Cuddlebuggery Gets Personal: On Bookish Habits (2)

You ask, we answer! This is our new weekly feature where we pick one or more questions from our readers, open the Cuddlebuggery Vault of Secrets and share the goodies with you. Or something. These questions can range from completely random oddities to semi-personal. We promise to try to answer them all while staying within our comfy bubbles. Pinky swear! If you’d like to ask a question ask them in the comments.

This week’s question comes from Librarian Lavender:

When did your love for books start? Are there books you can read over and over again? What effect does book blogging have on your life? I love the blog and can’t wait to read more about you!

 Kat:

It’s easy to say I always loved books. The first book I ever read was a Christian book, but the fantasy elements were what I really loved. The Chronicles of Narnia were the first series I read at Kindergarten and it just never stopped from there. Reading was escape from me – from a miserable, lonely childhood. My best friends were characters from books and I was always sure I could face their woes and more. The library was my second home and the written word was my native language. Years later, that has never changed. I feel closer to books than I do to people.

As to my life? If people don’t read books, I don’t know how to relate to them. I went and got waxed the other day by a woman with polite conversation about my family and home. There’s nothing to talk about for me. Ask me about my favourite protagonist though, and I won’t stop.

I was diagnosed with Bipolar disorder this year, and I’ll admit, its been hard to maintain relationships with people, but with book characters? Those I will always be close to.

Steph:

I can’t ever remember not loving books. My earliest memories of my book obsession is when the Scholastic book fair came around at my school and I’d try to get my mom to buy me ALL THE BOOKS. Somehow that personality trait has never changed.

But I can tell you the first time I was moved to tears from a book. I was sitting in my dad’s old Lincoln town car, waiting outside my brother’s tutoring session. It was nighttime and I was reading by way of the interior car light, fully engrossed in Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse (one of my all-time favorite books). The book is written in verse and it was the first time I’d ever read a novel in that style. I loved it instantly and remember being so wowed by the author’s ability to tell the story that way. The ending just tore me to pieces and I tried to quickly wipe my tears away so my dad, who was sitting in the front seat, wouldn’t see me so emotional. It felt like such an intimate moment between this book and I, such a beautifully written book. It was art.

There are a few other books I treasured as a child (click the cover to go to Goodreads):

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 I probably would re-read those, but I don’t have a lot of time these days. The Winner’s Curse was the one book that I have re-read in the last 2 years and before that was Vampire Academy. I only re-read what I really, really, really love since I have a REALLY short attention span and read VERY slowly. Because of that, re-reading can be very boring for me. What I am planning on doing is re-reading the Harry Potter series by way of the audiobooks. I also want to re-read The Seven Realms series by Cinda Willams Chima. If you haven’t read that series, I HIGHLY recommend it.

As for my life: I blog around my life. I used to live around my blog, but then I realized that probably wasn’t very healthy. I recently started a new job a few months ago and I don’t get to spend as much time as I’d like on it now, which makes me sad. I think most bloggers understand when I say that blogging requires a certain lifestyle, because it’s less of a hobby and more of a lifestyle, requiring a lot of time and commitment. There are no such thing as “breaks” or “time away” because if you aren’t blogging, you’re thinking about new content, new ideas, new ways to freshen up your blog. Weekends are a chance to catch up on things you wanted to get done during the week and you’re constantly writing ideas down. I try really hard to not let it dominate my life and my husband is always there trying to pull me away. I can be a bit of a work-a-holic.

There are days when I feel like I want to quit or just drop everything, but I feel compelled to keep at it because I love this blog so much. Those of the times when I know I just need to take a break and watch TV or knit. I have a nasty habit of taking on way too much work, so I’ve recently been cutting back on blog tours and extra posts. I want to do more for the blog and wish so much that it could just be my full-time job. Alas, it’s not meant to be…yet. I shall remain optimistic.

But the best thing is that Kat, Meg and I chat every single day. They are the first people I say good morning to and the last ones I say goodnight to. We’re constantly brainstorming and bouncing ideas off each other throughout the day and it never gets dull. I can’t imagine going through an entire day without somehow chatting with them.

Meg:

Books and Meg go together like things that have been together since one thing learned to read the other. I was the kid sitting in the corner with a book while everyone else ran around at recess (except on the days I was a horse). It was weird to the point of commenting on it to see me without a book. Every librarian in a five mile radius knew my name and I’d max out my library card on every trip. What I’m trying to say is I’ve loved reading for pretty much my whole life (minus like six or seven years).

I’m a speed reader so I go through books faster than your average bear.

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Because I am not disgustingly wealthy, there’s no way I could support my habit without rereading so I basically read everything I own at least twice and I have some books I’ve read so many times I can recite parts of them (i.e. Harry Potter).

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I’m currently rereading the The Legend of Eli Monpress and The Revenge of Eli Monpress (an absolutely fantastic series by Rachel Aaron aka Rachel Bach, author of my new favorite scifi trilogy). I highly, highly recommend them to fantasy fans. I like to tell people they’re like if Flynn Rider went adventuring with Jayne and River from Firefly because when I put it like that why aren’t you reading them right now?

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 Other go to rereads include the Newsflesh Trilogy (Feed, Deadline and Blackout) by Mira Grant  aka the greatest zombie books of all time for all sorts of reasons having nothing to do with the zombies (though they are cool). I love going back to them to pore over the nuances and character dynamics with the sort of obsessive, hyper-attentive, slightly sweaty focus normally only found in people on extraordinarily high doses of ADD medication.

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I could also reread the Lumatere Chronicles (Finnikin of the Rock, Froi of the Exiles and Quintana of Charin) by Melina Marchetta over and over from now until forever. These books are flawless and I mean that literally. As far as I am concerned, they are completely without flaws. The writing is beautiful, the characters are so rich they could fund my book addiction and the ships are so  beautiful and moving and I could honestly cry just thinking about them and omg I want to reread those right now.

I reread a lot less now that I’ve started blogging. For one thing, I have like 14 times as many books now. I’m constantly hearing about new and awesome ones and I have horrible impulse control so I’m constantly picking up new books. Before I started blogging, half of the time I was rereading because I’d read everything I owned and needed a book right then. Now I can’t keep up with the books I own (*scrolls through kindle library* *cries*) though I do still reread a lot because some books are so amazing you just want to live them forever over and over again.