Today’s Book Blogger Hop question is:  What books got a lot of hype but were a disappointment for you?

There’s definitely been some books that were super popular that I really disliked…and I always feel a little weird criticizing them, to be honest!  It’s a little harder to say “this is a terribly written book” when the cover says “10 million copies sold” or whatever!  But there have still been some that seemed to work for a lot of people but not at all for me.

The first to come to mind was Wicked by Gregory Maguire, which had  “massive number of copies sold” on the cover.  And I…really disliked it.  I found the characters unappealing, the attempt to be shocking kind of bothersome, and the ending especially disappointing.  The musical, on the other hand, is a wonderful delight!

I was quite disappointed by Carrie Fisher’s The Princess Diarist.  I mean, Carrie Fisher’s memoir of being in Star Wars – that sounded amazing!  But it turned out to be more about her affair with Harrison Ford than it was about, well, Star Wars, and that was disappointing.  I still think she was awesome, but this was not the book for me.

I heard about Stephen King’s memoir/writing advice book, On Writing, from a lot of people, particularly other writers, before I finally picked it up.  I ended up skimming great pieces of it, because it was so much about his writing, which I haven’t read (not being a horror reader).  I suppose I should have taken the “memoir” part of the description more seriously.  If I was a King fan, I acknowledge that this probably would have gone better.

Three seems like enough books to criticize in one day. 🙂  Have you read a very popular book that you found disappointing?  I suspect it’s happened to us all…

Today’s Book Blogger Hop question is:  Do you visit indie and/or used bookstores? Also, have you ever worked in any?

Well, I’m not visiting stores right now because: pandemic, but in general I love a used bookstore.  I used to live in San Francisco, and one of my favorite places was Green Apple Bookstore.  I actually prefer used bookstores to stores selling new books – I like old books in general, and it feels more like a treasure hunt.  You never know when you’ll find some amazing old copy of something.  I also seem to find books I want to buy more often in used bookstores…maybe because I tend to be more interested in picking up old favorites than buying whatever is new and just-published.

I have never worked in a bookstore, though there have definitely been times in my life when I thought that would be a great job.  I don’t enjoy working retail, though, so I don’t know if the fact that it was retail books would actually outweigh the other disadvantages…  I’m currently part of an anthology about magic bookstores that will be out later this year, but that’s the closest experience I’ve had to working in bookstores, and it’s fictional!

Today’s Book Blogger Hop question is:  If you own an ebook, would you also purchase a print copy as well?

So I guess the answer to this is…not applicable?  The thing of it is, I never buy an ebook first, because I still have pretty thoroughly resisted reading ebooks.  The very rare times have been when a paper version just doesn’t exist – that’s come up a few times with self-published books I wanted to read.

To look at this in a larger sense, I do occasionally buy more than one form of a book – though mostly print and audiobook.  I have bought audio editions of some books I already owned in paper because…I wanted to listen to the audio.  I have a few audiobooks I may eventually buy in paper.  I have to really like a book though – I’ve done a number of audiobooks from the library where I owned a paper copy, but I think I’ve really only purchased L. M. Montgomery books, a complete Sherlock Holmes, and a couple Jane Austen books for a book club I’m in.

I’ve bought one or two ebooks that I already had in print to make them more portable, on the theory that it would be nice to have some particularly beloved books on my phone that I could just dip into.  I don’t actually do that though, so that was more theory…

How about you?  Do you buy books in multiple formats?  Digital then paper, or the other way around?

Today’s Book Blogger Hop question is:  What is a book that has helped you get through your lowest point in life?

I don’t know that I can point to any one book at any one moment in life helping me…but I do know that Terry Pratchett books are especially good if life is blue or stressful.  I also like rereading L. M. Montgomery’s journals.  I find biographies in general are often good for perspective, because they remind me how long and variable life actually is.  Right now, during rather a strange and anxious time in the world, I’m on my second Star Trek novel, because I appreciate a hopeful book at the moment.

I was fortunate to read When Bad Things Happen to Good People by Harold Kushner when I wasn’t going through a particularly bad time, but I think it would be a very good book for that kind of crisis.

What books have helped you in bad days?  Do you have go-to authors for difficult times?

Today’s Book Blogger Hop question is:  Share a photo of one section of your bookshelf randomly selected or go ahead and share the entire bookshelf.

I’ve been wanting to share a video touring my L. M. Montgomery shelves (so, not that randomly selected), making this blog hop prompt perfect!  Please enjoy the visit to my shelves in the video below. 🙂