Stickers on newly-bought books bother me. You know, the ones that tell you the price of the book or what percentage you got off and what a great deal it was. I always take those stickers off as soon as I get home (unless they're difficult to get off, but that's another Soapbox post for another time.). Only then does it feel like the book is owned.

Towards the end of last year, I borrowed two books to read for my book club - The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt and Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand. I borrowed them from fellow members of my book club who had finished reading them early. That was awfully nice of them, saving me from spending $40 to buy the books myself.

But these books still had the stickers on them. Ahh!

It's hard to explain just how much that drove me crazy. How many times I thought about peeling the stickers off. How often I wondered if they would even notice that the stickers were gone. How many times I debated asking them if I could take the stickers off - but then didn't, for fear they would think I was crazy. I ultimately returned the books in the condition I got them, stickers and all.

So am I crazy? Am I the only one bothered by stickers on books? Or are there fellow sticker-haters out there?

Has this ever happened to you? You read an amazing book, return it to the library, and then can never find it again. Because of Goodreads, this will no longer happen to me. But I've only been using Goodreads for a little over a year. And there are two books that stick in my memory as "the book that got away." And yes, they still bother me.

This first happened when I was in middle school. I had read a book from my local library. I remember very little about the plot now, except there was a maze and a castle involved. What I do remember is going out to my tire swing after I had finished reading it. I just swung idly and thought about the book for nearly half an hour. I'm pretty sure this was my first experience of a book hangover. That branch of my library closed several years ago, and I have always kicked myself for not going back and finding that book again.

The second time this happened was only a couple of summers ago. I was sitting in one of the comfy chairs in the YA section of the library. A book caught my eye. I checked it out, devoured it, and immediately requested the other two books in the series. The main character was going to live with her dad because her mom had just passed away. Her dad works at the Renaissance Fair over the summer, so that's where she goes. She discovers that, while there are humans at the Renaissance Fair, there are also many that aren't human. In fact, she herself isn't entirely human.

I know this author has written other books that I would love to read. But I can't remember the title of any of the books I read, let alone the author's name. I have scoured the shelves in the YA section of my library, but I can't find it again.

There are some books that stick with us long after we've read them because the characters or the plot becomes part of us. So much so that we want to experience them again someday. Unless we can never find them again! Then they simply live on in our memory, although we always keep a watchful eye out at libraries and book sales. We live in hope.

Does anyone else have a story of "the book that got away"?

What has happened to commitment in fiction? Since when does “true love” make it okay to leave a spouse for a new interest (fling, lover, object of lust. . .)? Why does being bored with your life give you permission to have an affair?

This may not have jumped out at me so strongly if I hadn’t read two books in a row that “solve” dissatisfaction in life with an affair. The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd and Pilate’s Wife by Antoinette May both follow female main characters who decide that their husbands don’t deserve their fidelity. No one said being faithful to a spouse was easy. No one said you would feel “in love” forever. Love is not a feeling; it is a choice.

Claudia from Pilate’s Wife and Jessie from The Mermaid Chair live two thousand years apart, but their stories are similar. Life does not make them happy. A man with a touch of the unknown, a mystery, enters their life. Suddenly they must have that man, no matter the consequences to their husbands or children. And these men (Holtan and Whit, respectively) are most certainly their true loves, the men they were meant to be with for the rest of their lives. Oh, please. That’s not true love. That’s lust. Especially since it doesn’t take long for the relationships to become physical. It’s not a mental or spiritual love (despite Sue Monk Kidd making Whit a monk). It’s not any sort of love that a long-term relationship – a marriage – can be based on. Both women talk about the future, plan for a future with their lover, but it inevitably doesn’t work out (I can’t really call that a plot spoiler, can I? Surely we all saw that coming.).

I understand that people can be dissatisfied with their lives, that they can look for a way to change their humdrum existence. But if literature is constantly presenting having an affair as an acceptable solution to this problem, more and more people – real people, not tie-up-all-loose-ends fictional characters – will choose this path. Marriages are hard work. Fidelity requires a daily commitment. Boredom does not give you an excuse to stop working on these things.

I want to read a book where the main character chooses their husband over a potential lover. I want to read about their daily decisions to keep showing love even when they are not feeling love. These are compelling stories, realistic stories, inspiring stories. Let’s raise the standard of today’s fiction and honor those people who show a commitment to their marriage and their spouse, through better or worse.

I think I’ve finally reached a Wednesday where I’m not posting a sign-up for a reading challenge. I started Smiling Shelves in June, and ten of the thirteen Wednesdays have been sign-up posts. That’s rather a lot of reading challenges. So let me share something I’ve discovered since beginning this blog:

I love reading challenges.

I had never joined a reading challenge before June, so I had no idea that my competitiveness would join with my love of reading to create somewhat of a monster. I love the idea of reading for a purpose. I love the way this draws me to read books I would never have discovered otherwise. Case in point: Xingu and Other Stories by Edith Wharton (reviewed yesterday – read all about it here). The reading-challenge monster said that I had to have a title that actually started with X for my A-Z Reading Challenge. Did you know that there are not many titles that start with X? When I discovered this one, I was ecstatic. This is a book that I never would have picked up, let alone known about, if not for the A-Z Challenge. And it is far from the only book that I have read just because it helps me with one of my challenges. The list is long.

There can be the occasional awkward moment, though, when inspired by the reading-challenge monster. Not that long ago, I spent 20 minutes scouring the library shelf of E authors. I needed one for my A-Z Challenge, but I wasn’t satisfied with just meeting that requirement. I’m also working on the Color-Coded Challenge, and I needed a book title with brown or black in the title. So I had two missions to accomplish with one book (hopefully). I would imagine that library shelves do not typically receive the amount of attention that I paid them that day, and I do not typically receive the amount of strange looks I garnered by pouring over all the book titles in such detail. My mission was successful, though! I found Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel.

Despite those moments when I get way too into this reading challenge thing, I would say that it is good for me as a reader. I read books and discover new authors that I wouldn’t have otherwise. I connect with other readers and bloggers. I learn to stretch myself. And I find a great sense of accomplishment (because the reading-challenge monster says that I will never leave a challenge uncompleted).

So how do you feel about reading challenges? Do you love them or hate them? Embrace them or avoid them? Do you find them fun or stressful? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

The Smiling Shelves Soapbox is a chance for me to rant or rave about bookish things.

Why is it that visits to Barnes & Noble are so hit and miss?

Let me start by saying that my favorite place to begin in Barnes & Noble, Borders when it was around (a moment of silence for the loss of Borders, please), or any chain bookstore is the bargain books. You can find books that have been recently(ish) published, mostly hardcover, for five or six dollars. Most of the books I buy at Barnes & Noble come from the bargain bookshelves. (And I buy them with gift cards. I'm a rather cheap person when it comes to buying new books.)

There comes a time, though, when I have found a book that I want to own, and I'm not willing to wait for it to hit the bargain bookshelves (I will wait for it to come out in paperback though - no $25 hardcovers for me). I enter Barnes & Noble, perfectly willing to pay full price for a new book.

Such was the case last night. I had a list of two books I wanted to buy - Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan (my review here) and Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library by Chris Grabenstein (my review coming soon, but you can tell that I loved it by the fact that I was willing to buy it). To top it all off, it was my birthday, so the stakes of finding what I wanted and enjoying my visit were even higher.

I perused the bargain bookshelves first (of course) and found two books I was semi-interested in, but I was soon headed purposefully to the books I had come to buy. Let's just get to the sad bottom line - neither of them were in stock. I looked alphabetically by author, glanced through the shelves of new fiction in case they were still there, and searched the free-standing tables of various topics. Nope. Nowhere to be found, confirmed by the store's computer.

Now don't get me wrong. I love shopping for books. I will enter a bookstore anywhere and anytime, and it's extremely rare that I come out empty-handed. But it's not often that I'm willing to pay full price for a brand-new book. And when I am, I expect the bookstore to have what I'm looking for in stock. Were the books so popular they just flew off the shelves, or did they never have them in the store in the first place? That I don't know. I only know I rather sadly picked up my two bargain books, supplemented them with one my husband would enjoy (like every little boy who grew up to be an engineer, he still loves Legos and books about Legos), and headed to the check-out counter.

I guess in the future, when I'm willing to pay full price, I won't get my hopes up too high.

Has this happened to anyone else? Have you been disappointed in the offerings of your local bookstore? Or do you always walk out with an armful of books, no matter what?