Top Ten Tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish. This meme was created because they are particularly fond of lists over at The Broke and the Bookish.  They  love to share their  lists with other bookish folks and would LOVE to see your top ten lists!  So, every week, a topic is posted. Bloggers create their Top Ten List based on the topic. 

This week's topic : Top Ten Bookish Pet Peeves.

I am not sure if I can come up with 10, but I am going to try. 

1. Spelling and grammatical errors -  I feel that these should be caught and corrected by an editor.  If there is one, ok maybe a typo, but really when there are more than that it irks me!  I recently started a book, and while I was enjoying the storyline, I had to stop reading it due to the fact that there were so many grammatical/spelling errors .  (made me kind of sad since I had heard that it is a really good series!)There must have been at least two places that I noticed a word printed twice in a row, and a few times there were words that did not belong in the sentence at all.  With those words in the sentence, the sentence just didn't make any sense. Of course, I knew (or could figure out) what the author had intended it to say, but I shouldn't have to. While it may not seem like a big deal to some people, it bothers me. It makes me wonder how the books even got printed with these errors, and if they had been edited at all.    Another example, in a novel written by one of my favourite authors about 100 pages into the book a character's name suddenly changed from Sharon to Susan, and then about 100 pages later she was Sharon again! That really annoyed me- the first time I saw the name Susan, I was thinking who? Susan- who is that? It didn't take long to realize it was an editing error- a big one!

Any book that is published should be free of spelling and grammatical errors, with the exception of ARCs of course!

2.  Writing in books -  I just hate when I get a "new to me" book, and discover that it has been written in, or had words underlined or circled or whatever! It drives me crazy! (the only exception to this is a BCID#)  The book that I mentioned in my first point was so poorly edited, that I REALLY wanted to get out a red pen and correct all the errors.  Of course, I didn't. I just think that books were meant to be read, valued, treasured, and writing in them is disrespectful to both the book and the author.

3.  Dog- earring pages in a book that is not yours- Ok I am not a big fan of dogearring pages, but if you want to dogear the pages of YOUR books, whatever it's your book!  A book that you have borrowed from me, or the library, is NOT your book-DON'T dogear the pages!!

4.  Food particles in books -  GROSS!!EWWWW!!YUCK!!  I recently borrowed a book from the library, after waiting on the waiting list for about 4 months,  and had to return it without reading it!  I started reading it, and after the first 5 pages or so, I started to notice orange staining. You know, the orange stains you get on your fingers when you eat cheetos. Those will transfer to the pages of a book, when you use your fingertips to turn the pages! About 10 pages in, 2 pages were stuck together by something that had been dropped in the center of the page, once the page was turned, it stuck to the one in front of it. I am not sure what it was but I am leaning towards jam, jello, or even worse snot! I stopped reading there, but did a quick flip through and noticed that there were more pages that were stuck together! I returned the book, and pointed it out to the clerk and mentioned that not only was I disgusted by this, but I was disappointed that I had waited so long on a waiting list and because of someone else's lack of respect for library books, I didn't get to read it, so I would like a different copy. Of course I had to go back on the waiting list (at the bottom of course).  I also suggest that she make a note on the account of the previous borrower, so that next time her card is swiped it would come up, and that maybe they could give her a gentle reminder that if she can't eat while reading without making a mess of their books, she should refrain from eating while reading,  because other readers like me think it is GROSS!!    (Rant over!)

5.  Too much description- Obviously the setting and characters need to be described, and yes I love description, especially when it is done so well that you can really picture it. However, I HATE when so much time is spent describing an object that I start to get annoyed and want to skip over it. I once read a book where the other spent so much time describing an ashtray that I wanted to be able to reach in and smash the damn thing!! I got it after the first paragraph, and if I hadn't I would have after the first page, I really don't care that much about the ashtray, and now that I have spent ten minutes reading about it, I am not really that interested in what was going on before that, as I am now annoyed!

6.  Price/Sale Stickers- I hate when  stickers are placed on the cover of a book! I don't like the look of it when there is a sticker on the cover of one of my books, and I hate when I try to peel it off and it either leaves a little bit of the paper or just the adhesive on it!
7. Library Barcode Stickers - I just hate when the library barcode sticker is placed on the back of the covering part of the synopsis. I mean, can it not be placed over the UPC code and ISBN number. If I want to know the ISBN number, I can look in the book and find that with all the copyright and publishing info. I can't find the text on the back cover anywhere else in the book!! 
8.  Spoilers- Sure, sometimes I want a bit of a spoiler, so I will look for one. However, when I am reading a review I would like to know that there are going to be spoilers so that I can decide whether or not I want to read the review at that point. If I decide not to read your spoiler, chances are once I am done reading the book, I will come back and read your review. Chances are I won't come back and read any of your reviews if I just read one that spoiled a book for me because you didn't warn me that it would contain spoilers!
9. hmmm, not sure what to call this one, it is  similar to number 8, but has nothing to do with reviews online, or in papers etc.   I just hate when I am talking to someone, or even chatting online, posting in a discussion thread in a group I belong to on goodreads.com,  and I mention the title of a book I am reading and they ask " Did you get to the part where........."  My first thought is always " No, I didn't and am not so sure I will! Now that I know what happens, why keep reading this when I have hundreds of books on my tbr shelf!  
10.  Characters that start every sentence they speak with the name of the person they are speaking to.  I didn't realize how much it bothered me until I read (or partially read) the book that I was referring to in my first point. 


So, I was able to make it to 10!!  I think I might even be able to come up with another 10!  Since it is Top Ten Tuesday I will stop here. I will stop as soon as I point out that tiny text drives me crazy too!  

What are your book/reading related pet peeves??  

Lucky Leprechaun Giveaway Winner

My giveaway for the Lucky Leprechaun Giveaway Hop is now over. There were a couple of comments posted before I was able to turn off the comment option. Because it was my fault, I did allow the entries.
I wasn't really sure what people would think of the prize I had chosen to give away.
Before I announce the winner, I want to thank Kathy and Cindy for hosting the hop, and I also want to thank everyone that entered.
I used random.org to choose the winner, and the winner is...............

Wendy 

Congratulations Wendy!  I will be emailing you shortly.  (First, I need to get my son to bed!!)

Lucky Leprechaun Giveaway Hop

The Lucky Leprechaun Giveaway Hop is hosted by Kathy from I Am A Reader, Not A Writer , and Cindy from Books Complete Me.   The hop runs from Thursday, March 17th through Sunday, March 20th, and there  are over 250 blogs participating.   You can find the list of participating blogs at the bottom of this post.
Since this is the first giveaway I am having on my blog, I wanted to do something that could include everyone.  I didn't want to have to restrict it to just Canada and US. 
I will be giving away 1 paid LIFETIME membership to Library Thing. 
If you are not familiar with it, LibraryThing is an online service to help people catalog their books easily. Because everyone catalogs together, LibraryThing also connects people with the same books, comes up with suggestions for what to read next, and so forth. A free account allows you to catalog up to 200 books. A paid account allows you to catalog any number of books. 

To enter please follow via Google Friend Connect and leave a comment with your email address, and the name you follow with. ( If I can't contact you, I can't notify you if you win, therefore your entry will be disqualified)

For an extra entry like my blog on facebook, by clicking here.  Leave the name you "like" my blog on facebook with, and your email address in a separate comment.(first name and last initial are fine) 

This giveaway will end  March 20th at 11:59 EST. The winner will be chosen using random.org , and notified by email by March 22nd.

I am back!

 WOW!!  It has been so long since I posted!  So much has been going on.  My computer " died" on me,  and I sent it to someone to get fixed.  An acquaintance of mine knows someone that fixes computers, so she asked him about fixing mine, and he agreed. Well, it took him forever,ok not forever, just a few weeks, and then when I got it back, I could not get online. I could not connect to the internet at all.  It was finally determined that the man who was so nice to offer to fix it for me,  had actually removed some of the memory and the " ethernet card??".  Apparently, he needed some memory and an ethernet card for an older computer that he had, and what better way to get that than to steal mine!!   So, anyway, I had to figure out how to get it fixed etc. 
Finally, I was able to get online! Then, my whole family came down with a terrible stomach bug.  It lasted a couple weeks. Just when I thought we were over it, and had all recovered, my son and I came down with another bug. It only lasted a few days for me this time around, but my son was vomiting for almost 2 weeks. Then my daughter came down with something. I wasn't sure what it was, so I took her to the doctor (again!), and he wasn't sure either and wanted to see her again in 36 hours. At that point she was diagnosed with the worst case of chicken pox that the doctor had seen in years! Then my son and I got sick AGAIN. My guess is we picked up a virus at the doctor's office.  Anyway, all that had me feeling terrible both physically and emotionally. I was down right cranky, so I avoided most people as I didn't want to treat anybody poorly because of my crankiness. 


I am feeling better now, and will be blogging more regularly.  I was surprised to see that I have not lost any followers due to my lack of posting.  Thank you all for sticking around!