Tag Archives: Books

The Scent of a Book

Birds, Musings, Reading, Technology, , , , ,

Before last May, more than one person was surprised to hear that I didn’t own a Kindle or any other kind of e-reader. They knew about my love of gadgets and couldn’t imagine why I’d not bought an e-reader yet. My response was the same to all — as much as I loved technology, I liked the smell of a book better.

Everyone who owned an e-reader tried to get me on-board by telling me how light they were. How I’d be able to hold hundreds of books on it. How easy on the eye they were. I heard so many good things about e-readers that I finally researched them and ended up asking for, and receiving, a Nook Color for Mother’s Day last year. I chose the Nook Color because I’d heard it could be turned into a cheap Android tablet — in case I didn’t like the e-book aspect.

Now, a few months shy of a year later, I give you my opinion: I like the smell of a book.

I also like the feel of a book in my hands and I like the sound of the pages being turned. The other day I considered cataloging all of the books in my house with an app I downloaded on my phone. I was excited at the prospect to touch (and smell) each of my books again and either remember the time spent reading them or relish the anticipation I felt about reading them someday. Then I thought about the books I downloaded on my Nook (and the audio books on my mp3 player). I would never hold those books or smell them or hear their pages turning. Did I really read them? Do I really own them? Can I catalog them?

I recalled the library scene from the 1960’s version of The Time Machine. The Time Traveler pulls a book off a shelf only to have it crumble to dust in his hand. Later he is shown the Talking Rings. Are my e- and audio- books like the talking rings or are they nothing but binary dust motes?

I have read a few books on my Nook Color. My favorite was Stephen King’s 11/22/63, but because I loved it so, I ended up with eye-strain headaches from reading it deep into the night. It was convenient to buy the book the day it came out — but it was a whim buy. I probably would have waited and asked for it for Christmas if I didn’t have the Nook.

Autograph of Roger Tory Peterson

Right now I am reading The Big Year on the Nook. (actually I am reading it on my Android phone because my husband is reading the Stephen King book on the Nook). Yesterday in The Big Year I read about Roger Tory Peterson’s account of his Big Year: Wild America and remembered finding a copy of that book in an antique store about 20 years ago. I was a novice birder but recognized one of the authors. Opening the book to check the price ($2.50) I also glanced at the title page and was astounded to see that Peterson had inscribed it with best wishes to a Lloyd Foster. Of course I bought the book. It smells delightful.

This creates another issue — how do authors autograph e-books?

In Which Dona Admits to Loving Dozens of Men

Humor, Obsessions, Rave, Reading, , ,

In 1979 I spent a semester in London attending Southlands College and student teaching at a local primary school. The teacher with whom I did my teaching practice had a set of books in her classroom that I fell in love with and when I finished my student teaching, she gave me several titles in the collection. I’m pretty sure that I was the first person in Elgin to have copies of these books because they didn’t hit the States until a few years later. I remember being delighted yet dismayed to see the books being sold in a bookstore in Pittsburgh. Delighted because I could now easily purchase more of the books and dismayed because I was not unique in that respect any longer.

I used these books for lessons when I was a teacher because I loved the simple drawings, the life-lessons and the high vocabulary they offered. The books may have been small picture books, but when I did a readability evaluation on a few passages in several books found they were at the 5th grade reading level.

When my own children were old enough to care about books, I brought the books home and read to them from the books. We had fun laughing over the silly characters and the situations in which they found themselves.

The books are still in the house somewhere and while I’ve not seen them recently, thought about them the other day and made a mental note to blog about the set of books sometime soon.

Today when I saw the series of Google Doodles I knew that today was the day to write about Mr Men.

My favorite was Mr. Chatterbox and I never really liked the Little Miss books. They seemed more like an afterthought to me and not nearly as funny as the originals.

Dona and the Three Books

Reading

When last you heard from me I was lamenting my inability to finish a book. Good news! I finished 3 books since last Saturday. I finished 3 books in less than a week. I don’t remember the last time I did something like that — perhaps elementary school.

Please note, I did not begin and finish the three books in less than a week. I just finished them although I did start and finish one within 36 or so hours.

The book that pulled me out of my slump was The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. I wasn’t excited about reading it — it was for my women-only book group. Someone suggested it a few months ago and the next month the host chose it for book group however it hadn’t been published in paperback at that time so we held off reading it until it was in paperback. I saw it at Costco and reluctantly picked it up.

The first couple of dozen pages did not leave me wanting more, but I persevered and after a while really began enjoying the book which goes back and forth between an in-depth discussion of cellular biology and a story about the family of the woman whose cells, taken and used for research without her informed consent, have led to many medical breakthroughs including the polio vaccine and the discovery that some strains of HPV is directly responsible for cervical cancer.

I preferred the science part of the book, which is unusual for me because I normally don’t like non-fiction. I had a difficult time relating to the family in the book. The author was brutally honest in her depiction of them — something she’d promised the daughter of Henrietta Lacks. I became weary of the daughter and her histrionics wore me out just reading about it.

I learned a lot about patient rights from this book — some things I’d never even thought about. I’m looking forward to our book group discussion of this one.

Directly after finishing Henrietta Lacks, I began reading Room by Emma Donoghue which arrived on my doorstep Saturday afternoon. Room was another book I was not looking forward to reading — I don’t like books written in a child’s voice. I didn’t want to read about a child and mother locked away in a room for years and years. I didn’t want to buy a hard cover book. I bit the bullet, however, and ordered it from Amazon (along with a cookbook I didn’t need). Truth be told — I did vote for Room when asked to choose my top three books out of a list of books I’d either read before and didn’t want to re-read or books I had no desire to read in the first place.

It took me from Saturday afternoon through Sunday night to finish Room and not because I loved it. It was compelling — I’ll say that about it. And I liked it more than I thought I would. I’ll not say any more about it in case you’re planning on reading it. I never got used to the child’s strange speech pattern and I felt it was unbelievable in parts.

After finishing Room I felt free to go back to Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson, which I did love. It is a sweet quirky romantic book with a couple of great characters. The fact that the author’s kids go to my son’s school is only a small reason I chose to read the book in the first place — I’d seen it on my “recommendations” page on Amazon and sitting in a friend’s living room. I suggested it for book group and no one was in the least interested. Ah well, I suppose it is a light read — not a lot of controversy really. It will make a pleasant movie — I’m hoping that the author gets her wish and Major Pettigrew is played by John Cleese.

So now I’m bookless — Fingersmith may be my next book, but I am listening to another Sarah Waters book at the moment and don’t want to confuse myself. I think I’ll read Susan Coll’s* Beach Week — to prepare myself for what to expect when my son leaves for his trip when school is out for Seniors.

*another (former) Whitman parent/author

I’m delighted that I am out of my reading slump. I feel back to myself again.