discussions | Lenn of Spades ♠

Hi, everyone! Today I’m introducing a new segment on my blog for bookish discussions. It’s been on my mind for a while now and have been thinking of topics to talk about for my pilot post. I recently got a job promotion, so what better way to reward myself than to buy new books, right? I bought five on-hand books and preordered three others, three of the on-hand books that I bought are in mass market paperback formats. So I thought of talking about mass market paperbacks on my blog as there have always been some discussion about it going around the community.

To be perfectly honest, I’m not a big fan of mass market paperbacks myself. They aren’t my type of book format not only because their spines break so easily but also because the font is smaller compared to trade paperbacks and hardbacks. I wear glasses and have astigmatism, so I find it a little bit hard to read from this format especially when it comes to fantasy series chunkers!

Regardless, I still do have quite a number of mass market paperbacks on my book collection — mostly standalone thrillers, romance, and suspense books. What I like most about this format, though, is that it’s lightweight and handy so it’s easy to bring them during travels and overnights — basically, anywhere! It’s also much cheaper than other formats. Also, most of my Nicholas Sparks books are in this format because back in the day, I can only find mass market paperback versions of his works in my country. It was only just a couple of years ago when my local bookstores started selling out other formats of his novels — this is also similar to other authors like Dan Brown, Gillian Flynn, James Patterson, etc.

I also prefer mass market paperback format more than e-books as they tend to strain my eyes easily given that I am already required to sit in front of the computer 8 hours a day for work.

How about you? What are your thoughts on MMPBs?

What is the meaning of discussion? It originates from the Latin verb discutere, meaning to dash into pieces. Discussion is a word we’ve been hearing since we started going to school, yet do we really know the true process of discussion?

A lot of people are suffering from different forms of stress and anxiety. I’ve read and watched a lot of books and films that focuses on these mental issues; one of the things that I’ve noticed in every book and every film is that the person suffering from these issues find it hard to discuss their issues with other people — sometimes even with their therapists.

Being someone who overthinks a lot and easily gets stressed out, I know how hard it is to speak out one’s thoughts and tell people what’s really going on inside one’s head. Personally, one of the reasons why I find it hard to speak my mind is that I don’t want to be labeled as crazy or toxic. So I resorted to just keeping myself preoccupied with other things so I wouldn’t have to be alone with my own thoughts and deal with my anxiety.

So why are we so afraid of discussions, they say? Because the problem with a lot of people is that when someone opens a topic or tries to discuss something, most often than not, the discussion ends up in a full-blown argument. It’s mentally and physically draining, sometimes it even causes more stress, that’s why some of us just choose to keep our mouths shut.

For me, another is reason is that I’m the type of person who overthinks everything, sometimes I go back to a specific conversation or argument and end up spending all afternoon thinking that I should have said this or this instead of that. So to avoid having to spend countless hours dwelling on what I should have said or done, I just let all my feelings and thoughts bottle up inside me.

During the past couple of months spent in the safety of my home, I’ve had a lot of time to rethink things and to try and give things a different perspective, I realized that to discuss has a deeper meaning into it. It’s something that is very crucial in our daily lives — it’s something we need to learn the process of doing, because without discussion, everything is in chaos.