Open Thread for Readers for May 2022
Book Reviews / Open ThreadOpen Thread13 Comments
Got a book you want to talk about? Frustrated with a book or series? In love with a new one? Found a buried treasure? An issue that keeps popping up in the books you are reading? Just want to chat about stuff in general?
Happy May Day to all Wobblies and Wobblie sympathizers.
The recent posts on anachronisms wormed their way into my readerly subconscious.
Book set in 1926 – “touched base”
Book set in 1890 – “…for acting like a self-important, teenaged ass.”
Two books set in Regency or near Regency – “pick his brains”.
Burning question number one:
Do I have to actually own a book for it to qualify as my TBR?
Burning question number two:
Why, oh why do I recall the [few] books that made me furious?
@LML: if I have put on a book on my “want to read and grab it if it’s available through the library or goes on sale” list, I consider it on my tbr. However, I think when blogs issue “tbr challenges,” they are specifically referring to books currently in your possession because one of the goals of those challenges is to reduce your current tbr pile. I have so many books classified as “tbr” right now that I refer to it as “Mount TBR.”
Just stopping by to say that LEONARD (MY LIFE AS A CAT) by Carlie Sorosiak is $2.99 at Amazon today. Jayne reviewed this a year ago for anyone interested: https://dearauthor.com/book-reviews/overall-a-reviews/a-minus-reviews/review-leonard-my-life-as-a-cat-by-carlie-sorosiak/
@Darlynne: Squeee! I still love Leonard.
@LML: Actually the OED’s earliest definitive citation of “pick his brains” is from 1770. “Touch base” is from 1918 (and baseball, I’m guessing). Surprising but true!
“Self-important” is from 1732. “Teenaged” is from 1913 however. “Ass” in as in “a foolish or stupid person” is really old — Old English(!)—but “ass” as in “ person regarded as disagreeable, despicable, or contemptible” is earliest cited from 1970. I agree with you that “for acting like a self-important, teenaged ass” is anachronistic phrasing on top of the anachronistic vocabulary.
@LML: I agree with DiscoDollyDeb. “TBR pile,” or “Mount TBR” is definitively books you own. It used to be that there was also “TBB” (to be bought) which meant anything you were planning on buying / getting from the library, but did not necessarily own. TBB seems to have disappeared from the book community’s internet acronyms list, though, and I think TBR (without “mount,” “pile” or “mountain”) has taken (or at least is taking) its place.
Question #2 — my husband told me that he read that on average people remember bad experiences five times longer than they remember good ones. It sucks.
@DiscoDollyDeb and other Rachel Reid fans—our review of The Long Game (plus another thread for a discussion of the series) runs tomorrow and I can’t wait.
@Janine: so looking forward to it. I finished THE LONG GAME on Friday and loved it! It’s my favorite book of 2022 so far.
@DiscoDollyDeb: We deliberately waited to run it so that fans of the series would have time to read the book first.
@Janine: I thought it was “10 positives to counteract 1 negative.” But either way, yeah it sucks.
@Jayne: I’ve never heard that one but that’s possible. I saw this article in the Washington Post that says it takes longer to forget the bad but doesn’t say how long. The article says it’s worst in your 20s and 30s. That lines up perfectly with my experience.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2018/11/01/why-we-often-remember-bad-better-than-good/
@Janine: After a quick DuckDuckGo inquiry – I see articles listing everything from 3-10 positives to counteract the impact of a single negative. A NY Times article had this (I couldn’t read the whole thing because it says I’ve used up my free reads) – “Negative emotions generally involve more thinking, and the information is processed more thoroughly than positive ones.”
Interesting!