint and kept on trying to engage in conversation…

 

This week’s Book Blogger Hop question: Do you write a review for every book you read or only review copies from publishers?

I review books when I have something to say about them.  Which is simplistic, but basically the truth!  I probably review about half (or a little more) of the books I read.  Continue reading “Blog Hop: Why I Review (or Don’t!)” →