Armchair Book Expo Day 2:
What Do Readers Want?: What makes or breaks a book? How do we rate the books, or determine if it is good literature or a good story? What do we want from an author event? How does diversity representation fit into all of this?
For me, what makes a book:
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very good style: beautiful and diversity of sentences (not all built on the same grammar mode – I have seen that!!), rich vocabulary, lively and true to life dialogs
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unexpected twists
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original plot
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for audiobooks: a narrator that makes you believe he/she’s telling a story, not reading it to you; who uses different voices and accents for the characters
For me, what breaks a book:
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same type of plot in the different books of a series
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pace not matching the genre – fine with very slow uneventful book if it’s literary fiction, but not for a thriller, for instance
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too many f* words and the like
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too many typos, especially when trying to insert French words or expressions!
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for audiobooks: dull voice, dull intention; voice sounding too old or too young for the main character; mispronunciation of French words (please professional, do your homework!)
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the cover sometimes! Some marketers focus on a type of cover which is totally unappealing to me and makes me want to flee, whereas when I discover what it’s about, I’m interested
Diversity:
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Right now, diversity for me means access to more foreign literature. More and more presses are trying to publish books in translation, I think it’s getting better. When I read books related to 52 countries for a special challenge, I discovered how rich it can be to perceive the difference of style between authors of various countries.
Let’s Collaborate & Listen: The online book community has changed so much over the years. How do we keep up within our own book-sphere as well as within the community as a whole (i.e., libraries, bookstores, authors, publishers, etc.)?
Personally, right now, I focus on:
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visiting other blogs – though I have not done much recently
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social media – mostly Twitter. A bit Instagram, Youtube, Facebook
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a few local bookstores
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the book club I founded; and sometimes book clubs at my local library
ANY IDEAS YOU WOULD LIKE TO SHARE?
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One of the worst audiobooks I ever listened to the narrator yawned while reading. It wasn’t an in character yawn, it was just the narrator being bored by what he was performing!
Armchair Book Expo day 2: What do readers want? and Collaboration
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OMG!!! Unbelievable!
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Sometimes it can feel like the same plot is being recycled over and over again. I definitely like it when we pick up a book that’s truly unique. I’ve only listened to one audiobook, so I don’t have too much experience, but do you ever find yourself rating a book lower because of the narrator or can you separate the story from said narrator?
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Yeah, especially in some series, the author is too predictable…
Audiobook rating: good question. I mostly rate the book itself, but if the audio performance is terrible, I won’t give a 5, for sure. In my reviews of audiobooks, I always make a special section for the audio performance, so I can explain there the difference between content and audio quality.
Also, after a few bad experiences, I now NEVER check out an audiobook before listening to an excerpt before. I don’t use Audible, way too expensive, but I go there to listen to excerpts, no need of login for that. And usually you have several narrators for the same book. so I do that, and then I request at my library the one with the best narrator.
Also, I listen to a lot of audios through Hoopla (a free service offered by many US publica libraries). They often have several narrators for the same book, so I look on audible to choose the best of the ones available on hoopla. That’s how I ended up choosing Simon Prebble to listen to the complete works of Sherlock Holmes. He’s fantastic
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There’s so much I don’t know about audiobooks!
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it’s a wonderful world… when it’s well done of course
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A thoughtful response! i did not write a post on this topic, but I agree about the style point – and the pace that suits the book. I love distinctive stories (but not too weird). Also agree about the f-word. Boring and off-putting.
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boring, exactly, as if the author had not expanded his/her vocabulary yet
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Awesome thoughts! Thanks for sharing this post 🙂
Armchair BEA Cafinated Reads Day 2
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thanks for visiting, I hope you enjoy this week
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I’m a total sucker for unexpected plot twists!
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me too, for me, that’s a major proof of the author’s creativity… or lack of!
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Interesting point about audiobooks – I don’t listen to them but I think having someone narrate as if they’re really telling a story, not just reading it, would make a significant difference in my enjoyment of the audiobook.
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i think that’s exactly how it should always be done!
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I totally agree with you on different plot lines. I feel if the plot is to similar to something I read it just doesn’t grab me. I also agree with you on audio-books if the narrator isn’t great it just doesn’t do it for me.
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yep
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