I've decided to take part in the blog meme, Musing Mondays, which is run by MizB over at  Should Be Reading. The idea of this blog meme is that there is a new question asked very week that book bloggers answer and get a good discussion of opinions and views going. If all goes to plan, this should be a regular post as I rather like the idea and creativity it brings so look out for more in the weeks to come! :)

This week’s musing asks…


What do you think of books that receive a lot of hype? (think of the “Twilight” saga, or “Harry Potter”, or “The Da Vinci Code”). Do you read them? Why, or why not?

I'm one of those readers who thinks that part of the enjoyment of the book is finding it first although I think that recommending books to friends and through blogs and the Internet is great.
Usually I tend to shy away from books that are 'the hype' as the question calls it, mainly because if everyone is reading it then some of the magic and the special bond that sometimes feels like it is building between you and characters is gone. For example, I haven't had a go at reading the Twilight saga yet, even though nearly everyone my age was reading and talking about it. However, that could be because the theme of the books don't appeal to me.

I have always tended to read books that were the 'hype' a long time ago for example all of Enid Blyton's books, children's classics or the Chalet school series. I think that reading those kind of books is really nice because you can hug the characters to yourself a little more (with a few recommendations!) but you also know that many others before you have loved the same book and you are carrying the love on.

Overall, I don't think that 'hyped' books are an altogether bad thing but I would say that readers should be wary not to listen to much to other people;s opinions before they have read it so they can form their own personal interpretations.

So, if  I thought that I would like a book that is really popular at the time, I would definitely still read it but try and avoid some of the talk about it so it is not spoilt for me.

What do you think about this question?

A Bookalicious Life- the tale of a young teenage book lover and a treasure trove of books

For the benefit of my lovely new followers over from the Book Hop, I'm going to tell you about my love of reading and how it started!

My mum read to me a lot when I was a baby and toddler, which started off my love of reading. Ever since then,books have been a part of my life and I was soon reading above my age level at school (which is probably why I like reading books aimed at an older audience now.)

When I was about 7 or 8 I started to read some of my Mum's old Enid Blyton books and I was soon in love with her books and short stories. Then, my Mum found a second hand bookshop called The Cottage Bookshop in Penn, Buckinghamshire that is literally a treasure trove like an Aladdin's cave of books. They had a whole section that was crammed full of Enid Blyton books with one bookshelf that had at least 3 layers of books. The old building was a fantastic place to explore with the creaking stairs and rooms filled with bookshelves and books piled up on the floor, it's like a book lover's heaven with every kind of book you could want.  I went their regularly and always came back with a fresh new pile of lot of bargain books to read, some of them being very old and (now I realise), valuable.

Once I had a collection of about 100 Enid Blyton books in my bedroom and several

other                                                    old fashioned and classic children's writers, I began to get interested in historical fiction books such as the ones by Mary Hooper and that is still my favourite genre today.                                                                                           

I got the idea to start a book blog of my own when I was looking for new books to read on the Internet and came across several. A few years ago, I filled several exercise books  with creative book reviews (with flaps, drawings ect.) and I've been wanting to record the books that I have been reading for a while so I thought blogging would be a fun way to do it, which turned out to be truer than I thought!


I cannot imagine living without reading now- even if I don't have as much time to do it as I used to because of other hobbies- and my collection of books is rapidly growing (I have run out of room from bookcases in  my room!)