This photograph was taken by Tambako The Jaguar.

This post is brought to you by a cycle of reading slumps. A cycle that has lasted a long time, or at least a long time by book blogging standards. I have had short bursts of interest; I’m having to force myself to read (I know, the advice is to wait it out, but I tried that).

I’ve come to the conclusion that I, we, everyone, can bring reading slumps on by reading lots to make up for a previous slump. It’s understandable that once we’ve got over a slump we’re going to want to try to make up for lost time, and the passion for reading returns. But if too much of a good thing can cause a slump, then it surely applies to the recovery period, too.

Which is really annoying.

The thing is, it’s difficult to achieve a balance when, post-slump, all you want to do is read. Everything is vying for your attention. You don’t necessarily start trying to cram in every book but it suddenly becomes a lot easier to move on to another book after a chapter or two than it is normally. You aren’t abandoning these books, per se, you’re enjoying them – but oh there’s that book I would’ve read if not for the slump and it looks awesome… oh and even if it wouldn’t usually phase me I wasn’t keen on that sentence just then and that’s good enough reason to add another book and…

I suppose I worry that trying to adhere to balance, which is technically forced reading which is exactly what prolongs a slump and is thus best avoided, is actually what would help. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

Of course guilt comes into this, the thought that you should have been reading, or that you should have read such and such, ARC or not. And I know we shouldn’t feel guilty but somewhere there’s going to be at least a little regret.

I have two questions for you to answer and a request for you to fulfil if you can and wish to:

Questions: Do you ever suffer from continual slumps? Have you worked out a way to combat them?

My request is for a book or list of books that you reckon would push a reader past a slump. A very good book that has broad appeal, thus the answer to many different people’s slumps. If you could share this post (so there are more suggestions) I’d be very grateful!

Today’s post is inspired by Christian fiction author Rachel Ann Nune’s ongoing battle. Nune’s work, available for free electronically, out of print physically, was plagiarised and sent out by the plagiarist as an ARC. The bloggers who let Nune know and helped her verify the plagiarism have been subjected to attacks by others (verified later as supporters/the plagiarist themselves).

What is our responsibility to the original author? Do we have a responsibility? I’d of course argue that we do, not simply because we review books but because of the way the Internet has made contact and networking easy. If we are able to talk to authors, to have that contact that allows us to request books, form friendships, have a working relationship, then we have a responsibility. No matter that blogging’s a hobby for most of us, some of our time should go towards helping authors if needed.

If we have a responsibility then what to do seems obvious – you let other bloggers and the author know. You may have read the original, but they might not have heard of it and may have a review pending of the copy. Reviewing the copy yourself is inappropriate – give it a bad rating and you’re just adding to the drama rather than helping to solve the issue.

It pays to research before accepting a pitch. Basic research – finding extracts for an example of the writing style and editing, working out if it’s the book for you, finding out the context the book’s written in and so on – should have the added bonus of bringing up any news of plagiarism as it will bad behaviour.

The issue is that we don’t always have time to research and there are those occasions when a pitch blows us away enough that we don’t think to research. Maybe the book is being pitched by one of the Big 5 that we trust (and you do because they’re gatekeepers but let’s not forget that even they have missed facts and plagiarism before). Research means more work.

And what about books we already own? I can’t say I’ve ever researched in these cases, it would seem silly to as all the basic information we need is in front of us. We’ve already ‘accepted’ the book.

In order to savour the relationships we have we need to keep our ears open for issues. If we love books and blog about them then we’re almost required to help.

Over to you. What do you think of the idea that we have a role to play?

Over a year ago, some months before the bullies fiasco, Nathan Bransford wrote a short post about libraries in which he noted his annoyance, as an author, when people whose income was high enough for them to afford books tell him they borrowed something from the library. His statement was obviously subjective, yet even if you’re not an author I think it’d be difficult to say he is wrong to feel that way. We say that libraries are for everyone, that libraries are for the public and it is a detriment when they are closed, but no one could fault Bransford where a source of his income arises from the sale of his books.

Forgetting for the moment the thought that libraries are for everyone, should libraries not be used by those who can afford to buy books?

Looking at it from an economical perspective, libraries buy books. When a person borrows a library book they are borrowing a purchased book, however that one-off purchase and public lending rights do not make up for the number of times the book may be borrowed (the linked article includes details about payments by UK libraries). The amount of money made by library purchases would never be anywhere near the amount that would be made if more people bought a copy themselves. By this reasoning, a person with money who wants to read the book is doing the literary world a disservice (except, of course, the library – more on that later).

It is somewhat cheeky, if we consider Bransford’s view, which for obvious and understandable reasons will at least somewhat match that of other authors, for someone who can buy a book to get it for free instead. That reader is not buying a book that another person could be making money from, money that will often be the writer’s primary or only source of income. Perhaps Rowling and Meyer do not ‘need’ the extra sale, but many authors do ‘need’ it, and this is easy to forget. An author could have a good few books out, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re making good money, and in addition, if books do not sell and they are traditionally published, it may be harder for the writer to sell future books to publishing houses in the first place.

Of course this begs the question what of reviewers? It begs what of libraries in general? What of book swaps and so forth? I won’t go into this long because it would take us away from the topic, but where reviewers and libraries are concerned, sometimes book swapping, too, there is a sense of paying it back. Reviewers get a free book in return for publicity (when they can, given how many books they are sent). Libraries hold events and they provide a place for members of the community to meet, use the internet, and so on. The value of libraries stretches beyond books. And lending a book to a friend can lead to the friend spreading the word themselves and buying their own copy. A friend who likes the book is quite likely to try the rest of the author’s output.

On the subject of free, few can buy every book they want to read. Perhaps there are some people out there able to walk about a bookshop as Michael Jackson did an antique shop, buying up every book they do not own, but the vast majority cannot. (And, really, of those that can buy hundreds, how many books would get read? That’s important, too.) We borrow from the library, from friends and family. We take advantage of Kindle deals and Kobo coupons. We like to try before we buy, especially if we’re not sure enough about an author to buy the book but sure enough to want to read it. And when you’re studying, those research books you’ll use for one course aren’t cheap. In these cases it makes sense that everyone will borrow at some point. Indeed in the case of research, you’d be considered a fool to purchase everything, no matter how much money you have.

Then there are second-hand bookshops, beloved by all, that until only recently escaped discussion (discussion focused on ebooks at that).

Borrowing from the library doesn’t cause any literal harm. The main issue that might occur, if a wealthy person borrows, would be when a book was being borrowed at the same time as a person who couldn’t afford to buy wished to read it. When I say this, I am not factoring in wait lists; it’s all well and good to wait. However if lots of wealthy people were borrowing the book one after another then I think we’d be almost forced to accept that there was an issue because we are rightly focused on those who have less being able to access books easily. It is one of the biggest reasons for keeping libraries open. Share and share alike, but at what cost? Of course this idea of one after the other would have to be extreme to matter, but as it is possible and as it would have an impact, it’s something to consider.

By their borrowing, wealthy readers help keep libraries open. Everyone who uses the library helps to keep it open and so by extension do those who could technically go without libraries. Where authors, publishers, and so forth, may be done a disservice of sorts, the library is aided. We could ask if everyone would consider wealthy borrowing to be a good reason to keep the library open. Should it factor in a decision? Does it even matter? But regardless, those who can afford to buy books count as much as those who can’t when it comes to the number of people using the library, and therefore without wealthy borrowers, library numbers would fall. And even if they did happen to make up the majority of users of any one library, would that really matter on the whole? Closing such a library would not help those who weren’t of that wealth unless the money went to them in a better way, and it would stop new potential readers of any background.

Libraries need to be available to everyone and anyone who needs them, regardless of how much they do or do not have. And every user is important as a reader, as a member, and yes, as a number.

I haven’t written a post like this for a while, so I’m aware today may be a nonentity. I’m definitely out of practice.

I used to be book-monogamous. I was strict about this to the point of silliness. Then I experimented and found I could read a fiction book alongside a non-fiction or one of the two alongside an ebook of either type.

Now I read anything and everything with anything and everything and I’ve found both benefits and drawbacks. Please forgive my constant use of emphasis in this post, I want to make the subject of each paragraph obvious.

The biggest drawback to reading more than one book at a time is that it’s all too easy to lose your way for one and then just say “hey, I’m already reading two books, what difference will one more make?” This is why I’ve still Anna Karenina and Vanity Fair on the go, the latter for over two years now. It’s a lot easier to justify starting another book when you’ve already decided that you’re not monogamous, and it’s very easy to tell yourself that you’re not putting a book down for good. What’s hard is actually carrying it out, putting the book down and then coming back to it within a reasonable period of time (because let’s face it, a few years down the line doesn’t really count in this case). You could say that you should simply stop reading it, formally, but often these books are ones you were enjoying, you just happened to catch ‘shiny new object’ syndrome or have no reading time for a few days. (I think we all know how problematic for various reasons no reading time can sometimes be.)

However the biggest drawback to only reading one book is that it can stop you reading completely. For a while, at least. If you become bored with the book you’re reading, that’s it, unless you decide to DNF it and that’s a topic for another day. It can take a while to get through a book when you’ve reached a dull section and if you’re only reading that one book you won’t have any bookish respite from it for a potentially long period of time.

Another drawback of more than one book is confusion, confusing the storylines. This can of course happen anyway if you get through books quickly. A further drawback of one book is a lack of variety at any one time.

The variety that accompanies more than one book is important. Get bored, switch genres; learn about two subjects. You can also end up reading more books overall because variety helps with pace.

Yet the biggest reason in favour of one book is attention span. All your attention on that one book may just get it read. And, bonus point, if you write reviews and you like to write them soon after finishing, you’re highly unlikely to ever have more than one outstanding review at a time. It’s also easier to remember what you wanted to say in the case you’ve forgotten to make notes.

Do you read one book or more? Why?

This may be more of a personal subject, but it’s one I’ve wanted to write about for a while. I will say that it’s in the context of technology today – our ability to strike up a conversation with writers that has come about thanks to social media and email.

I don’t have one favourite author, at least not presently. What I do have is a variety of favoured writers, and in most cases these are people whose work I don’t always like. (Most often this is the case where the author has written a fair few books – does anyone else find they’re more likely to like everything someone has written the less books there are? I know it sounds obvious, but at the same time it’s easy enough to find yourself disliking a second book, so it still warrants wonder.)

Here is a sample of some of my favourite writers whose work I have not liked in its entirety:

Jane Austen: I have enjoyed exactly half of her adult output, finding the others mediocre.
Elizabeth Chadwick: I like this author’s work so much the only thing I asked for when asked what I’d like for Christmas were her books. Yet I find they tend to go on longer than they ‘have’ to and I’m in two minds about that. I’ve also found some to be strictly alright.
Shannon Stacey: Her work is very hit and miss. She’s a favourite because the hits are so amazing.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with not liking everything an author writes, but I go back and forth between thinking it means they can’t be favourites, and thinking they can.

One of the reasons I think they can is that it’s good to be objective, it’s good to be honest with yourself. I think that if we become a gushing fan, no matter how natural it is and how difficult it can be to hold back, it does make the almost inevitable dislike of something down the line (be it dislike of an entire work, a solo plot point, a character) awkward for us. It’s like the awkwardness that arises when you’ve lauded a book you loved as a child, only to reread it, hate it, and wonder if your friend will think twice about asking you for recommendations in future. You might feel like a fraud or you might feel the writer can no longer be called your favourite.

I feel this way sometimes and other times think that it’s not necessary to like everything. I wonder if being a fan can actually help you consider this new, disliked, book better. You’d likely be considering it in its context and may be more objective. Then again, if you’re completely disappointed your review or conversations might be more biased against the book than that of someone who isn’t a fan. And if we lie and stay positive when we’re not feeling it, then that’s simply false.

It can feel wrong continuing to call an author a favourite, but it’s not, is it? We can have a favourite musical artist and not like all their songs, and we have favourite sports teams who we moan about when they lose¹.

How does all this fit in with social media, with our ability to talk to authors in real time? The subject of liking and disliking books has moved on from being something personal and private to pubic and open to argument. Of course not everyone talks to authors, but by blogging or by being on a bookish site, what you say can be found by them.

If you talk to an author and later dislike their book, is it awkward? You talk to the author, they likely know you’ve loved their work in the past, and then your next review or star rating isn’t very favourable. Perhaps they would appreciate it, maybe more so because you have a rapport with them, but it must be more awkward than reviewing a book by someone you’ve never interacted with in any way.

Would it be difficult striking up conversation in future? I don’t actively contact many authors but have had occasions where a writer has found my 5 star reviews (I assume from a friend or through Google Alerts) and I’ve wondered how they’d take my 2 star later on. This invites discussion on saying what we want to say, I know, but that’s a topic for another day.

There are two questions really: do you have favourite authors whose books you haven’t always liked? How do you feel about the way social media means that what we write can be found (and commented on) by those we write about?

¹ Credit where credit’s due – my boyfriend brought up the sports team comparison.