Tuesday, July 12, 2016

Top Ten Tuesday: Bookish Facts

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. 

This week's theme asked us to come up with a list of facts about us to share with everyone. We decided to keep them all book-related!


I had someone at work  introduce me to world of reading. Twilight actually, the movie. She told me to watch "a movie called Twilight" (of course I was not into the world of reading, so I had no idea it was from a book). She said that it was about vampires and all that supernatural stuff. I said OK I will watch it. So I did, and I got obsessed with it so much that I wanted more! So my husband, for the following weeks at the Union Station in DC, bought me the rest of the books. One book a week. I never asked him to buy them for me, he just did until I was done with the Twilight series! And after that, all I wanted and I want to do is reading. Now my poor husband does not buy me books anymore, he just begs me to stop buying them.

Twilight was my first book that introduce me to reading, I love the Twilight Movie also, is my favorite, with New Moon. 




 I am an Argentinian living in the USA,  and as such I speak two languages: Spanish and English.
 So as I say above , Twilight was my first book. and my dear husband bought me all the books in Spanish. Which was OK with me, reading in my own language I can read faster. But I don't really like to read in Spanish.

 It is not the same feeling,  reading in Spanish as it is to read in English. Something always get lost in translation and the meaning it isn't the same. I could read the same paragraph in English and Spanish and will always sound better and make more sense in English.

Now I would have no problem in reading a book in Spanish if it was actually written in Spanish.


 This will sound weird, but I like to sit in my kitchen to read.  This way I can concentrate more. If I sit in the living room, I will probably fall sleep in the couch while reading or I will end up watching Nexflix.

Also, I need to listen to music when I read. I have to or I feel like I am missing something.
When a book is really good I walk around in the kitchen playing with my hair hahaha.

 We met online in some facebook bookclub. Then we made our own secret bookclub, with only a few members. We've known each other for 7 years. We met in TX for the first time a few years back! We spent a few days together at her house, and then we went to a big book signing! I also got to meet another dear friend Betsy and the Lovely Danielle!

Then Allyson came to visit me last year! I love this girl!



As with a lot of the finer (and nerdier) points of my personality, Holly is to blame for my book addiction. She was my brother's high school girlfriend, and she brought over a giant sack of books to our house one day. Being the nosy brat that I was, I started going through the bag and picking out things that sounded interesting. Then, Holly had to go and bring me the first book in the Song of the Lioness series by Tamora Pierce, and I was hooked from then on. 16 years later, we don't read much of the same stuff anymore, but it is still fun to talk to her about whatever we are reading. 
 
I know we have both touched on this before, and there is even a little bit about it in our about us section. But JUB didn't start out as a blog. Heck, it didn't even start out as JUB. Mariela and I were both members of a book club on facebook. The moderator there was awful, and we migrated to a different book club. Then the moderator there became awful, imposing all of these rules that we didn't agree with. So we decided to create our own group, where it would just be a small number of people who could do whatever the hell they wanted. And thus JUB was created. Fast forward a few years, and Mariela and I decided we wanted to have our own blog, thus JUBB was formed.

We have a lot of fun on here, and on the facebook page. Most of the stuff we interact over anymore has very little to do with books. Mariela and the other girls at JUBB are all so special to me. I can't imagine a life without them! I have gotten to meet a good majority of them in real life, but there are still more of them that I hope to meet someday! Plus, I can't wait til the next time I get to see Mariela again :)

It's actually probably been more than 4 years, but going over 4 makes me too sad. I have been in the world's worst book slump. Really, I blame it on Kdramas. Ever since I have found them, my time is just unfairly divided. I used to be able to knock out around 200 books a year. Now I am lucky if I hit 20. Every book I start, I barely make it a few pages before I give up. 
I feel bad for my books. I have missed them, but not enough :p 
 When not in the midst of a ridiculous slump, I really love YA and Adult Fantasy. I own roughly 3,000 books, and probably 2,000 of them fit into that genre. The other third of them are divided up between Adult Contemporary Romance, Mystery/Thrillers, and a couple of science fiction and horror tossed in for good measure. My favorite genre of late has been YA Dystopia. It makes me wonder why the Adult romance market hasn't gotten into the dystopia trend. 
I can admit, I am probably one of the pickiest people you will ever have the displeasure of trying to recommend something to. It's ridiculous. I have dropped books from the first sentence, because something about it pissed me off. I have bought whole series that I will then never read because I found out a detail that I don't like. I have put dramas on hold for months because I saw in an episode preview one tiny little thing that I didn't want to deal with, so I stopped. In order for me to love something, it has to be this huge confluence of event that doesn't happen all that often. 

The downside is, people always tell me they don't like recommending things to me. The upside is that those same people also say that they don't worry about liking something if I recommend it, because if I am raving about it, it must be good. Which is literally the only upside to being picky!

So genres I won't read are pretty vast. I have to be in a very specific mood to read Science Fiction. I will buy, but hardly ever read, horror. Oft-times it's words or ideas that keep from reading. Such as, step-sibling romances or books about time travel. Or faeries. Mention anything having to do with Faeries and I am out of there so fast. It takes A LOT to get me to read about vampires anymore. I like Greek Mythology, but a lot of the time it is a huge turn off for me when it comes to YA fiction. 

I feel like this one is probably true for a lot of bloggers and readers. But I really, really love words. I live in awe of them. There is nothing so simple in the world that can cause as much happiness or as much devastation as a couple of words can. They hold so much power! And are open to such interpretation. The same sentence can hold different meaning depending on the audience, and that to me is pretty impressive. I love alliteration. I love the thesaurus. I love that no matter how many books you read, there will always be new words to come across and learn. I love that there are words in other languages that have no direct English word. I love the Korean word 만세 (manse) for hooray. I hear it in a song, and I instantly love the song. I really love words. 

25 comments :

  1. Great list! I really relate to the "bilingual speaker, monolingual reader" one. Spoken Filipino is vastly different from written Filipino because the latter is much more formal, and writers who try to capture the feel of the vernacular end up with a lot of misspellings and apostrophes, so I tend to stick to English books. I imagine books translated from English would be awkward to read, particularly for people who read English anyway.

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    1. I have heard that about the Filipino language before! I think even learning to speak it is pretty impressive, though :) My brain just is incapable of learning different languages, so I am always in awe of bilingual people and polyglots :)

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  2. I love both of your lists!! AHH SO MUCH AWESOME HERE. And omg 3,000 books is amazing and I completely relate to the love of fantasy. That's my top pick for books toooooo. *flails*
    Here's my TTT!

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    1. My collection is quickly getting out of hand. My bedroom is completely surrounded by bookcases with no room to grow :p

      Thanks for stopping by!!

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  3. Wow! That's a lot of fantasy books! I'm not big into fantasy, but when I need a break from CR I usually reach for one. I loved reading both of your lists. So many great reasons! :)
    Thanks for stopping by my TTT! :)

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    1. Haha, and I am the opposite! When I need a fantasy break, I switch to CR :)

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  4. Okay, I just want to say, I love your kitchen!

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    1. awwwww Thanks so much! It took me a long time to make it look like this. Little by little I fixed it up.

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  5. 3,000 books? That is an amazing collection! I hear you on the horror thing. That's one genre I don't really get into either. I don't like to be scared, haha :)

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  6. I'm to opposite. I love most genres. Except non-fiction. Blehc.

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  7. I've watched two kdramas and honestly I try to avoid them, cause both times after I finished bingeing I was a huge miserable mess for like a week.
    Here's my TTT

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    1. I wish I could have avoided them. I've seen 95 of them over the past few years, so a lot of my time is spent on them :p

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  8. Great list! Thanks for visiting my blog too.

    The town I grew up in is in Washington state. It's not a "bad" place, just really boring for locals, was for me anyways. I lived 5 miles out of downtown out in the middle of nowhere. lol

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    1. I grew up in a really tiny town, too! So I know all about boring :) Hopefully you are in a much bigger city now!

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  9. Great list! Haha, I used to be super obsessed with k-dramas and I understand how they can take over your life! They're just so easy to binge - TV series in general are like that, I feel, because personally speaking watching requires less brainpower for me than reading. And hey, while I don't think there's anything wrong with watching more than reading, I hope you get out of your slump soon! :P

    What kind of first sentences turn you off a book so completely? I DNF books quite liberally but it usually takes me a few pages or chapters. :)

    Reg @ She Latitude

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    1. I wish I could think of a concrete example to give you, to show what I mean, but nothing specific is coming to mind! Usually, it is all down to mood. If I am in a crabby mood, I am not likely to give something a chance. So if the opening line is overly cheesy, or if there is an editing error in the first paragraph, or syntax choice is just awkward, I am really quick to give up! Or worse, the lead characters name is spelled absurdly just for the sake of being different, I nope the heck out of there real quick.

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  10. Mariela, I have two friends also from Argentina. I never considered that reading a book translated from English into another language is never the same reading experience! That makes so much sense! I never even tried Twilight, just not interested enough, though I do love some YA. And, yes, Allyson, we are definitely both logophiles! :) Both of you have such interesting stories as to your introduction to reading! As I mentioned, my mother introduced me to reading. One of the main things she did right, IMHO! As a preschooler, we had weekly library visits that continued through the years! Nice to meet both of you!

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    1. My mom used to read a lot, she used to go to the bookstore and trade them for others to read. She always got the mass market paperback with the half naked dude on it haha. I became a reader as an adult. I always thought that reading was boring, how wrong I was!
      And yes, it is not the same experience when you read a book translated. At least it is not for me... With my older daughter we went to the library every week to get books and she turned out to be a reader. She loves books, she is 10, now she reading the second Harry Potter book. And there is a book called The Nest and she loved it so much that she asked me to read it.
      Now with my 3 years old I admit I am not doing a good job by taking her to the library . I took her 2 weeks ago she got some books and she made me read them over and over hahaha. I will start taking to the library like I did with my older one.

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  11. Loved your list. I like the way you described your reading spot because I can now picture you there, twirling your hair, walking around the table. And I have to laugh at your husband "please stop buying books!" I think my dad feels the same. He doesn't ask me to stop buying books, I obviously don't live with him anymore. But as a child he wanted to buy me books and now as an adult he says "dont you want anything else for Christmas?" I also 100% understand how Alanna, or anything Tamora Pierce could get you hooked, thats what did it for me! I have be 95% YA Fantasy ever since.

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    1. The other day my husband and I went to the bookstore and I bought like 3 books on clearance he points the books and said " you need to stop that" I was like stop what ? "Buying books, that is a serious addiction that you have" hahaha I told him that is a good addiction . And for Christmas my husband asks the same thing! I always tell him I want Amazon giftcard to buy books, he says you need to stop with books get something else. haha

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  12. OK, the bilingual speaker, monolingual reader part was fascinating! I mean, it makes a lot of sense -- translating an entire book and not having the nuances get lost in translation would be really hard.

    And Allyson!! 4 years!! I'm so sorry. I hope something fabulous catches your attention soon!

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  13. I'm just like that when it comes to reading in Spanish! It's my first language, but I'll just read a book in Spanish if it was originally written in that language. Another thing I don't love about the translations is that most people apparently try to make it a "neutral" Spanish (if that makes sense), so it ends up being kind of weird and even so a lot of the words to be found are not really used where I'm from.

    And omg I know, I also blame Asian dramas (I enjoy Japanese ones as well) for not having enough time to do anything else a few years ago. Thank God I don't watch them that much anymore, they were taking over my life haha :P

    Lipstick and Mocha

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    1. I feel the same! When I was reading Twilight in Spanish, there were words that also we do not use in my country sometimes I felt a little lost.

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  14. I don't do horror stories either.
    That is neat that you two were able to meet!

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