Category Archives: Books

Lazy Reader

Ah, I love books.  Books, books, wonderful books!  You can never run out of them.  Every person has a recommendation for an old classic or a new author.  You can read them all at once or bit by bit. They can be tucked into a purse or stacked beside your bed.  They never spoil or expire.  They can be read over and over and over without harm.  Can there be anything more wonderful?

(OK, is it totally obvious I’m a librarian’s daughter?)

When it comes to reading, I have two very strange traits that coalesce.  First, I’m a fast reader.  Second, I’m extremely lazy.  What does this mean?  Simple.  My house is strewn with half read books.  Right now I have, with out any exaggeration, five books I am currently reading.  Crazy?  No.  Just lazy.  You see, it starts out simple enough.   I check out a stack of books from the library and bring them home.  Usually, I take one upstairs to read before bedtime.  Totally normal, right?  But here’s what happens.  The next day, I find myself with some time after breakfast.  I’m downstairs.  My book, upstairs.  To get it would mean walking all the way up to my room, passing my happily self-entertaining children and reminding them of my existence.  I’m well aware of the fact that when they spied me, they would begin to demand food or snacks or a diaper change.  This is unacceptable.  The much simpler (and lazier) approach is to pick up another book from my to-be-read shelf and start it downstairs.   And so book #2 begins.  Repeat this in different rooms of the house and before you know it, every room has a started booked tucked away somewhere.  Thankfully I’m a very fast reader so even though I may be reading several books at once, I can usually get them done and back to the library without incurring too many late fees.

And while I’m a very speedy reader, I sometime think I’m not quite fast enough.  I keep discovering new books!  Drat this Internet.  There are so many great blogs and lists and catalogues a girl can get positively lost.  I have anywhere from 10 to 20 books waiting for me each week from the library.  20 books!  And they are all so good and different and interesting!  It’s really rather decadent.  Being smothered in books.  I just finished adding another glut of fresh requests to my library list.  Ah, I can hear them rustling their pages at me now.  Hmmmm, I have another 15 minutes before the kids’ tv show ends.  I’m sure I have a book tucked away somewhere in this room just waiting for me to flip through it’s pages.   If not, there’s a stack of untapped stories waiting for me downstairs.  Yum.

Ahhh, Books

Ahhhh, books. I’m a total and complete book nut. Can’t help it and wouldn’t change it even if I could. You’ve just got to read.

I’m feeling generous today so I’ll give you a little sneak peek into my formative years. When I was younger, probably 10 or so, I decided to catalogue my books library style. I piled them all up and sorted them alphabetically. I then created index tabs with the first few letters of the title and a sequential number. These tabs were placed on the spine of each book. Next, I created a pocket and an in/out card for each book. Finally, I made a little card catalog of all the books in my collection. If I wanted to read one, I would flip through my catalog and select the book, then proceed to my shelve and locate it by its number. Finally, I would write my name and date on the card and check it out just in case, you know, I forgot who was reading it. Yup, all 12 books were properly shelved and accounted for at all times. I don’t ever remember fining myself for overdue books but hey, you never know.

(I just remembered that I did the same thing with all my clothes. I listed them on index cards and cross referenced them so if I decided to wear the blue Esprit shirt, my little card then listed all the matching skirts, pants and shorts that went with that particular piece of clothing. Once my clothes were selected, I proceeded to the closet where they were all hung by color and type. Scary.)

Unfortunately, my reading collecting has grown and my free time dwindled so I no longer catalogue my books. Instead, I have The Best Of Collection. I keep all my favorites on one shelf so I can grab them when needed. If someone is looking for a good read, I can direct them to The Best Of Collection confident that any book they choose will be a winner. To keep the numbers down, I limit the books in The Best Of Collection to the first in a series. So even though I love the entire Janet Evanovich series, only One for the Money gets the honor of being part of The Best of Collection. The rest are trundled away until needed. I find this creates a nice, manageable supply of good books that I can delve into as needed.

I still, however, index to-be-read books. I carry around this little, cheap flip notebook with one of those scary Anne Geddes babies on the cover. (It was 50% off.) In it, I jot down all the authors that I like, all the books that have been recommended to me and I want to try, and where I am in a series. I keep it with me, in my purse, so whenever I wander into a bookstore, I can whip it out and know exactly what I’m looking for. There is nothing I hate more than knowing you want a book but you find yourself unable to remember the author or where in the series you are. A little to-be-read notebook takes care of that nicely.

And lastly, you simply must have a buy back source. I read so many books that are good but not great. I’m not interested in reading them again but I don’t want to throw them out. Instead, they languish on my shelves, collecting dust and eating up valuable The Best Of Collection room. The answer is to sell ‘em. Most independent book stores will buy them from you and this allows you to feed you habit. Read it, sell it, buy something else. What a wonderful system.

All this talk of books, makes me want to head to Powell’s for a quick book fix. Sigh.

Stumped

Alright people, I need your help. I am looking for a book and so far I have been totally stumped. The author is Kristine Kathryn Rusch and the title is The Resistance. It was published back in 1998 and is book #4 in a Sci-Fi/Fantasy series. I even know the ISBN – 0-55357-7131. Now, I can find books 1-3 and 5 but book 4 is proving to be difficult. So I am giving you all a mission. Next time you are in a book store, take a peek for me. If you see it, grab it! It’ll make my life infinitely easier….

Copyright Trivia

Currently, most copyrights last for the life of the author plus 70 years. (Ignoring, of course, the Sony Bono Extension Act.) After that time, they become fair game. An odd piece of knowledge? Perhaps. But this means a lot of those “classic” tales are now free to all! So when I was overcome by a desire to reread Little Women (don’t ask why), I just hopped on over to BookValley and began to read. Better than buying a copy or hiking up to the library, eh? It was even better than I remembered it. Jo is still my favorite and I was devistated when little Beth dies. Sigh. I may try Huck Finn next to awaken my tomboy roots…. We’ll see.