Dear Mr. Gaiman

Dear Mr. Gaiman
I'd like to know you well enough
to simply call you Neil.
Don't worry, I'm not in love with you
I'm just a fan
I'd like to sit across the room from you
and watch you just

read.

I imagine you hold the books with one hand
and hold your head with the other
You probably cross your legs
and construct a fence
You keep out the barking dogs
and the noisy neighbors.
I know you'll never know me, Mr. Gaiman -
Neil -
but I know you.
I know your writing
the fervor.

Dear Mr. Gaiman
You may not know this
but somehow you know me.
Your books are a reflection
of my open heart.

You saw this awkward Kansas child
when you wrote American Gods.
You understood this Fairy Princess
when you published Stardust.

You know I'd be scared, didn't you
when you first imagined The Graveyard Book.
You looked at me, Mr. Gaiman.
But you didn't just look.

You saw.

________________

Hey everyone,

Here's a poem I wrote about one of my absolute favorite authors, Mr. Neil Gaiman. I know each and every one of you out there have your favorite famous people. I just happened to fall in with Neil Gaiman. I hope you enjoyed this short little snippet of my writing life and obsession with Neil's work.

Rereading books?

Hey there, everyone! Thanks for stopping by to smell the books.

Today we will be discussing the concept of rereading books. You would think that every book reader would enjoy rereading their favorite books, or come back to a book that they didn't understand too well to better understand it the next time.

Surprisingly, a large amount of readers hardly ever come back to previously read books, even books that they enjoy. Today, though, with the vast amount of reading material we have access to in the world, many readers (including myself) have a love/hate relationship with rereading. We feel as if there are more, better things to read.

Although I have a hard time getting myself to reread books, I do believe that we need to come back to books that we love. Here are three reasons why we should reread our books, despite the ever-growing pile of unread books on our shelf.

1. Quality over Quantity

This is one of the biggest reasons why I try to reread books. I used to have the mindset that reading a lot of books would make me "well-read (whatever that means." I would often read a lot of books but I didn't truly connect with them because I was too busy thinking about the end result. It was hard for me to enjoy books in the present back then. 

When you reread, it's a great way to assess whether or not the book is what's right for you. Rereading the books allow you to spend quality time with it, instead of speeding through the books and not truly comprehend the story.

2. Better Understanding
When rereading anything, from articles to books to rewatching movies, we gain a wider spectrum of understanding about the story. We often run across deeply hidden themes when we first read a story, because we are fixated on the plot. One great movie example is Napoleon Dynamite: You'd never think that the story of nerdy Napoleon living an awkward life in Iowa would have deep meaning and symbols, but if you watch the movie as many times as I have, you'd be surprised to see that there's more than just surface material.

3. There's Something New Every Time

Every time I reread a book, I always find myself highlighting or penciling in the book just as much as I did last time. I make it my goal to reread three of my favorite books every year, and I find that rereading old memories is creating new ones. Each year I am in a new walk of life and have different perspectives on everything. 


"One of the strongest motivations for rereading is purely selfish: it helps you remember what you used to be like. Open an old paperback, spangled with marginalia in a handwriting you outgrew long ago, and memories will jump out with as much vigor as if you’d opened your old diary. These book-memories, says Hazlitt, are “pegs and loops on which we can hang up, or from which we can take down, at pleasure, the wardrobe of a moral imagination, the relics of our best affections, the tokens and records of our happiest hours.” Or our unhappiest. Rereading forces you to spend time, at claustrophobically close range, with your earnest, anxious, pretentious, embarrassing former self, a person you thought you had left behind but who turns out to have been living inside you all along."
― Anne Fadiman, Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader

Here are a few links to other sites that discuss reading:

http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/blog/why-rereading-books-so-important

http://www.readitforward.com/essay/why-reread/

https://www.bustle.com/articles/50770-11-joys-of-re-reading-books-because-starting-over-at-page-1-is-a-feeling-you-cant

Authors of Influence

Hi, readers! I'm glad you've stopped by to smell the books

As a reader, I am constantly on the hunt for a new book. But when I discover a new favorite author, it unlocks so much more. Here is a list of my top 15 favorite authors that I've discovered over the course of my reading life. I've loosely arranged these authors to build up to my favorite.

I've also tried to include a diverse album of authors; authors that write different genres and were from different time periods.

15. Kate DiCamillo
Recommended books written by this author:
The Tiger Rising
Because of Winn-Dixie
The Magician's Elephant

14. Haruki Murakami
Recommended books written by this author:
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
Kafka on the Shore
Norwegian Wood

13. Marina Keegan
Recommended books written by this author:
The Opposite of Loneliness

12. Emily St. John Mandel
Recommended books written by this author:
Station Eleven

11. Hannah Kent
Recommended books by this author:
Burial Rites

10. W.H. Auden
Recommended books by this author:
Thank You, Fog poetry collection
And any of his poetry selections

9. Truman Capote
Recommended books by this author:
Breakfast at Tiffany's
In Cold Blood

8. Shirley Jackson
Recommended books by this author:
We Have Always Lived in the Castle
The Lottery (Short story)
The Haunting of Hill House

7. John Green
Recommended books by this author:
The Fault in Our Stars
An Abundance of Katherines
Paper Towns

6. Elizabeth Gaskell
Recommended books by this author:
North and South
Wives and Daughters
Cranford

5. Emily Bronte
Recommended books by this author:
Wuthering Heights
Any of her poetry collections

4. Donna Tartt
Recommended books by this author:
The Secret History
The Goldfinch
The Little Friend

3. George Eliot
Recommended books by this author:
Daniel Deronda
Silas Marner
Middlemarch

2. Mary Shelley
Recommended books by this author:
Frankenstein
The Last Man

1. Neil Gaiman
Recommended books by this author:
American Gods
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
The View from the Cheap Seats

The authors I've listed have had a profound influence on my reading experience and I look up to them. Although some of these authors are deceased, it would be awesome to meet at least a few of these authors in my lifetime.

From Books to Videos: Introducing Booktube

Hey, fellow readers! Keep on reading to keep smelling the books.

As nerds and book lovers, I believe it's very important for us to surround ourselves with fellow nerds and book lovers. It can feel very isolating for some to have no one to talk to about our interests. Having no encouragement from others to continue in our interests can even cause us to push aside the things we love most and make ourselves believe that these interests aren't normal.

For a long time in junior high and high school, I often pushed aside my love of reading because I felt I had no one to talk to about it. None of my friends were as bookish as me, and I felt as if I was doing myself a disservice by "putting myself out there."

Well readers, the days of hiding your nerdiness and quirks are gone. The internet has brought about a new movement of bookworms. The internet is the place to go if you want to connect with any type of person, and it is especially cool for people considered "different" to find people just like them.

My love of reading was rekindled by a community on YouTube: Booktube.

Booktube is the network of all bookworms that just happened to make videos about what they love. "Booktubers" come in all shapes and sizes. Some have channels dedicated completely to reading books, while some make book videos along with other types of videos.

Although there are no official rules to the game of booktube, there are a lot of videos that you can count on booktubers to make regularly. These types of videos include:

The TBR (To be read)

Reviews

Discussions

And Wrap-ups about how reading went that month:

The videos I've linked here are only a few of the Booktubers to whom I've subscribed. Each of these ladies (and some dudes, though there aren't as many) has inspired a lot of reading fire in my soul. Being able to log on to the internet and see the passion for reading in them is something I think every reader should experience today.

Even if you aren't a reader, you should at least watch the Pride and Prejudice discussion. It'll change your life.

Weird conversations with readers

Hey, fellow bookworms! Come on in and smell the books.

I think we can all agree that many different types of people are asked a few certain questions throughout life, depending on their life choices. As a person who has chosen reading as a life choice, here are five conversations I have on a daily basis.

Person: Hey, what are you reading?
Me [Excited that person is asking about books]: Oh, it's Wuthering Heights! Have you heard of it?
Person: No, I haven't heard of it! Are you reading it for school?
Nope, just reading, thanks

Me: Do you like to read?
Person: Ew. Reading is boring.
Me: [Avoids person for life]

Survey: Would you rather: A. Read unlimited books and make no money or: B. make money and read no books?
Me: A all the way.

[Me reading]
Sweet old person: Oh my gosh! This girl is reading? I didn't know this generation even reads books anymore! Good for you!

Person: So what's your major?
Me: English.
Person: Oh... So do you want to teach?
(the answer is no. Teaching is for education majors people)

THE MAN BOOKER

Hey, readers! I’m glad you’ve stopped by to smell the books.

Today, we will be doing a bit of talking about something that I get (a little too) excited about. We will be talking about a huge literary prize: the Man Booker. The Man Booker Prize is one of the most prestigious awards on the literary scene today.

According to their website, “The Man Booker Prize is the leading literary award in the English speaking world, and has brought recognition, reward and readership to outstanding fiction for over four decades.”

Each year, a meticulous amount of planning, reading, and analyzing books is done to ultimately pick a winner. The prize committee – About twenty well-known literature workers and enthusiasts – ultimately decides on the winner.

The Man Booker process begins in July, where the “longlist” is decided: the longlist is an assortment of 13 books that were decided upon by the panel of judges. Once the longlist is announced, the next step is to decide the shortlist: or the top five.

Just yesterday, the shortlist was announced! This year’s shortlist consists of Elieen by Otessa Moshfegh, The Sellout by Paul Beatty, Hot Milk by Deborah Levy, His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet, All That Man Is by David Szalay, and Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien.

(Photograph: Anna Ciummo)

The books will be evaluated even further by readers and the judges.

If any readers are looking into newer, relevant fiction, the Man Booker lists are the places to go. The prize has been around since 1969 and I don’t believe you’ll ever run out of things to read.

I haven’t been as excited for the Man Booker prize until last year, but I would say that it has become one of the biggest things that makes me proud of being a reader. It reminds me that there are still incredible books written every year. They're out there waiting to be read, and there will always be more! Although I probably won’t read all the 2016 longlist books anytime soon, they will always be on my radar.

Anyone that is interested in excellent reading content should check out the Man Booker lists. I have started reading one of the shortlisted books, Eileen, and it is seriously incredible. If you want to smell some good books this year, the Man Booker is the place to go!

Three Websites for Book Lovers

Hey, readers! I'm glad you've stopped by today to stop and smell the books.

As I’ve said before already, this blog is around for you to be able to navigate the world of reading whilst living in a world of technology. Although reading is usually thought of as the opposite of technology, sometimes technology can be used to enhance our reading experience.

Here are three sites that I personally use to organize my reading content, access hundreds of e-books, and find new book recommendations for the future.

1. Goodreads

Goodreads is both an app and a website. I like to think of Goodreads as Facebook for book lovers! 

On this site, a user is able to make a profile and keep track of the books they have read or plan to read. You can follow other Goodreads profiles and see what they are reading, as well as like and comment on the posts of the readers you follow.

Goodreads allows you to also log the books you have read into your own profile. Once you log your books, you can create new shelves in order to sort your books as you please. You can also create a to-read list, where you can log an assortment of books that you plan on reading in the future.

If you wish, you can use Goodreads to find new book recommendations. Based on the shelves you create, you can head to the recommendations tab in order to discover books similar to the ones you’ve read.

As a reader, I find Goodreads to be an incredibly useful tool. I use Goodreads primarily to organize the books I’ve read and shelve them according to how much I liked the book. I am a person that likes to have things in order, including my books!

1. Bookbub

Bookbub is another awesome website for readers. As a poor college student, it’s often really hard for me to afford the books that interest me.

If you are not against e-books (I’m sure there are some of you out there), Bookbub is the place to go for the freebies and the cheapies! Once you create a profile on Bookbub, the site asks you what kind of books you like and then they find e-books for you that are registered with the e-book device that you have. Bookbub looks at all the e-books registered with iBooks, Kindle, Nook, and other popular e-book devices.

Most books on Bookbub are under $5, and  they are instantly downloadable to your e-book device!

This site also offers a wide array of authors to follow. Once you follow an author, you are able to keep tabs on what they are writing and which of their works are available for free or a low price.

3. LitHub

LitHub is the place to be if you love books. This site is dedicated to preserving great literature and exposing new excellence in the literature world. 

One of the most prominent functions of LitHub is your free access to the daily newsletter once you've signed up with your e-mail. This newsletter offers a lot of great articles, discussions, short stories, and poetry. Everything written for the newsletter is an all-around tribute to the written word and the enjoyment of reading.

LitHub also offers a daily book giveaway. All you have to do is enter your email address and you're entered!

One of the great things about LitHub is that it always remains diverse. If you want new and different book recommendations for your next read, LitHub should be the first place you go!

So there you have it: three websites that you can utilize (for free) to enhance and diversify your reading life! Take a look at these websites and give them ago. Being surrounded by a community of other readers online is so important: it's motivational and gets you reading even more!

Welcome to Stop and Smell the Books!

Well, hey there!

I'm glad you've stopped by to smell the books. We will be doing a lot of book smelling, reading, and discussing in this spot on the internet!

In this day and age, we are very accustomed to technology and media. Despite our love of everything digital, real paper books and stories are one of the founding types of all media content. 

I have always loved books, starting from a very young age. My dad would read the Hobbit and Narnia to me as a kid and I used to visit the library often. I didn't have a computer or a phone as a young person, so everything I did to entertain myself had to revolve around books.

My love of books has only grown since I've gotten older. Despite this, it's the norm for people my age to avoid books or think them boring. Through this blog, I hope I am able to convince our technology-saturated world to appreciate books and maybe even pick up a few! You're never too old to start reading.

You will also be able to become familiar with reading today. I will be giving advice to other readers about utilizing different media in order to have a better reading experience. I’ll be talking about things like Goodreads, Booktube, reading conventions, and many more outlets for readers to connect with other readers and to find out about new things to read.

Overall, I hope you will find this blog to shine a positive light on reading. Let’s take a step away from our technology and crazy lives to stop and smell the books.