bookness

[jazzfish]

I have no brain, and I must edit.

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This year I am, relatively speaking, devouring books.

I've read Kristin Cashore's Fire (which messed me up for a couple of days), and the four Old Man's War books, and Jo Walton's Small Change / Still Life With Fascists, and a book on the Bach cello suites, and odds and ends from Jeff Vandermeer's Booklife. (The cello suites book slowed me down in a way that felt awkward and frustrating.)

I've not read so much so fast, and had it feel so right, since high school, I expect. I can't even say "I've missed it," because reading fits back into my life in a way that I can't imagine what it was like without.

I mention this mostly because, like half the internet, I'm currently reading Among Others, which is not so much about reading as infused with it. Mori reads at a rate that makes my "devouring" look positively dainty, because that's where the non-horrible part of her life is.

I remember living like that. I can't tell if I'm living like that now or not. I do know that I've not Done much in the past, oh, month or more. Going to try fixing that this afternoon/evening.

But, reading. Home. Comfortable. Safe.

(Cue Admiral Hopper on the safety of ships in harbor.)

Comments

[silmaril]

Reading. Home. Comfortable. Safe.

The images that invokes are so nice.

The cello suites book slowed me down in a way that felt awkward and frustrating.

I know exactly what you mean. It is, truly, awkward and frustrating---very good choice of words. In the past, when that has happened, I have been known to put books aside, because they start feeling like they are getting in the way of other books.

[jazzfish]

Very very nice, especially when it's so bloody cold that going out is of questionable value. They also run a severe risk of leaving me dissatisfied with how my life is going and the things I'm doing, as I burrow deeper into books and lose all contact with the rest of the world.

The main problem with the cello book is that it was so fragmented: it was partly a thin biography of JS Bach, partly a slightly-less-thin bio of Pablo Casals, and partly a mishmash of scenes and anecdotes about the cello suites and the author's exposure to Bach. Made it difficult for me to really immerse myself in it.

[shadowsong]

I too have been devouring books, because I suddenly have access to a lot more books I haven't read before. If you're not already on Bookmooch, you should be. And if you are on Bookmooch you should friend Shadowsong.

On an uncomfortable note, I think my reading habits are equivalent to comfort eating.

[jazzfish]

Between books I've picked up at McKay or Green Valley and not gotten around to, and books that uilos brought with her when she moved in, I have (at a wild guess) twenty shelf-feet of unread books of interest, and do not need the Internet to provide me with any more.

On the other hand, the ability to send excess books to people who want them is a tempting thing as the cross-country move approacheth. Hm.

I think my reading habits are equivalent to comfort eating.

That's sort of my worry as well. Particularly with the Scalzi and, before that, the YA I've been chewing through. Not to mention its ability to give me easier and more attractive options to Going Out And Doing things.

[vond.net]

The very concept of "shelf-feet" is why I have adopted eBooks. I suspect you're too much of a book snob (I mean this affectionately) to really go for that, but it's really put the brakes on my acquisition of yet more stuff.

I've been reading some cheesy small-press fantasy that Amazon recommended recently, to cleanse my palate after Surface Detail. I don't mind the cheese in the writing but what I've discovered is that bad editing can really ruin your impression of a book.

[jazzfish]

heh. It's only partly 'book snob,' if that's all it was I could easily go down to a couple of cases of Really Nice Books and have the rest in e-format. Partly it's that I've yet to be convinced by any of the available e-readers or e-formats, partly it's that I don't want to have to deal with either replacing my library in e-format or having some thing in ebooks and some in paper. Mostly, though, it's that books and bookshelves are a combination of artwork and furniture. They make a house (apartment, whatever) look lived in and comfortable.

And, gord yes. Professional editing (and layout) is the main reason I'm intensely skeptical of the whole "every man his own publisher" aspect of e-pub.