I think I have an odd personal canon, particularly in terms of what I will or won't re-read at different times of my life.
My youngest cat, Ninja, thinks when Trump comes on the local tv that it is time to visit the litterbox and chase people around -- otherwise he's pretty glued to some of the shows or catnapping around whoever is. For some reason, he really loves cooking shows (I've caught the husband switching over to food network or cooking channel when otherwise failing to lure Ninja in for a cuddle on the couch).
I absolutely agree there's a limit on how much Trump show should be handled in any given day, week, month ... oh good grief ... don't even want to think of years.
I think this is a terrific idea! Could it become a BL discussion group?
My personal canon would probably be very different, simply because it would pull in fiction and non-fiction from wildly different subject matter. But wouldn't it be fun to see each other's?
I would LOVE to see other people's canons! I think it would be really interesting - almost like an archeological/anthopological dig into the histories of who we are. Given how much & how widely you've read, I would really be interested in yours!
This sounds like an awesome idea! And yes, I have to limit my Trumpanzee show too. This idea may be a good side project for my journal. I never considered a personal canon. We always simply focus on our "favorite" things.
I love this - it's the more practical, realistic way of asking the deserted island question: if you had to go to a deserted island, what books would you take with you?
Some names come immediately to my mind and oddly, although 80% of my library is women authors, so far most of my personal canon are men. Go figure. They're also widely varying across subjects: Doyle, Clancy, Gibran, Austen. I'd have to think longer and harder about others.
This could be a fun series of posts with a common tag so everyone could share their personal canons. And/or create a page of their BL blog. I'm also wondering if the favourites widget could be modified to say "Personal Canon" instead of "Favorites"....
Thanks for sharing this - you've got us all thinking now!
Yay! It's fun to start bookish conversation. I'm fascinated at the thought of a series of essays by some of my favorite readers about what they've identified as their personal canon!
Blah! I try not to watch the news much anymore.
With my personal canon and looking at my bookshelves I think I end up dragging alot huge history books and romances or fairy tales ^^;;;
Oh, what an excellent post! The Personal Canon question is a great prompt for bookish discussion. I'd love to read what books other readers would choose, too.
Witch World, The Lion; The Witch and the Wardrobe; Deryni Rising; Broken God (Zindel); Winds of Darkover; Gate to Women's Country; Dragonflight; Summer Tree; Greenmantle; they all made me who I am.
Me, too. (Although I read Norton's "Stars Are Ours" before her "Witch World" and would have to toss in some Lester del Rey, Heinlein, T.H. White, Asimov, L'Engle and William Shakespeare).
I was given the witch world series and the Dragonflight book at the same time by a neighbour who had an extensive SF/Fantasy selection. My mum was at her wits end one summer because I had read everything that was considered suitable for a 12/13 year old.
Hmmm, what would be in my Personal Canon? Hardy, obviously (happy endings are so overrated). But what else?
I've always believed the BBC Radio 4 show Desert Island Discs should be changed to Desert Island Books.
8 years ago
I'll add my enthusiasm to this idea. I'll have to put some thought into what would be in my own personal canon, but I think it would make a great BL meme topic.
This sounds like a topic I'd love to read posts on. It's always interesting to see which books shape people. I predict I'll find some more books to want to read too :D
I've been thinking about this almost non-stop since you posted MR. MT and I had fun discussion about it last night - what makes a book part of one's canon?
I've been putting my candidates on my favourites shelf in preparation for writing something up.
If anyone is interested, you can use GR widgets (Green menu > goodies > widgets tab) to create a shelf widget you can name (i.e. Personal Literary Canon) and then choose which shelf to display.
I'm really looking forward to reading people's posts about this - thanks for the inspiration MR!!!!
I started with the four I mentioned, added a couple of YA books, and stopped there. I worked on setting my personal criteria last night (what separates my 'canon' from other books I love) and now I have to chew over my shelves to see if anyone else goes on or not.
Linda - If you're willing to specify what your troubles are with your shelves, I'm happy to help out fixing them and/or getting them sorted out as much as I'm able (not being a BL employee). If you'd like to PM me with details, please feel free, I'd love to do what I can if I can help - (I might get more ideas for tutorials too).
I'll put together a post about the shelf widget in an hour or so - it's customizeable enough to apply to lots of different things - not just this personal canon project.
@Linda, if clicking the main green menu button on dashboard isn't working where you can get to "goodies" choice where the shelf widget is (happened to me for months), the URL for that menu choice is http://booklikes.com/goodies (the URL for the button you click to create a shelf widget if you don't see that button either is http://booklikes.com/goodies/widget ).
I can get to the Goodies button and even the widget code, but I have no idea where to put it to make a shelf with the widget. Then again, I'm not sure what a widget does that's different from a regular shelf.
Apparently the fact that I have 5,142 books in my BL list makes everything load incredibly slowly. I also have lots and lots and lots of shelves, which in fact I don't need because I don't use BL as my main personal library cataloguing utility. Most of this was a result of the original upload from GR and editing it was simply too cumbersome to mess with in the past.
Hmm, ok. I'm currently working on the widget instructions, hopefully, barring any IT catastrophes here at work, it should be up in another 45 mins or so.
I can't do anything if the sheer number of books in your library is slowing things down, (although, have you tried list view? Maybe it's the covers in shelf view that slow loads down?), but I can put together something about how to do a mass edit of your shelves so you don't have to do everything one at a time - followed by how to edit/remove shelves. That may take a day or so to put together, as I want to do it properly, but I've been thinking for awhile that it might be something a lot of people could use, so you've given me the incentive to get on it. :)
1. Yes, I have everything on "cover view" rather than "list view," so if that's an issue, I can deal with it or change it.
2. Info/instructions on just how to remove a shelf would be helpful. For instance, I have numerous shelves -- from the GR upload -- named for the locations of the books in my house. I don't need that on BL, but I can't figure out how to remove them.
Easy - I'll do a quick and dirty mock up (because I suck at verbally describing where to find stuff) as soon as I'm finished with the widget post. :)
Try list view - ymmv. The covers are still there (although you can turn them off it you'd like) but they're smaller, so they might allow the page to load faster than the full sized covers on shelf view.
Removing shelves--when looking at your cover view shelf page (http://booklikes.com/shelf ) there's a "gear" icon upper far right (next to the icons you click to change from cover to list view, right above your bookcovers). The URL that sends me to if you cannot click the gear icon is - copy, don't click or it will leave off the "?From=" part of the URL -
On that screen, removing a shelf should be readily apparent because scrolling down to shelf names has a column with "delete X" to click next to each shelf name.
I have a similar number of books shelved and a similar number of shelves. I only see a major slowdown when paging through too many pages of books on a shelf or sorting them, even on mobile devices/tablets. I'm not sure the number of books is the issue since they don't all load at once but are "paged."
My youngest cat, Ninja, thinks when Trump comes on the local tv that it is time to visit the litterbox and chase people around -- otherwise he's pretty glued to some of the shows or catnapping around whoever is. For some reason, he really loves cooking shows (I've caught the husband switching over to food network or cooking channel when otherwise failing to lure Ninja in for a cuddle on the couch).
I absolutely agree there's a limit on how much Trump show should be handled in any given day, week, month ... oh good grief ... don't even want to think of years.
My personal canon would probably be very different, simply because it would pull in fiction and non-fiction from wildly different subject matter. But wouldn't it be fun to see each other's?
Some names come immediately to my mind and oddly, although 80% of my library is women authors, so far most of my personal canon are men. Go figure. They're also widely varying across subjects: Doyle, Clancy, Gibran, Austen. I'd have to think longer and harder about others.
This could be a fun series of posts with a common tag so everyone could share their personal canons. And/or create a page of their BL blog. I'm also wondering if the favourites widget could be modified to say "Personal Canon" instead of "Favorites"....
Thanks for sharing this - you've got us all thinking now!
With my personal canon and looking at my bookshelves I think I end up dragging alot huge history books and romances or fairy tales ^^;;;
I've always believed the BBC Radio 4 show Desert Island Discs should be changed to Desert Island Books.
What will the official tag be, so we can all see each other's posts?
I've been putting my candidates on my favourites shelf in preparation for writing something up.
If anyone is interested, you can use GR widgets (Green menu > goodies > widgets tab) to create a shelf widget you can name (i.e. Personal Literary Canon) and then choose which shelf to display.
I'm really looking forward to reading people's posts about this - thanks for the inspiration MR!!!!
I'll put together a post about the shelf widget in an hour or so - it's customizeable enough to apply to lots of different things - not just this personal canon project.
Apparently the fact that I have 5,142 books in my BL list makes everything load incredibly slowly. I also have lots and lots and lots of shelves, which in fact I don't need because I don't use BL as my main personal library cataloguing utility. Most of this was a result of the original upload from GR and editing it was simply too cumbersome to mess with in the past.
I can't do anything if the sheer number of books in your library is slowing things down, (although, have you tried list view? Maybe it's the covers in shelf view that slow loads down?), but I can put together something about how to do a mass edit of your shelves so you don't have to do everything one at a time - followed by how to edit/remove shelves. That may take a day or so to put together, as I want to do it properly, but I've been thinking for awhile that it might be something a lot of people could use, so you've given me the incentive to get on it. :)
2. Info/instructions on just how to remove a shelf would be helpful. For instance, I have numerous shelves -- from the GR upload -- named for the locations of the books in my house. I don't need that on BL, but I can't figure out how to remove them.
Try list view - ymmv. The covers are still there (although you can turn them off it you'd like) but they're smaller, so they might allow the page to load faster than the full sized covers on shelf view.
http://booklikes.com/shelf/edit-shelves?from=
On that screen, removing a shelf should be readily apparent because scrolling down to shelf names has a column with "delete X" to click next to each shelf name.
I have a similar number of books shelved and a similar number of shelves. I only see a major slowdown when paging through too many pages of books on a shelf or sorting them, even on mobile devices/tablets. I'm not sure the number of books is the issue since they don't all load at once but are "paged."