12 June 2004 ... Books!

I am having my own personal Book Festival this weekend! I've been reading books, and buying books. Writing books down in my commonplace book, updating my BookBag database. Converting some text to eBooks to read on my Palm. Looking for eBooks to buy, and browsing Gutenberg for the free kind.

Whee. I have fun.

Even tho I've still got two hefty books from my last B&N run (not to mention a dozen other books lying around unread), I had to go and spend 60-some dollars at Amazon. Can't let a gift certificate go to waste, after all (thanks bro).

Apparently I am looking for some art journal inspiration, since I ordered both Create Your Own Artists Journal and Keeping a Nature Journal. Or maybe I just like books with pretty pictures in them!

My commonplace book is almost filled. I started it January 2000 and I hope to have room enough to end it December 2004. It delights me to page through it.

It's also very beautiful. It's a hardback blank book by Antioch. They no longer sell the book design I have, but I hope to buy another Antioch of the same dimensions for my next commonplace book.

And the BookBag database I got for my Palm handheld is certainly paying off. I use it all the time. When I updated it today with the book I just finished reading, I noticed I only had inputted 130 books. After I hit the 100 mark, I started slacking off! So, I'm typing in books again. 130 is only a tiny fraction, after all.

In my commonplace book, I only note what month I finish reading each book, but in BookBag I note the exact day. And I notice: I seem to finish books in spates. For instance, in the last five days, I have finished three books. And in four days at the beginning of May, I finished three books. (At the end of May, I only finished one book.)

I wonder if I do this (unconsciously) on purpose. And if so, why?

At Project Gutenberg, after going through authors A through Z and now starting over, I am up to H again. And I've got 145 unread eBooks on my computer. and 26 eBooks that I have read.

And, oh yeah, I'm in a reading group at B&N University, for Walden by Thoreau.

At first I thought this was going to be work, since Waldon is definitely one of those books they are supposed to make you read at school. But I started reading the book the other night, and it's not too horrid. Heh. He does kind of jump all over the place with topics, tho.

Here's a Waldon quote that made me laugh out loud, with a sarcastic twinge:

One farmer says to me, "You cannot live on vegetable food solely, for it furnishes nothing to make bones with": and so he religiously devotes a part of his day to supplying his system with the raw material of bones; walking all the while he talks behind his oxen, which, with vegetable-made bones, jerk him and his lumbering plow along in spite of every obstacle.

Which reminds me... SO's mom got me a book of bread machine recipies! I can't wait to convert them into vegan happiness. I just can't figure out which bread to make first!