Kevin's Watch

So as some of you may know, I primarily read on my Kindle for a variety of reasons. However, over the last few years, I've started purchasing physical copies of books which I particularly enjoyed in order to share with people around me.

As in, I'm that annoying guy who says "You should totally read this!" and shoves a book in your face

So I thought I would start to keep track of the books I've done this with. I'll be updating this post periodically and adding notes to the ones that have impressed me enough to do so.

Side note: Lending books is like lending money. Don't ever expect to see them again!

Initial list:

Black Leopard, Red Wolf by James Marlon. I lent this to Danlo and haven't seen it since, and not for the good reason. Apparently people around me who have tried to read it haven't been as enamored as I was.

Ninth House, by Leigh Bardugo. Fairly positive reception by those whom I've passed it to.

His Dark Materials omnibus (The Golden Compass / The Northern Lights, The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass) by Philip Pulman. Still in the middle of it myself, as is Cameramann Jenn, though she's probably close to the end by now.

Less, by Andrew Sean Grier. By the way, this is my favorite book of the last decade. Seriously. I will buy a copy and mail it to anyone who wants it.

Yeah, I've lost a few that way...

--A

I shoved Perdido Street Station in several people's faces including Danlo's and they all said, "What the f--kety f--k?!!!!!!" and loved it. When I was a senior in high school we got snowed in, my father and I, and I borrowed "Lord Foul's Bane" from him and read the series in four days. I told that story to SRD when I first met him and he signed my thirty year old battered copy that was the one my Dad gave me all those years ago. Years later I left a copy of "Mirror of Her Dreams" on the nightstand when I visited to tempt my Dad and he loved it. This past visit I left six novels of the discworld series for him to explore. He loves all the books I send his way. I mailed him "American Gods" and "Good Omens" in a package and he sent me a text that he was sure the chipmonk watching him was some sort of god. Forcing books on your friends and family is not torture, it is an extension of your own horizon.

If you'd like to send me Less, I won't object Although I suspect the postage to Australia will be cost prohibitive... I might see if I can find it locally - I am always interested in other people's opinions of great books.

I have lent a few books out over the years, and they certainly never return. It's a funny thing, recommending books is a little bit like recommending music that you love (for me, anyway). I used to get so annoyed when people didn't give my recommendations the attention they deserved. These days I don't really care - well, not as much anyway! But if someone does find a book (or music) as enjoyable to me, it's a great day

Cameraman Jenn wrote:I shoved Perdido Street Station in several people's faces...

That's one of the ones I lost by lending it out.

--A

Perdido Street Station... Yeah, ok, that was a good book. Difficult, challenging, just like I like my fiction to be (we're all Donaldson fans, right?)

I need to look up more of China Mieville's work one of these days... You know... When I've run out of books on my "I really need to read this next!" list

Cameraman Jenn wrote:...When I was a senior in high school we got snowed in, my father and I, and I borrowed "Lord Foul's Bane" from him and read the series in four days. I told that story to SRD when I first met him and he signed my thirty year old battered copy that was the one my Dad gave me all those years ago. Years later I left a copy of "Mirror of Her Dreams" on the nightstand when I visited to tempt my Dad and he loved it. This past visit I left six novels of the discworld series for him to explore. He loves all the books I send his way. I mailed him "American Gods" and "Good Omens" in a package and he sent me a text that he was sure the chipmonk watching him was some sort of god. Forcing books on your friends and family is not torture, it is an extension of your own horizon.

LOVE this, CJ!


So I maybe have a problem in this realm...
When I was at a friend's house a couple weeks ago, on the FIRST DAY, we had a conversation...
She was telling me I should read more of the things like she reads (online articles) and she said "I don't really read books anymore; I read these."

So I felt like it was putting up a boundary.
(And I found her suggestions to me kinda off-putting. And I definitely had judgement in my heart during that conversation.)

I'm hoping I can find a way to foist 1 or 2 good books on her.
I feel like loaning books is an amazing work-around to the sort of difficulty I described!

Linna Heartbooger wrote: She was telling me I should read more of the things like she reads (online articles) and she said "I don't really read books anymore; I read these."

I remember a study a few years ago spurred by someone complaining that kids don't read these days, and they found that in terms of the number of words, at least, kids read as much or more now than they did a few decades ago. They just read different forms, mainly social media posts and such.

It's weird thinking that kids are reading books' worth of social media posts, but hey, at least they're reading.

Good point. All those tweets add up.

--A

Rigel wrote:Perdido Street Station... Yeah, ok, that was a good book. Difficult, challenging, just like I like my fiction to be (we're all Donaldson fans, right?)

I need to look up more of China Mieville's work one of these days... You know... When I've run out of books on my "I really need to read this next!" list

Mieville's Dial H is an amazing comic book series. I highly recommend finding it.

Peter Heller's The River is going here as soon as my local used bookshop opens back up (our state just got shut down yesterday).

Very reminiscent of Jack London, but with people that are more like... ya know... people.

Rigel wrote:So as some of you may know, I primarily read on my Kindle for a variety of reasons. However, over the last few years, I've started purchasing physical copies of books which I particularly enjoyed in order to share with people around me.

As in, I'm that annoying guy who says "You should totally read this!" and shoves a book in your face

So I thought I would start to keep track of the books I've done this with. I'll be updating this post periodically and adding notes to the ones that have impressed me enough to do so.

Side note: Lending books is like lending money. Don't ever expect to see them again!

Less, by Andrew Sean Grier. By the way, this is my favorite book of the last decade. Seriously. I will buy a copy and mail it to anyone who wants it.

I will accept any books anyone wants to send and
Read them on my off days.

I lent many copies of the Chrons out to never see them again ; I'm not sure anyone actually read them however!

If you are kindle users - cant you send soft copies freely?

Then if thats possible .. dunno cuz never done it .. we could exchange good reads without the prohibitive postage woes.

It depends on the book. The publisher has to enable it for the title.

You can only lend one copy at a time, and I believe it's for a limited time. I've never actually done it; I tried it once but it was so difficult I gave up. Maybe it's better now.

Oh that makes commercial sense

Because god forbid we should be able to lend each other something we own...

...oh yeah...you don't actually own them, do you? You're just licensing the right to read them.

A revocable license.

Welcome to our brave new digital world.

--A

Yeah. Right

I've not received a single book I
In the post. >sigh<

I have several.

A Watcher sent me a cool copy of Gildenfire

And I read Allys books also received by mail and how cool is receiving parcels? Its like xmas