Kevin's Watch

For the first time ever, I went to my bookshop birthday book-tokens in hand.....and came away with nothing. I was simply uninspired by the for the most part formulaic pap on the shelves. The book industry seems beset by that worst of practice's where one successful example immediately causes the churning out of a miriad hastily prepared low grade imitators. There was a dk history of the world - a handy size for reading in bed with lots of pictures and the whole thing simplified and reduced to bitesized chunks (perfect for someone with the attention span of a gnat), also a Robert Graves The Greek Myths that caught my eye, but aside from that.........

(Oh, and an 'assemble yourself' cardboard model of a sort of steam-punk Victorian flying machine which might be fun.)

I hear ya!

Fortunately, my backlog of books I've been meaning to read is quite long, so I can ride it out

I have the same problem whenever I step into a Barnes & Noble. I had a voucher for about $6 from the Apple settlement -- not a ton of money, but still -- and struggled to find something in the store to spend it on.

Meh, it happens. They're out there. I have a list of stuff I want...don't often find them though. (Or always remember what's on it.)

--A

I ran with the above title's in the end so expect lots of history and myth referencing in my posts for a while!

Myth references? (ali perks up)

aliantha wrote:Myth references? (ali perks up)

Suppose we can begin with how Shetlanders view certain tourists from further up north. Although, I must say that this bird guise does grant savings when it comes to traveling costs. One merely must avoid amorous pigeons.

Ah, if only.

--A

Do we need to check the veracity of these claims with Fuzzy?

aliantha wrote:Do we need to check the veracity of these claims with Fuzzy?

"They could render themselves visible or invisible at pleasure"

All I can say is that Frosty always renders herself visible for pleasure

"They could metamorphose themselves into the likeness of beast, bird, or fish"

Hmmm, probably accounts for Frosty's love of travel

--A

I had to ask.

buy graphic novels, ship them to me. problem solved.

Robert Graves' Greek Myths? I haven't actually read that, but I think I actually have a copy, because I remember taking it from a deceased family member's library.

I usually do not buy books from bookstores nowadays, but if I end up in one, I try and text myself as many authors/titles as seem remotely interesting and research them later. To be quite honest, this usually begins with judging a book by its cover.

My problem these days is that I have a million books I want to read but tend to fall right to sleep reading any of them. I don't think I've ever run of out of books I wanted to read even when I was reading voraciously. If anything, there are always classics that may never have been read. The problem with classics is that "some things are classic, some things are just old."
And I see worth in occasionally re-reading certain books. At other stages in life, some books just make a lot more sense.

The problem has reversed itself in that now there are too many books!

Quick question for you guys: how many books do you have running at a time?

Here's my current list, all of which I'm actively picking up depending on my mood on a given day:

BS's Dracula
Roger Scruton's Beauty
Shindlers Ark by Keannelly
Borroughs Tarzan and the Madman
Chomsky and Polk's Nuclear War and Environmental Catastrophe

Less frequently I'm still on Graves Myths and Purkiss's Troublesome Things and have Karen Armstrong's The Bible:a biography and Simon Jeffers Strictly English by my bed in case the mood takes me. Most excitingly the library just emailed to say that Harare's Homo Deus is ready for me to collect!

Rarely more than one at a time actually.

I might pause in the middle of something to read something short as a break, (which I'm doing at the moment), but otherwise I'm usually fast enough that I don't need to try and read multiple books at once.

--A

Every year my resolution is to read one book at a time and every year I break it. As the year proceeds I gradually build up until the number becomes unmanageable when I start needing the rear weight (should have been shedding the dead weight but I took my eye off this awful predictive text function that overrides my typed words with a vindictive will of its own ) by moving books back into the store. (Having library books is also a good way to focus my reading due to the 6 week time constraint.)

Turn off predictive text?

--A

I used to read 3 books at the same time. I'd read one chapter of one, then a chapter of the next and then a chapter of the next and repeat until I was done with all three books. I think it had to do with how I'd read in college and I got to like it. Plus it was always interesting to find where the books would overlap, no matter how diverse the subject matter was.