Booking Through Thursday: Preferences

Which do you prefer? (Quick answers – we’ll do more detail at some later date.)

• Reading something frivolous? Or something serious?
  How serious is serious? (And how frivolous is frivolous?) I think I’ll settle for saying: Nothing excessively serious, nothing excessively frivolous, and a nice balance of both.
• Paperbacks? Or hardcovers?
  Paperbacks. Smaller, lighter, therefore easier to cart around and read on the train.
• Fiction? Or Nonfiction?
  Both! Though I do read much more fiction than non-.
• Poetry? Or Prose?
  Prose ... I don’t dislike poetry, I just hardly ever seem to read it.
• Biographies? Or Autobiographies?
  Biographies, because the people I like to read about are generally a century or more dead, and I like to have the latest information about them.
• History? Or Historical Fiction?
  Both, though if I’m reading it specifically for the history, I’ll take the non-fiction.
• Series? Or Stand-alones?
  Stand-alones, so I don’t have to experience the frustration of endlessly hunting for the next book at the library. Or worse, the frustration of reading the first two books, then discovering the library has zero copies of the third.
• Classics? Or best-sellers?
  Classics. I love nineteenth-century fiction, plus I usually have an aversion to reading what everyone else is.
• Lurid, fruity prose? Or straight-forward, basic prose?
  Define lurid. I can enjoy both simple storytelling and literary flights in their place, and I can be annoyed with both of them out of it. The style should suit the story, without being overdone.
• Plots? Or Stream-of-Consciousness?
  Plots! I say again: PLOTS!! I had such a struggle to get through the stream-of-consciousness Mrs Dalloway; the rambling from thought to thought and person to person drove me nuts.
• Long books? Or Short?
  Hmm ... long, provided it’s good enough to justify all the time it takes to read. (Though short books are good for a change of pace, and for making up the numbers.)
• Illustrated? Or Non-illustrated?
  Non-illustrated, so I can picture things for myself.
• Borrowed? Or Owned?
  As much as I love the library, I have to say owned. A well-stocked bookcase is a beautiful sight.
• New? Or Used?
  Used. I’m an inveterate bargain-hunter; books chanced upon at sales come with a delightful sense of serendipity; and the resulting mish-mash of sizes and styles makes for a nicely eclectic bookshelf.