Category: Random

Random

The Joy of Books and The Edinburgh Book Sculptures

Geoff W

This (not sure if the embed is working for anyone else, but it isn’t working on my computer at the moment) was recently shared on Bookshelf Porn and it made me smile this morning. I’m usually loathe to share things I haven’t read, unless it’s within my Monthly Updates, but as I can barely keep myself on track to do those, I thought I should share this immediately.

On a similar note, if you haven’t seen the awesome book sculptures from Scotland, you should check them out In case you haven’t seen them check them out at This Central Station. The dragon is my favorite, of course:

Mysterious paper sculptures
Photo linked from Chris Donia’s Flickr.
Random

I got a Kindle!!!

Geoff W

As you may have guessed from my fairly obvious title, I got a Kindle.  I’m sure it had something to do with my blog post (July Update) including Tom’s cameo (among other things) or Tom’s rekindled, notice I didn’t say new, appreciation for books.  He gave me a gift certificate to Amazon for 2/3 of the kindle because I didn’t want him to pay for all of it.  It was a bit of a decision because I could have gotten 20-25 used books easily, but I really did want a Kindle so I bought it.

It arrived last Saturday and I immediately uploaded 25 books, three I paid for including The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson, and the rest were pre-1923.  I realized pretty quickly that the books are pretty expensive (compared to used) and I will purchase books, but I can’t wait until the public library starts loaning Kindle e-books.

Everything was going great until Monday morning on the way to work. Less than 48 hours of owning it I gave myself a mini-heart attack by dropping it in a parking lot. If you know me, this isn’t too surprising, but I was petrified and swore at myself for not just shelling out the money to purchase a cover when I got it.  The back casing partially popped open and there is now a lovely scrape (smaller than a dime) on the back left corner, but thankfully it still worked/s.  This scare necessitated my lovely blue case to the left. It doesn’t photograph very well and Amazon doesn’t show the color very well, but it’s a nice blue, maybe a bit lavender-ish depending on the light.  I splurged and got the one with the light because after the mini-heart attack I needed something special.

I’ve had it for nearly a week and so far the pros definitely outweigh the cons.  It responds significantly faster than  my Sony Pocket e-Reader which isn’t that shocking considering this is the third generation Kindle and I have a first generation Sony.  The formatting of the novels is great, but I wish rather than it automatically starting you on the first page with text, it would start you on the cover page.  I absolutely LOVE the notes feature, although you can (and I did) go overboard as you’ll see in the quotes section of my next post.

The two biggest negatives are the side navigation buttons (personal preference) and the lack of page numbers.  The navigation bothers me because for some reason I’m convinced the left should be backward and the right forward, but both sides have a large forward and a small backwards button.  The lack of page numbers really bothers me, especially as I like to see how many pages to the next chapter.  You can check the page numbers, but you have to pull up the menu screen and hope that the publisher included them.  I’m sure I will get used to both the navigation and the page numbers as everything else works seamlessly.

Random

Halloween

Geoff W

This is completely random, but I absolutely love this photo and it sort of ties in to this blog. In honor of Halloween the photo is here and growing up I read countless Star Wars novels. I want to go back and reread them, but they’re all in storage right now. I originally saw it on Geekologie, but Tell Us Something Good blogged it today.

Random

Boston Book Festival

Geoff W

Yesterday was the second annual Boston Book Festival. I was very excited for it as it has been on my calendar since they announced the save the date in the beginning of 2010. I’m not sure if it was all of this time building up to it or if it was because last year’s festival seemed to be the perfect size, but I was definitely a bit disappointed.* As I said I attended in 2009 and it was the perfect size. The workshops were housed in rooms where there were just enough seats with no need for overflow and there was enough time for there to be plenty of audience and panel interaction. On the other hand the exhibitors were brilliant! They increased the number of booksellers and I loved seeing nonprofits from around the (Eastern? part of) the state. A lot of the exhibitors were more interested in talking to and approaching the older attendees (40ish+), but if I asked a question they were helpful to answer. I found quite a few new used bookstores to either check out online or to visit at some point including:

  • Symposium Books – AMAZING. They had a deal where you could fill a small plastic bag for $20, a large plastic bag for $40 or a canvas tote for $50. I wasn’t going to do this, but then I found quite a few books on my big list of books to read so I did the small bag. If I would’ve paid for these books new I would’ve spent $112.80, if I paid the discount price I would’ve paid $33.00, so either way you look at it I saved a good amount of money! Two are Pulitzer Prize winning books (Robinson and Toole) and three were on my list (Robinson, both Miller) and I had to buy Boston Noir, how could I not?
  • Raven Used Books – Although I didn’t buy anything from them, I’d already spent $20 which was more than I’d planned on spending, they had a very good selection (including some Foucault!) and I will definitely check them out! They are a ‘scholarly’ used book store, so more textbook/research type books which are always nice!

And of course Brattle Book Shop and Brookline Booksmith were there, both of which I regularly visit!

Now on to the three workshops I attended. I was worried that this year the workshops and the festival overall would be geared more towards writers rather than bibliophiles. But the three I attended seemed to be a good mix between the two.

Workshops attended, books purchased and books added to my list!:

Random

Apologies!

Geoff W

I don’t think this affected anyone (other than me), but I wanted to apologize in case you use an RSS feed or reader of some sort to follow my blog. I recently imported an older blog full of quotes and spent the last hour or so editing them and as I edited them they were sent out as if they were new posts.

Hopefully this didn’t spam anyone’s RSS feeds or readers and if it did I’m sorry! You can always get back by suggesting a slog of a book for me! Either way you should check out some of the sweet quotes from books I’ve read in the past year and other random quotes – easiest found in the ‘Last 50 Posts’ section of the Archives .

I’m over half way through Book 9, Frances Mayes’ Bella Tuscany, and will hopefully have a post up by the end of the week. I’m not sure though as I’ve got interviews and I’m moving and it’s just a busy time.