I'm trying to be better about writing at least a little blurb about each book I read. Trying being the operative word here. The blurb, if and when I do get around to writing it, will of course happen after the book has been finished. So, in the beginning, what may show up here is just the book's basic information, title, author, date I began reading it. But feel free to comment on the book even if I haven't yet written anything about it. I always like talking about books!
For him that stealeth, or borroweth and returneth not, this book from its owner, let it change into a serpent in his hand and rend him. Let him be struck with palsy, and all his members blasted. Let him languish in pain, crying aloud for mercy, and let there be no surcease to this agony till he sing in dissolution. Let bookworms gnaw his entrails…and when at last he goeth to his final punishment, let the flames of Hell consume him forever. --Curse for book thieves by Edmund Lester Pearson (1880-1937)
The Man Who Ate Everything, Jeffrey Steingarten
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God’s Debris, Scott Adams
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I finally set up an RSS feed just in case anyone is interested in keeping up with what I'm reading through a news reader. RSS 2.0
Loved the book. Will probably find ways to bring it up in conversations and insist that people read it.
Liked it well enough. Would probably say that it's a good read, except for [fill in the blank].
Liked it well enough to finish the book but I wouldn't recommend that someone else read it.
So bad I couldn't finish the book. If someone mentioned the book title to me I'd probably shake my head and tell him not to waste his time or money.
Reading is Fundamental
So many books, so little time
Book: Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader, Anne Fadiman
Start Date: 12/27/06
End Date: 12/27/06
Rating:
Comments: 0
Permalink: link
Print: 
In the essay “Never do that to a book” Fadiman states that there are a number of ways to love a book, among them carnal and courtly love. At first read, it would seem that I fall in the courtly love category. I make a concerted effort to not break the spines of my books, I make sure my hands are clean so as not to leave any smudges and I NEVER dog-ear the pages. But I also do things which she says courtly lovers would never do: I do take notes in my books, I sometimes (though very rarely) place an open book facedown, and I have been known to leave bookmarks or mementos in between a book’s pages (but still being careful to not crack that spine!).
A carnal lover, she writes, loves a book to pieces. I shudder at the thought. But that’s not to say that I don’t own books that haven’t seen better days. As a matter of fact, my favorite book of all time, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, looks like it’s been run over by an 18-wheeler. I let my sister borrow it and it lived in her high school locker for months, at one point she even spilled a soda on it.
Ordinarily, this would have meant buying a new book, but I’ve grown attached to this book. I bought it the summer before my senior year of high school. I was buying reading material for my AP English class and I discovered P&P in a $1 bargain bin. Of all the books to be found in the box, only Pride and Prejudice caught my eye. Though I’d never heard of Jane Austen and, except for the required reading in previous English classes I’d never before read a ‘classic’ willingly, I decided to buy it.
“How can I lose?” I wondered. “It looks good and it’s only a dollar.” I was unaccustomed to the writing style so it took a little bit of work to get through it, but get through it I did. As soon as I was finished with it, I began it again.
There was no way I could get rid of this book even if it was yellowed and soda stained. I’ve since laminated the covers, and have had to scotch tape sections back into the book. People who know how militant I am about keeping my books in good shape are always amazed that I own a book in such a sad state. My sister and several friends have even gone as far as buying me newer versions of the book. I have, much to my amusement, six versions (at last count) of Pride and Prejudice, including a pocket sized 1959 Dell version that originally sold for 50 cents. Despite having all these different, newer versions, I always choose the original book when I want to reread the story or passages from it.
It knows me, see. It remembers my favorite passages, opening itself to the verses instantly. Rare are the times when I have to leaf through the pages looking for that line or scene that I’m wanting to read.
And so, I seem to be a strange mix of the courtly lover and the carnal lover. Not quite in the middle but still a healthy mix, I think, even if my friends would argue with me.
Which category do you fall under?
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