The Booking Through Thursday question for this week is:

• Have you ever met one of your favorite authors? Gotten their autograph?
• How about an author you felt only so-so about, but got their autograph anyway? Like, say, at a book-signing a friend dragged you to?
• How about stumbling across a book signing or reading and being so captivated, you bought the book?

I know this must sound strange, but I have always felt funny about getting an author’s autograph. I just feel awkward about it. Then I always wrestle with what to say. And I don’t want to stand in a long line. I’ve only gotten one author’s autograph, and that was Elisabeth Elliot’s. I’ve read most of her books and heard her speak at least a couple of times. One of those times I did stand in line to get her autograph. As she took my book and I glanced at the table stacked with her books, I said, “How do you find time to write all those books?” (How lame is that?) She said, “You don’t find time; you make time.” And that was my big moment with Elisabeth Elliot. 🙂

Our local Christian bookstore has fairly frequent author events, from panel discussions with Q&A afterward to book signings. So at those events I have heard speak Terri Blackstock, Beverly Lewis, Karen Kingsbury, Tracie Peterson, Ted Dekker, Lisa Welchel, and a few more I’m forgetting. Those events were a lot of fun and I enjoyed hearing and seeing the authors, but I’ve never mustered the courage to stand in line and meet them. I always wrestle with what to say. “I really liked your book” sounds so lame, though I imagine authors love to hear it. Then what do you say if you didn’t like it, or did but had a few “issues” with it? (Sometimes I think too much!) I do think a book signing with a line of people behind you is not the place to have an in-depth discussion, issues or not.

By the way, those events are great marketing tools (hint to bookstore owners. 🙂 ) I’ve gone to see an author I liked and ended up buying books by another author who was there that I had never heard of before.

Updated to add: I just remembered meeting one more! Bill Myers came to my son’s school to speak a few years back. My youngest son loved his Agent Dingeldorf series then and brought them to be autographed. Parents were invited to the event but I think I may have been the only one to come. I came into the auditorium early and sat in the back to be out of the way when students came in. He came in and chatted here and there with people who came in, and he came back and asked me who I was. I answered “A parent.” (Duh. I am such a brilliant conversationalist!) We talked for just a few minutes, but I don’t remember about what. I enjoyed hearing his presentation to the students.

Other than that the only author I’ve “met” was one just inside Barnes and Noble trying to have a book signing, but no one was there. He was greeting people as they came in and telling generally what his book was about. That was really awkward! I kind of felt sorry for him. I don’t remember his name or his book. It probably would have been nice to have stopped and talked with him a bit, but I had planned to only dash in and out that day and my mind was on what I needed to do.

So….what would you say if you met a favorite author?

The Booking Through Thursday question for this week is:

 Do you have “issues” with too much profanity or overly explicit (ahem) “romantic” scenes in books? Or do you take them in stride? Have issues like these ever caused you to close a book? Or do you go looking for more exactly like them?

Yes, I do have issues with them. Because I am a Christian, one of my principles is to be careful of what I put in my mind, based on Psalm 101:3 (“I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes”) and Philippians 4:8 (“Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.”) I am responsible and accountable for my thoughts. I don’t want to trigger or feed the wrong kind of thinking by what I am reading.

I do come from a non-Christian home and I do know people “in real life” use profanity (and no, I don’t avoid them based on the above verses — I think those verses are referring to what we voluntarily feed our minds on). But I really encounter it very rarely in everyday life, so books that have a profusion of profanity are not only offensive to me but are unreal. Besides, there are so many descriptive and wonderful words, why resort to profanity? It seems lazy to me.

I do not object if a book contains a sexual encounter, even adultery — after all, even the Bible contains such scenes. But it is not explicit in its description except to some degree in the Song of Solomon. Even from a literary standpoint, it’s usually more effective to leave more to the imagination than to spell out every detail.

Katrina at Callapidder Days is hosting another Fall Into Reading challenge. She writes:

Because reading is a wonderful thing, and I like to do my part to share the love of reading with as many people as possible. But also because a challenge often gives me the motivation I need to read books I’ve been “meaning to read” or to finish books that I got half-way through and then abandoned. I use challenges as an opportunity to incorporate some variety into my reading (I tend to fall into reading ruts) and to try out new authors or new genres. My hope is that Fall Into Reading 2007 will give you the motivation and opportunity you need to reach your own reading goals.

Those reasons are exactly what I like about the challenge. If you’d like to participate, check the guidelines here. You’ll also find out there how to win an Amazon.com gift certificate! You can go here to link your post or find out what others are reading (I’ve started keeping a list of interesting things I see others reading).

My first two are non-fiction rolled over from my summer reading list:

Spirit of the Rainforest: A Yanomamo Shaman’s Story by Mark Ritchie, recommended by Jungle Mom.

In the Best Possible Light by Beneth Peters Jones, about Biblical femininity.

New books are:

Return to Me by Robin Lee Hatcher, about a prodigal daughter. I’ve seen this recommended by numbers of people and won a copy through Deena’s Pay It Forward Challenge at A Peek At My Bookshelf.

Simple Gifts by Lori Copeland.

The Parting, the first in a new series by Beverly Lewis, who is always good. Most, if not all of her stories are stem from her grandmother’s Amish heritage.

Just Beyond the Clouds by Karen Kingsbury, a sequel to A Thousand Tomorrows, continuing the story of Cody Gunner, dealing in this book with the care of his brother who has Down Syndrome.

Home to Holly Springs by Jan Karon, a new novel about Father Tim of the Mitford series, due out in late October.

I also like to include at least one classic…I think this time it will be The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas pere. I was actually disappointed in his Three Musketeers and The Man In the Iron Mask, but I have heard good things about this one.

And, of course, there are my daily/weekly reads:

Queen of the Castle: 52 Weeks of Encouragement for the Uninspired, Domestically Challenged or Just Plain Tired Homemaker by Lynn Bowen Walker

Daily Light on the Daily Path compiled by the Samuel Bagster family

Wonderful Words by Stewart Custer

The Bible: Finishing Psalms, going on next to Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon.

I may add more, depending on how I do with these. But these will keep me busy for a while.

Cassidy is the newest book by Lori Wick, the first in a new series called Big Sky Dreams, set in Montana. Cassidy is a single lady, an expert seamstress who runs her own business in a growing frontier town called Token Creek in Montana. She keeps busy and happy with her sewing, her church family, and her close friend Meg. No one but Meg knows about some unsettling problems from her past. As those problems begin to encroach, Cassidy wonder what it will do to her business but especially her relationships if the situation has to come to light.

Reading something from Lori Wick is like visiting an old friend. I always enjoy her stories. They are easy reads but they contain definite spiritual struggles and lessons. Though in some ways her heroines are maybe a little too sweet and just a little naive and her heroes are a little more understanding and “tuned in” than most men, overall they are still believable people that you would like to know in real life, and they carefully consider their situations in light of Biblical truth.

Like many people, I have viewed The Princess Bride multiple times and know many of the lines by heart. I didn’t know the film came from a book until fairly recently, so I put it on my “to be read” list. I just finished it this morning.

The film is very close to the book’s plot and characterizations because the same man, William Goldman, wrote it. There is a little more background information on Fezzik, the gentle giant, and Inigo, the master Spanish swordsman, as well as a few other situations.

The book is presented as a “good parts version” abridgment of a novel by S. Mogernstern. Goldman writes a lengthy introduction to the book explaining how he first heard it: when he was ten and recovering from pneumonia, his father read “the good parts” to him as he recovered, and young William was enthralled waiting for the next installment. Later he rediscovered the book and realized for the first time that his father had only read “the good parts” and there was much more to the story. So then he goes onto a long narrative about how he came to abridge it. Then throughout the book he steps in to explain what he cut out and why. He refers later to battles with the Morgenstern estate and why he was allowed to abridge only one chapter of the sequel, Buttercup’s Baby.

I was going to say that Goldman’s asides are interesting sometimes but can be distracting and can be easily skipped over by a reader who just wants the story. But before I started writing I looked up S. Morgenstern….only to discover there was none. Evidently the whole Morgenstern original and the legal battles and even Goldman’s son who he refers to were made up (Goldman has two daughters). My mind is still taking in this twist! Very clever! Not only because of the storytelling device, but because the voice and style between Goldman’s asides (almost a manic stream of consciousness sometimes) and “Morgenstern’s” is very different. This is probably old news for many people who have loved and researched the film long before now.

It would be hard to summarize what the story is about for those unfamiliar with it. A farmer’s daughter, Buttercup,  is shamefully rude and abusive to her family’s farmhand, Westley, until she realizes and confesses that she loves him. He goes off to seek his fortune so they can be married. Then she hears that he has been killed by the Dread Pirate Roberts. Devastated, she knows she will never love again. When Prince Humperdink discovers her and asks her to marry him (or die), she acquiesces. But before the wedding she is kidnapped by a giant, a Spanish swordsman, and a “genius.” She is kidnapped, or rescued, from them by “the man in black” after he successfully matches swords, strength, and wits and overcomes them. Prince Humperdink, of course, comes after them…and I’ll leave the story there for those who don’t know it to discover. You could say the story is about the perseverance of true love, or the fact that all is not what it appears to be at first. A twist on classic fairy tales, what stays with the reader is the brilliant, witty dialogue and the memorable characters.

The only thing that mars the book is a little offensive language, mostly in Goldman’s asides. If I had known it was there, I don’t know that I would have read the book, even as much as I enjoyed it.

The Booking Through Thursday question for this week is:

Okay . . . picture this (really) worst-case scenario: It’s cold and raining, your boyfriend/girlfriend has just dumped you, you’ve just been fired, the pile of unpaid bills is sky-high, your beloved pet has recently died, and you think you’re coming down with a cold. All you want to do (other than hiding under the covers) is to curl up with a good book, something warm and comforting that will make you feel better.

What do you read?

(Any bets on how quickly somebody says the Bible or some other religious text? A good choice, to be sure, but to be honest, I was thinking more along the lines of fiction…. Unless I laid it on a little strong in the string of catastrophes? Maybe I should have just stuck to catching a cold on a rainy day….)

Well, yes, the Bible, if you want real help, comfort, relief, and perspective rather just escapism.

But yes, I do know what you mean about sometimes wanting to curl up with a throw blanket and something comfy to read. For me it would probably be just whatever work of fiction (usually the classics or Christian fiction) I’m in or whatever is next on my stack of books to read. But the books I would consider literary comfort food would be Jan Karon’s Mitford series, the Anne of Green Gables books, anything by Lori Wick or Janette Oke, Little Women or its sequels.

Summer, by Karen Kingsbury, continues the story of the Baxter family begun something like ten books ago in the Redemption series (with Gary Smalley), continued through the Firstborn series, ending now with the Sunrise series. I believe there are two more books coming to finish out the Baxter saga.

Even with all of the past history, though, I think you could read any of the books or series and get much from them without having to start at the beginning. I think you’d get a lot more out of it by reading from the beginning, but you can get the gist of the pertinent background in each book enough to know what’s going on.

In this book, the storylines set up in the last book continue. Dayne, the A-list Hollywood actor, the oldest Baxter son who was just recently reunited with his birth family, married small town girl Katy Hart at the end of the last book. They are starring in a film together, but find it is not as idyllic as they thought it would be. Plus they agreed to let a reality show follow them around, thinking it would satisfy the public and keep the paparazzi at bay, but since these shows thrive on conflict, much is made of little incidents and innuendos are conjured up. So with all the other newlywed adjustments, Dayne and Katy have multiple other tensions to deal with.

Kari and Ashley are sisters who find out they are adding to their families at the same time, and to top it off, they are both expecting girls, and they dream of tea parties, first days of school, etc. But an ultrasound reveals a problem with one baby, resulting in stress and tension not only for both mothers, but for the whole Baxter family.

The Flannigan family has been intertwined with the Baxters in various ways, and daughter Bailey struggles with growing feelings for Cody, a troubled teen her parents took in to try to help who is now turning his life around, yet faces the tension of wondering how he feels, knowing she’s too young and her parents want them to just be friends, wondering if he is stable, knowing he is planning to go into the military, and probably Iraq, in a few short months.

Then there is tension brewing with the future of the Christian Kids Theater and patriarch John Baxter’s growing feelings for Elaine and his concerns about how his family might deal with his relationship.

Did you notice I used tension in every paragraph? This is probably one of the most tense novels I have read in a long time, but I believe it is one of Karen Kingsbury’s best. There are lighter moments throughout, of course. All of the storylines and characters and situations and struggles are very real and easily related to: even though most of us don’t know a Hollywood actor, we can empathize with the strain on Dayne’s marriage.

Though I don’t want to give away the outcome of any of it and spoil the story for those who haven’t read it, I have to say I really appreciated the way the pregnancy problems were handled, balancing praying and hoping for a miracle with preparing mentally, emotionally, and spiritually for the worst.

I saw this a while back at Jen’s, Susanne’s, and Alice’s (and maybe a few other places that I can’t remember). I’m always up for a good book meme, though it did take me a while to find the time to sit down and think through this one.

What are you reading right now?

The Princess Bride by Samuel Morgenstern, abridged by William Goldman, and Cassidy by Lori Wick.

Do you have any idea what you’ll read when you’re done with that?

Probably Spirit of the Rainforest: A Yanomamo Shaman’s Story by Mark Ritchie, recommended by Jungle Mom, or one of the others on my summer reading list on my sidebar.

What magazines do you have in your bathroom right now?

Family Fun, Romantic Homes, Frontline, (put out by the Fundamental Baptist Fellowship), Answers (put out by Answers in Genesis), Reader’s Digest.

What’s the worst thing you were ever forced to read?

I don’t remember if I was forced to read it, but I hated Lord of the Flies. I think I read it as a teen-ager.

What’s the one book you always recommend to just about everyone?

Besides the Bible, of course, I most often recommend Daily Light for the Daily Path (devotional book) and Climbing by Rosalind Goforth. Newer books I have recommended a lot in the past year are Queen of the Castle: 52 Weeks of Encouragement for the Uninspired, Domestically Challenged or Just Plain Tired Homemaker by Lynn Bowen Walker and The Restorer by Sharon Hinck. I’d recommend almost anything I’ve read, a lot of which you can find here.

Admit it, the librarians at your library know you on a first name basis, don’t they?

Not really. I read a lot of Christian fiction, but our library isn’t current with it, so I buy it and pass it on to my mother-in-law. Getting double duty out of books that way, plus frequent coupons, helps offset the cost. Now, when my kids were little and we went to the regular library programs for kids plus regularly checked out our own books, we knew the librarians pretty well.

Is there a book you absolutely love, but for some reason, people never think it sounds interesting, or maybe they read it and don’t like it at all?

Not that I remember specifically. I think some people don’t think they’d like the older missionary classics that I often refer to and quote from because of the older language and situations, but I would hope they’d give them a chance.

Do you read books while you do other things?

Sometimes. Funny, the Booking Through Thursday question today asked the same thing. I always take a book with me when I have any kind of a waiting time and when traveling. I keep a book in each bathroom. 🙂 If I am really into an exciting part in a book I will have it in the kitchen with me and read in between tasks while preparing dinner. Sometimes I’ll read while someone else is watching TV.

When you were little, did other children tease you about your reading habits?

No — it wasn’t really thought odd. Reading was strongly promoted at my elementary school.

What’s the last thing you stayed up half the night reading because it was so good you couldn’t put it down?

Usually if I read in the evenings I get sleepy. I do remember staying up pretty late not too long ago because I didn’t want to put the book I was in down — but I don’t remember what it was.

Let me know if you do this and I’ll come and read your answers.

(Graphic courtesy of the stock.xchng)

The Booking Through Thursday question for this week is:

Okay, so the other day, a friend was commenting on my monthly reading list and asked when I found the time to read. In the ensuing discussion, she described herself as a “goldilocks” when it comes to reading–she needs to have everything juuuuuust right to be able to focus. This caught my attention because, first, I thought that was a charming way of describing the condition, but, two, while we’ve talked about our reading habits, this is an interesting wrinkle. I’d never really thought about it that way.

So, this is my question to you–are you a Goldilocks kind of reader?
Do you need the light just right, the background noise just so loud but not too loud, the chair just right, the distractions at a minimum?

Or can you open a book at any time and dip right in, whether it’s for twenty seconds, while waiting for the kettle to boil, or indefinitely, like while waiting interminably at the hospital–as long as the book is open in front of your nose, you’re happy to read?

I’m more of a “Goldilocks” reader with non-fiction: I’m less able to concentrate or get anything out of it if there are distractions. But most fiction “grabs” me enough that I can read it in different conditions and with a certain amount of background noise. That’s one reason I love to bring a book to waiting rooms and such: reading is not only a pleasant way to pass the time, but it distracts me and helps me not to feel as nervous.