Monday, August 22, 2016

Musing Mondays (59) Hobbies are Subjective & Random Weekly Question


Musing Mondays is a weekly meme hosted by Jenn at Books and a Beat, that asks you to muse about something book related each week.

My musings for the week...

Random weekly question from August 15th: What sequel do you have yet to read?

There aren't many books that I can think of that have sequels that I haven't read. Partly because the majority of the sequels I do want to read haven't been released yet. The wait does suck sometimes, but at least I have something to look forward to.

One sequel that I haven't read yet is the conclusion to the Daughter of Smoke and Bone series by Laini Taylor. I've put it off for a long time, and I don't know when I'll have the time to go back and finish the series.

Other Musings:

For my musings this week, I want to talk about hobbies. I rarely mention them even though I’ve previously discussed the relationships between main characters and the secondary characters—whether it was strictly platonic or romantic. I’ve even made a list of my favorite fictional friendships. Yet, I haven’t mentioned hobbies. I feel like it’s easier to get an understanding about any given character by his/her actions, combined with the dialogue and internal thoughts.

Hobbies are anything that a character enjoys doing on his/her off time, as long as it’s some kind of activity, to me, it counts. Yet, I rarely pay much attention to them. I see and remember them, but just move on when the story goes on.

I’ve seen a lot of hobbies, most noticeably art, photography, cooking, reading, writing, a sport of some kind, drama, etc.. There’s nothing wrong with seeing those in books, in fact, the majority of the time the author/authors put a good spin on them, making the hobbies unique to the character. And trust me, I have a lot of favorite characters, and some of them have similar hobbies.

I also like to see less common activities as hobbies too—and yes, I’m just waiting for Pokémon Go to make an appearance (just kidding :-p).

So, what are less common hobbies anyway?

I don’t think there’s a way to really pinpoint any one thing that’s less common than the other. I think it’s purely subjective. What might be common/less common to one person might be in reverse for another. One example of something less commonly found in books is dog grooming. I first came across that hobby in Love Fortunes and Other Disasters. That was the first that I’ve seen of it mentioned in a book, even though I know there are other works of fiction out there that have it too, but I just haven’t found it yet. See what I mean? Subjective.

What are your thoughts on hobbies and how they can build/add to the personality of a character?

6 comments:

  1. Oow that's an interesting musing. I can't really remember many unique hobbies in books. I remember Katy in Obsidian (Jennifer Armentrout) was a book reviewer/blogger. That was kind of cool and Jenara, Alyssa's friend in Splintered (by AG Howard) liked to design and custom make clothing and jewellery, but I wouldn't know if they were unique or not.

    I've really tried to finish some of my series recently. We have a challenge on our blog for it. But I'm not doing very well lol. I seem to add more series to the list than finish them. You really should read Dreams of Gods and Monsters, I loved it. It's so sad its all over though

    Happy Reading
    Rachel @ Paein-and-Ms4Tune

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    1. I almost forgot about Katy from Obsidian. I read that book so long ago that I couldn't remember what her hobby was when I was writing this post. Thanks for stopping by! :-)

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  2. I like your musing on character's hobbies. It doesn't seem like they play too much of a role and yet when they do appear it definitely adds another dimension to a character.

    I read The Obsession by Nora Roberts in April (which was incredibly good). The main male character was a mechanic by trade and his hobby was books. He read and collected them. He was passionate about books. Being that way myself I could relate to him.

    I know knitting shows up a fair amount in books too but I've only ever known of one series where people crochet. I'm going to be thinking of hobbies of characters now. Thanks, I love it! :)

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    1. I agree with you. Hobbies can show a part of the everyday life of the character, and what he/she is willing to put their time and effort towards. Thanks for stopping by! :D

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  3. Neat topic. I can't say hobbies stick out to me right now in the books I've read. One not often heard of hobby these days is collecting. As a kid I collected rocks and Avon perfume decanters. I think I still have the decanters in my basement somewhere.

    Hope you have a great week.

    http://thebookconnectionccm.blogspot.com/2016/08/musing-mondays-august-22.html

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    1. Collecting is a good one. I think I've seen it once before, in Love Fortunes and Other Disasters. The character who enjoyed dog grooming also collected sound/silence via recordings. Thanks for stopping by! :-)

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Comments are appreciated and always welcome. :)

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