These pictures are of a book vending machine!! How cool is that??!! This is at an airport in Europe.
Folks were asking WHEN do I read? I commute to work from Seattle to Philadelphia. The flights are usually around 5 hours or so give or take. Plus with getting to the airport an hour prior and getting into Philadelphia several hours prior to when I actually go to work, I have lots of downtime to read. I ALWAYS have a book with me. I cannot sit and wait without something to read. Doctor's office, getting on oil change, waiting for a friend at a restaurant etc. And when I am not wasting time on facebook or watching reality tv....it's the season for Amazing Race and America's Next Top Model, not to mention Survivor!!!, when I am not wasting my time watching tv (usually catching up after the fact online--thank goodness for CBS.com), I am usually reading. And I will definitely reread books that I have enjoyed. Especially if it has been 10 years or more since I read them....for example, in February, I reread 1984. I had not read it since high school/ college.
Still keeping track of the books that I read in 2011, here are all the books that I read in February:
Primal Threat by Earl Emerson
1984 by George Orwell
Great Son by Edna Ferber library
The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
Ordinary Thunderstorms by William Boyd library
The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe library
Running Dream by Wendelin Van Draanen
Murder in the Marketplace by Lora Roberts
Loitering with Intent by Stuart Woods library
Anne of Avonlea by L. M. Montgomery
Norwood by Charles Portis
The Wild Cat Crime by Carolyn Keene
Pit of Vipers by Carolyn Keene
What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell library
Christmas Mourning by Margaret Maron library
The Tinder Box by Minette Walters library
Anne of the Island by L. M. Montgomery
The Known World by Edward P. Jones
How Evan Broke His Head and other secrets by Garth Stein library
The Confession by John Grisham library
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro library
I loved The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein and will be looking for other books that he has written.
Edna Ferber wrote Giant and Showboat. Great Son is about a Seattle family, found this book while just cruising thru a local used book store. Lots of interesting Seattle history from pre-WWII
Ordinary Thunderstorms was pretty entertaining. It is a fictional thriller that might give you a different view of homelessness! It inspired me to reread the Lora Roberts mysteries, her protagonist was homeless in the first book in this series (Murder in a Nice Neighborhood)
The Carolyn Keene books are Nancy Drew books I was reading and thinking about writing an article about for one of the fanzine's
Never Let Me Go has been made into a movie with Keira Knightly. I got into a rant last year because I read The Unit by Ninni Holmqvist and got it confused with Never Let Me Go because they do have similiar themes. (I will say that I prefered The Unit) The Unit revolved around a 50 year old woman and I was going off because I thought they had Keira Knightly doing this role..changed the whole thing for younger actors etc. Turns out, I was thinking of the wrong book. :-)
PS Here is my RANT:
"The Unit is being made into a movie as we speak. I am not too happy about this and i will tell you why. The book was wonderful I enjoyed it immensely. The synopsis is that once you reach the age of 50, if you have not reproduced and if you do not have a job that is deemed indispensable then you are sent to the UNIT and you are used as a lab rat for tests and your organs are farmed out to people who are more worthy..until you make the final sacrifice and donate your heart or lungs etc. (*In Never Let Me Go,the people being farmed for organs are clones, created for this purpose) It seems that artists are not deemed worthy and most of the folks in the UNIT are artists, writers, store clerks, film critics and librarians etc.
I am not happy about the movie because I heard it is starring Keira Knightly and some other 20-somethings. OKAY. This is a novel about how you are not worthy if you live your life without procreating. I don't know how they are going to change it so that the 20 year olds are sent to the Unit. But the book was awesome in that it made you question your choices in life and the decisions that you make. To have a child or not,
what kind of career you pursue etc etc."
*I added this info so you would know the differences between the books
Again, I preferred The Unit by Ninni Holmqvist. Maybe I could emphasize better with the 50 year olds than with the school children of Never Let Me Go.
Ryan and I both just finished The Confession by Grisham and were pretty underwhelmed. Grisham's books were so great in the beginning because there was a lot of action and things just moved! Now they are sort of slow and this one for me just never zipped along. I could barely care about the characters.
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7 comments:
Have you thought about getting a Nook? I have a black & white one I bought last year (much cheaper than the oh-so-kewl color Nook) and I have over 200 books in it.
Many of the books I have are Barnes & Noble classics that I got free. Popular books are usually to be had at the current paperback price.
I bought the entire Wizard of Oz series (the ones written by Baum) for 99 cents!
I would think that a Nook would be great for you! It even has an airplane mode to turn off the searching for connection.
I still have hundreds of books on my shelves and will still buy cheap used paperbacks when I have a chance.
But I loooooooove my Nook!
KuKu
Funny, I'm currently re-reading the Anne of Green Gables series as I type this! I'm on Anne of Windy Poplars. This is probably the 30th-give or take- time I've read them. :)
Many folks have wondered if I have considered an ebook reader. I have thought long and hard about getting a reader. I have tried the Kindle and the Sony Reader but I did not like them. As of this writing, I have not tried the Nook yet, although the color nook intrigues me because I would like to get magazines on it. I just don't like the tactile experience of reading from a screen. I love nothing more than to have a HEAVY 600+ page book weighing down my lap and I love to flip back and forth between pages, feeling the actual pages with my fingers. The paper, smooth or rough, even water logged....
I eat when I read and my books are often filled with crumbs, stains, fingerprints from greasy fries or peanut butter. What happens when you spill wine on an reader? I am leery of the ebook reader's screen resolution in bright sunshine. I read outside a lot, in direct sunlight! Currently, I can't see my cell phone screen in bright sun, not to mention my digital camera screen! Do those ebook readers really work in nature? I agree that they make sense, the weight of the books that I carry while traveling is astounding. But heck, I need the workout :-)
I agree totally about The Confession. The only way I got through to the end is that I was listening to it as an audio book while working on a project. It reminded me of the same frustration I felt with the Twilight series, "so bite her already".
As to the readers, you supposedly don't have the same screen in the sun issues as with a phone or a laptop screen.
The Kindle does work beautifully in sunlight. I understand what you mean about being able to turn the pages. It does take some getting used to, but you might give it a second try.
I also loved The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein....
Being a devout dog lover I could relate to his overlap of the human and canine worlds. While reading it evoked many emotions and memories for me of dogs I have loved and lost.
I will be interested to hear of other Garth Stein books that you read
Heron-A-Foot
The nook also is very readable in bright sunlight. It isn't backlit like phone and computer screens, and the sunlight reflects off it the same as it does off a paper page. No screen glare. It took me all of about a day of resding to get used to turning the page with my thumb. After a month I was reading and shifted it to the other hand so I could reach up to turn the page...the machine has disappeared and only the reading a book experience remains. I have a 581 page book I have to read for class, and would not have the time if I didn't take the nook with me everywhere and read it between classes, as I walk to the bus stop, etc. Yes, I do love my nook. I have the b&w one. I don't know how the color one works in sunlight, because I understand it is backlit, like a phone and camera screen.
Romana
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