Tuesday Thingers

Last week we explored the memes on Library Thing. I also asked for some suggestions, and one of you suggested that we get a little more personal by looking at favorite books, etc. So . . . I'd like to look at favorites.Questions (yes - there are a bunch - answer one or two . . . or all of them!): What is your favorite book (yes - this may be a hard one!!)? Is your favorite book listed in your LT library? If it is listed, do you have anything special in the tags or comments section? Have you looked to see if you can add any information to the Common Knowledge? AND a little off topic, do you find that your 5-starred books are consistent with your favorites, and is your favorite a 5-star rated book in your library? How have others rated your favorite book? :)

I could probably write volumes on these questions! Taking a hard look at my Library Thing library just verified what I already knew - I am an easy grader! Many and sundried things please me. I found that 38% (40/107) of the books I have entered have 5 stars. I looked at the forty books and found that the average star score given to these books was 4.1 so I suppose I am not that far off from the average. Another interesting thing I discovered is that only 5 of my favorites are classics, 6 deal with my favorite topic (the Holocaust), and 11 are children's literature (some overlap with Holocaust). The book with the highest overall star score out of these 40 was In My Brother's Image: Twin Brothers Separated by Faith After the Holocaust - Eugene Pogany.

Now my favorites - if someone were to casually ask me what my favorite book is, I would probably say without thinking I Cannot Forgive by Vrba. This non-fiction work tells the story of the first Jewish person who successfully escaped from Auschwitz. A true testament to survival. Another non-fiction book that I love is Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by Agee. The author tells the story about three sharecropper families in the Deep South during the years after WWII. It is fascinating. Fiction - I absolutely love Jane Austen and Pearl S. Buck. I have read Pride and Prejudice and The Good Earth a zillion times each. New fiction - my newest love is Astrid & Veronika by Olssen. This is the story of two women, one young and one old, who live on a mountain top in New Zealand trying to hide from the world and find themselves becoming friends.

Of course I know that these statistics are somewhat skewed but it is still fun to take a look. Thanks Wendi for another great week!