What are you reading?

[Fazor]

I read a lot of library books. Sometimes, though, the book goes onto my wishlist from there.

Libraries are great, and I still think they're like a good museum or historic place in that libraries have a sort of magical feel that's hard to put into words. But part of the problem is that while sometimes I read an entire book in a day, or in a few days, most time I read a little at a time over months and months.

Besides, there's something wonderful about the smell of a new, shiny paper-back. Takes me back to the days of the "Book Fairs" at school, when they'd convert a classroom into a book store, and you could take the two or three dollars your parents gave you and go buy a couple of random books based on what pictures were on the cover. Or the scholastic book catalogues, and the day your order came in. We weren't allowed to buy a lot of things when we were little, but my parents always let us get a few books. I think they just were happy we were excited to read. I was, anyway. My brother's not much of a reader.

[John Jaksich]

I am currently working on Exploring Curvature. It is written by James Casey...I think it's a very well-written introduction with historical sidelights...The prerequisites are that you only possess a knowledge of Freshman Calculus. Quite enlightening

ISBN: 3528064757

[Gillianren]

Libraries are great, and I still think they're like a good museum or historic place in that libraries have a sort of magical feel that's hard to put into words. But part of the problem is that while sometimes I read an entire book in a day, or in a few days, most time I read a little at a time over months and months.

And that would be different, of course. I just hate the way some people think libraries are unnecessary; I'd posit that, all things considered, they may be more necessary now.

Besides, there's something wonderful about the smell of a new, shiny paper-back. Takes me back to the days of the "Book Fairs" at school, when they'd convert a classroom into a book store, and you could take the two or three dollars your parents gave you and go buy a couple of random books based on what pictures were on the cover. Or the scholastic book catalogues, and the day your order came in. We weren't allowed to buy a lot of things when we were little, but my parents always let us get a few books. I think they just were happy we were excited to read. I was, anyway. My brother's not much of a reader.

Oh, yes--I remember those. Though I never based my decision on the cover picture. Actually, I think ours was Scholastic, and we got the catalogue in advance. When I was in elementary school, they had The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, for some reason, and several of my friends got into it, probably while too young to get a lot of the jokes. My mother used to hate those Sports Illustrated for Kids commercials, though, the ones where they told you it was how to get your kids to start reading. She wanted us to stop and maybe clean our rooms instead. She'd go on base every six weeks or so to do major shopping (my dad retired a few months before I was born as a twenty-year man in the Air Force), and she'd always bring us home a book.

[Fazor]

I'll admit, I don't think I've even been in a library since high school (not counting our school libraries in college). I haven't needed to, but it's not like I do any kind of research. I'd be interested in getting a card at our local library, but it's just one of the many things that I'd like to do but have never gotten around to it.

[Paul Beardsley]

An interesting topic I don't think I've ever seen discussed before: the smell of a book.

When I was a 15 year old boy called Paul, I started reading a book about a 15 year old boy called Paul Atreides, son of Duke Leto of Dune. I only had a vague understanding of the politics (a situation that was to improve, very, very slightly, over the next 32 years), but I really could appreciate the physical environment.

Now the strange thing is, my copy of Dune had a smell - the very smell I imagined the melange spice to have. Quite often when I was reading it, I'd sniff the book and imagine this was what the Fremen and the Guildsmen were taking.

(I somehow lost this copy of the book. A shame. It had a picture of a Fremen in the Arrakis desert, and above it in big letters it proclaimed, "Now a Major Film!" This was baseless optimism - it wasn't referring to the David Lynch film that eventually did get made. Later I bought a replacement copy, which had photographs from the Lynch film on the cover.)

(Oh, and when I was twice the age of young Paul Atreides, Clare and I got married. We had a session of culling books. This consisted of saying, "My copy of Frank Herbert's Dune is better than yours so we'll keep mine. Your copy of Arthur C. Clarke's Expedition to Earth is better than mine so we'll keep yours. Your copy of etc...)

Still on the subject of the olfactory qualities of books, I remember acquiring four of the five issues of Vortex magazine when I was 14. Unlike the SF I was familiar with, which was mostly about scientific speculation, this periodical was often concerned with the portrayal of the goings on between ladies and gentlemen (or sometimes ladies and other ladies - gasp!) of a nature that I, a good Catholic, was not supposed to know or wonder about. It even included words that would have got me a detention. The magazines included a serialised Moorcock novel (The End of All Songs) and an interview with the author, who mentioned his character Jerry Cornelius.

Soon afterwards, I found a copy of Moorcock's short story collection The Lives and Times of Jerry Cornelius during my searches of second hand book shops. Reading it was a very weird experience. I was used to spaceships and aliens and time travel; suddenly I'd found a book marketed as science fantasy but which was concerned with aircraft rather than spacecraft, swearing, non-linear plots, gentlemen getting together with gentlemen, and the sort of romance that Kate Bush sang about in her song "The Kick Inside".

The upshot of this is that I felt I was walking into dangerous territory. The idea of my parents finding out what I was reading was terrifying. So I restricted this to reading on the bus, or while I was skiving off school sports.

And the smell of the book was musty in a way that exactly fitted the daringness of the content.

When I was in elementary school, they had The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, for some reason, and several of my friends got into it, probably while too young to get a lot of the jokes.

That was part of the appeal. I loved the Douglas Adams books, but now I can see some of what I was missing at the time. No matter - at the time it was cracking me up laughing, and I am free to revisit as and when I please. I even suspect that I knew, back then, that there were aspects I wasn't getting.

But so what if I was missing 80% of what Adams was saying - I was still getting 20% of sheer quality.

My mother used to hate those Sports Illustrated for Kids commercials, though, the ones where they told you it was how to get your kids to start reading. She wanted us to stop and maybe clean our rooms instead.

Love it!

[HenrikOlsen]

I've bought many things from their other vendors. [] but they've also been in better-than-described before. For Valentine's Day, I bought Graham Small Favor, by Jim Butcher, in audio--in its original shrink wrap for $15 including shipping. Less than.

My hardcover Men at Arms is an Unseen Library edition, which the seller wasn't aware goes for £30-£120 on eBay depending on which book it is. I got it for $5 ex. shipping.

[Gillianren]

Nice! I, too, have gotten the occasional "they didn't know what it was worth" deal. I will also occasionally buy a few things with a list price under a dollar. Even with shipping, it's still under five.

[HenrikOlsen]

An interesting topic I don't think I've ever seen discussed before: the smell of a book.

I know I've quoted Giles' "Knowledge should be smelly" soliloquy from Buffy before (twice actually).

[AndreasJ]

Finally finished The Night Land today. It's slightly scary how many other books I've read cover to cover since I first picked it up in May 2009.

[Fazor]

Finally finished The Night Land today. It's slightly scary how many other books I've read cover to cover since I first picked it up in May 2009.

Ha. Well, I cold almost* say the same thing about "Founding Brothers", which I've probably mentioned here a handful of times. Been trying to get through it for probably 2, possibly 3 years. It's a great read and very interesting, but I still never get past the first few chapters. By the time I pick it back up, I start over again. Maybe I'll challenge myself to read the whole thing before my Amazon order arrives. It's not a very long book.

*I say 'almost' because I haven't read too many books cover-to-cover in that time, as I'm not as big a reader as many of you. If I had to guess how many books I've read all the way through in the last two years ... lets see. Probably close to 6. I think Gillian beats that in a few days.

[Buttercup]

Regarding library books vs one's own: I "can't" read library books. It's knowing the book isn't mine, I've got a limited amount of time to read it and then must return it. I have to own a book, whether it's new or used (out of print). Preferably new.

[tdvance]

I'm up to the looming "Chapter 9" of Penrose's "The Road to Reality". I'll 'splain it to you--- Every time I read it, I sail through up to ch. 9 (Fourier Series)---being an algebraist rather than an analyst, this is the first time I get material beyond what I actually took grad school classes on. I still understand 90% until I get to the real roadblock around ch. 14 or so, the first actual "physics" chapter---by then, all the 10%s of chapters I didn't absorb come back to haunt me. Then it becomes very hard, and I'm getting more like 50%. And when I get to the first Quantum Mechanics chapter, it's like, I know it's classical equations except the variables no longer commute, but beyond that.....

Hence, I'm always starting over and trying again. I'm really determined to get this first wall, Ch. 9, this time. So far, I've had more success in the past, as things are clicking about "holomorphically extend Fourier series from the unit circle" that didn't before. (ch 8 on the other hand, I loved rereading that....so neat the story of complex numbers; and his presentation is simpler than the klnuky one I got in Complex Analysis class in grad school, Penrose using Riemann Surfaces instead of the kludgy "cutting up the complex plain and doing one branch at a time" approach of my grad school)

[tdvance]

When in college, I got tons of books from those library and college sales, at prices like 10 cents, or maybe a dollar at most. Ok, inflation, maybe it's $5.00 by now

And if you go to Moorefield, WV public library, might even get some of my donations (they were glad to get my stack of Dummies books to put on the shelves, said people were always asking about them).

[Gillianren]

Regarding library books vs one's own: I "can't" read library books. It's knowing the book isn't mine, I've got a limited amount of time to read it and then must return it. I have to own a book, whether it's new or used (out of print). Preferably new.

I'm really sorry to hear that. Libraries and used books are cheaper, for starters. For another, I guess that means you can't borrow books from friends, either, and there is great joy in sharing a loved book with friends--or having one shared with you.

I buy a lot of mine from library book sales, too. Interestingly, the price of books is different in the downtown library than the one over in Tumwater. Tumwater has a ton of paperbacks, though, and you can get three for a dollar, as I recall. (I don't get out there much now I don't work down the block.) I found a copy of Bill Bryson's The Lost Continent there for fifty cents in trade paperback once--signed first edition, at that. My boyfriend's mother suggested I sell it on eBay, but I asked what I'd get the friend I bought it for for her birthday if I did.

[Fazor]

For another, I guess that means you can't borrow books from friends, either, and there is great joy in sharing a loved book with friends--or having one shared with you.

I'm always quick to share my books with others, but I'm much more inclined to go buy a book off the recommendation of a friend, rather than to borrow theirs. And yeah, that's more expensive. And no, I don't have so much money that I can just spend it on whatever I feel like. But I read maybe 5 books a year, so being the barely enlightened person I am, my book budget is more than enough to cover that. (okay so I just got done saying I just bout 4 books, so my numbers are a little off)

[Gillianren]

I literally cannot imagine reading that few books a year. For one quarter of college, I read 115 books or so. Now, a lot of them were children's books--I was studying banned books--but that did include four Harry Potters. I also read Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett, which is assuredly not a children's book and a hair longer than, say, Sylvester and the Magic Pebble.

[jamesabrown]

My library holds book sales once a year. All the books you can stuff into a plastic bag. Each bag goes for a dollar.

ETA: After I read the ones I'm interested in, I sell 'em to the used book store and pick up a few bucks.

[Fazor]

I literally cannot imagine reading that few books a year. For one quarter of college, I read 115 books or so.

Which is why I'd be homeless if I read as much as you! . . . then again, with that many books I could probably build a pretty decent shelter.

[Buttercup]

Have decided to give Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass a read.

[Fazor]

Have decided to give Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass a read.

Let me know how you like them. They're on my "list", but because of the new movie and Disney's re-release, they're a bit too bandwagony for me at this particular time. Besides, I'll have my hands full with the ones I ordered the other day.

[Buttercup]

Let me know how you like them. They're on my "list", but because of the new movie and Disney's re-release, they're a bit too bandwagony for me at this particular time. Besides, I'll have my hands full with the ones I ordered the other day.

Will do. So far it (AiW) is quite a ride.

[Gillianren]

You know, when I was in line to see the movie, I speculated to the woman in front of me that few people had read the book. I said it here, too. It depresses me, really, because it's one of those classics you should read in childhood, and when I was about the age for it, kids were reading Goosebumps or whatever instead. "As well" wouldn't have been a huge thing, but instead? No.

[Fazor]

You know, when I was in line to see the movie, I speculated to the woman in front of me that few people had read the book. I said it here, too. It depresses me, really, because it's one of those classics you should read in childhood, and when I was about the age for it, kids were reading Goosebumps or whatever instead. "As well" wouldn't have been a huge thing, but instead? No.

I don't know why I have never read it, really. I read much more then than I do now. I was very into adventure stories too. (And I also read 'Goosebumps'!) I did start listening to Alice on librivox.org, but found I could pay proper attention to it whilst at work. I liked the first few paragraphs, which I ended up listening to about 4 times before giving up.

[GeorgeLeRoyTirebiter]

I don't know what I'd do without the public library—I can't afford to buy many new books, and the selection at the major local used book sales is terrible. However, I will admit to being too lazy to go get a "community user" card from the university library, even though they have some engineering texts that I've been wanting to read for a few years now.

Also, yesterday I started Fist Stick Knife Gun: A Personal History of Violence in America, by Geoffrey Canada (founder of the Harlem Children's Zone). It's a great book, but probably far too political to discus in detail here.

[tdvance]

I was like that in my college days---in undergraduate school, there were two libraries close: the college library (small) and the town (Winchester, VA) library (small). Interlibrary loan saved me when I needed something specific for a research paper, though. In grad school, it was much better. I spent very little time in the Charlottesville library, because the UVA library system pretty much had everything. I spent most time in the math library, the engineering and sciences library, and the main undergrad library. If you live near a large university--that's the library to go to! (of course, it might vary with their policy for lending materials to nonstudents---either not allowed or some annual fee or something, but most big universities I've visited I was allowed to walk in and browse without showing student ID. Though with VA Tech and other incidents, I could see that changing....).

[Gillianren]

For the banned books contract I did in college, I'd've been sunk without the library. I did buy several books I knew I'd want again later, but with the sheer number of books I read, I kept the Interlibrary Loan system busy. Actually, it was a different system; the various public colleges in Washington have their own system. I sure couldn't've afforded to buy the 115 books I read!

[GalaxyGal]

I'm a big fan of libraries, both brick and virtual. Our healthnetwork has a great library that extends far beyond medicine (esp. in the onine realm). I can access it from anywhere. Our community library & interlibrary system is an absolute treasure. While I am a frequent flyer at the local bookstores, I can't afford to buy all the books I'd like to read....so off to the library I go for audio and hardback books. Only because of a long commute (1+ hour each way), I listen to 3 books a week and read a couple of books a month.

No qualms about renewing a loaned book - or returning a book to the library that I couldn't get through and checking it out again a few months...and sometimes years later. Besides the librarians do a far better job of keeping track of books than I do at home.

As others have pointed out, there's a smell to books, esp well used ones, that I just love. Thought about getting a Kindle, Nook or iPad....but I might miss the full sensory experience of holding a hardback....plus they're a tad pricey for my budget.

[gzhpcu]

Am currently reading the Billy Boyle (WW II) series. Billy is a cop enlisted in the army and serving under Eisenhower (his uncle) as investigator and special agent.

[TJMac]

I will get on the side of, "What would I do without my public library?"

In a moment of insanity, I grabbed seven books the other day, and reserved two more, one of which is now waiting for me to pick up. Perhaps it's because I was actually out of something to read for a day, and had to fall back on rereading one of my paperbacks. (Which is not a bad thing, I reread most of the books I own several times.)

And just this morning, I picked up my daughters textbook, Invitation to Psychology, and found myself way more intrigued than I expected. She may not get it back.

I foresee making more donations to the library in the form of daily fines.

TJ

[Gillianren]

Our system only started charging fines in October, after they lost a bond measure to give them enough money to meet their budget. (A friend of mine lost a lot of hours, and every library in the system decreased the hours they were open.) The fifteen cents a day has made a lot of people around here a lot more punctual.