Book Sampling and New Year's Resolutions
Jan. 1st, 2004 10:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatNew Year's Resolutions first:
1. Spend "much" less time posting online, specifically fanboards (I think I used this method of stress/anxiety management waaay too much last year.)
2. Get a position in human resources in a major corporation (New job search approach I hatched out over the holidays.)
3. Write some short stories instead of essays on ATS/BTVS
4. Lose more weight (I lost 20 pds in 2003, without even trying. Apparently being stressed and out of work is good for my figure.)
5. Get an intermediary temp job to bring money in!
6. Do not allow myself to be distracted by or
become a puppet to my emotions: envy, pride,
etc.
I'll probably break all of them.
***************************************
Book Sampling (first of several musings on my vacation)
While in Hilton Head, sitting on plush white couch, in front of a roaring fire with Old English Christmas tunes playing in the background -- I sampled from my parents vast collection of books. I always do this when I visit my folks.
Book collecting runs in my family, except for Kid Bro, it somehow skipped him. Some people collect DVDs. Some electronic equipment. Some gnomes. Some hummels. Some orchids. My family - specifically my parents and I, collect books. My parents have at least 7 bookcases filled with books. Family Room, Living Room, Den, Bedroom - there's always books lying around. My father religiously does this. Every town he visits - he hunts down the "book store". Even in places that don't speak English. We go into a book store and we are lucky to leave with "just" one book. Recently, we visited a used book store in St. Mary's, Georgia, where I located two books for my Dad - Time and Again by Jack Finney and Musings: the collected short stories of Edith Wharton. (Dad is trying to write a novel about his grandmother, which takes place in the late 1880s.) Dad really enjoys collecting old and rare books, as well as books by certain writers on certain topics.
These include hardback early editions of Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Faulkner, Twain, Chandler, Simenon, etc. He's particularly fond of 1950's/1940's mystery writers. He has copies of The Molly MacGuires, The Maltese Falcon, The Thin Man, and The works of Raymond Chandler to name a few. I think my father has read just about every mystery writer out there. His other hobby (in book collecting) is biographies - specifically historical figures. Dad's a frustrated historian - I think. He must have a biography on every president of the United States, plus some influential World leaders.
Being moderate democrates - stuck in the very conservative *cough*rightwing*cough* south,
my parents fortify themselves with the following titles:
Stupid White Men by Michael Moore
Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot by Al Franken (which Mom bravely put up for sale at a women's club book sale)
Lies and the People who Tell Them - A fair and balanced view of the Right by Al Franken
Sleeping with The Enemy: How the US Sold Out for Saudia Oil - (forget the author)
Papal Sin - about the lies the Vatican has told
My parents are also huge information junkies.
They religiously watch CNN Headline News, Jim Laherer report on PBS, Listen to NPR, and read the Washington Post (Dad started subscribing to it a year ago instead of the Wall Street Journal).
The books in their house range from Collections of Folk Tales, Legends and Fairy Tales from all over the world ( Norway, Russia, Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Anderson, etc. Some are mine, some theirs.)
to travel books, mysteries, literary fiction, non-fiction...the list goes on. Both read religiously - often two or three books at a time. Mom leads two book clubs.
I was raised to believe that everything you needed to know could be found in the pages of a book. Whenever we went on a trip - Dad would read at least five books on the destination, ranging from it's history to it's culture and people. Then when they visited the place? They'd cart home a bunch they found there. I think they have five art books from St. Petersburg.
So whenever I visit - I search the shelves for books to sample or bring home. Xmas just isn't Xmas for me withouth at least one or two books. I crave them like some people crave chocolate. (This year - Mom gave me two, which I petted lovingly, "Wicked" by Gregory MacGuire - a book I've been lusting over for a year now but have not allowed myself to buy. And "Pawn in Frankinsense" the fourth in the Lymond Chronicles. By the way - if you loved the Angel-Connor arc in Angel the Series? You've got to read the Lymond Chronicles. Disorderly Knights and Pawn in Frankinsense parallels Season 3 of ATS in some interesting ways. I'm in the minority of viewers who adored Angel/Connor and thought Connor was one of the most interesting characters on TV. At any rate - I "really" wanted this book. And Mom gave it to me, along with Radio Sunnydale CD which has four of my favorite BTVS songs: Pavlov's Bell, Key,
Prayer for St. Francis, and Blue.)
At any rate, feeling the need to take a breather from Dunnett - she's wonderful, but a tad dense to start. It always takes me a little while to get into her novels. But once I do? I adore them. I love writers who make the reader work for it. But I wanted a break.
It had been a stressful month and I'd just finished Queen's Play (the 2nd in Dunnett's Lymond Series). So I perused a few chapters of Al Franken's bestseller - "Lying and Liars- A Fair and Balanced View of the Right" - specifically chapters on the Press Correspondent's Dinner, Bill O'Reilly and a little bit on Ann Coulter. I also perused Paul Theroux's Pillers of Hercules. Then delved into and finished the current NY Times Bestseller: The Da Vinici Code. Took me a week. All three made me rethink a few things, which I'll share in my next post, since this is getting a bit long.
1. Spend "much" less time posting online, specifically fanboards (I think I used this method of stress/anxiety management waaay too much last year.)
2. Get a position in human resources in a major corporation (New job search approach I hatched out over the holidays.)
3. Write some short stories instead of essays on ATS/BTVS
4. Lose more weight (I lost 20 pds in 2003, without even trying. Apparently being stressed and out of work is good for my figure.)
5. Get an intermediary temp job to bring money in!
6. Do not allow myself to be distracted by or
become a puppet to my emotions: envy, pride,
etc.
I'll probably break all of them.
***************************************
Book Sampling (first of several musings on my vacation)
While in Hilton Head, sitting on plush white couch, in front of a roaring fire with Old English Christmas tunes playing in the background -- I sampled from my parents vast collection of books. I always do this when I visit my folks.
Book collecting runs in my family, except for Kid Bro, it somehow skipped him. Some people collect DVDs. Some electronic equipment. Some gnomes. Some hummels. Some orchids. My family - specifically my parents and I, collect books. My parents have at least 7 bookcases filled with books. Family Room, Living Room, Den, Bedroom - there's always books lying around. My father religiously does this. Every town he visits - he hunts down the "book store". Even in places that don't speak English. We go into a book store and we are lucky to leave with "just" one book. Recently, we visited a used book store in St. Mary's, Georgia, where I located two books for my Dad - Time and Again by Jack Finney and Musings: the collected short stories of Edith Wharton. (Dad is trying to write a novel about his grandmother, which takes place in the late 1880s.) Dad really enjoys collecting old and rare books, as well as books by certain writers on certain topics.
These include hardback early editions of Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Faulkner, Twain, Chandler, Simenon, etc. He's particularly fond of 1950's/1940's mystery writers. He has copies of The Molly MacGuires, The Maltese Falcon, The Thin Man, and The works of Raymond Chandler to name a few. I think my father has read just about every mystery writer out there. His other hobby (in book collecting) is biographies - specifically historical figures. Dad's a frustrated historian - I think. He must have a biography on every president of the United States, plus some influential World leaders.
Being moderate democrates - stuck in the very conservative *cough*rightwing*cough* south,
my parents fortify themselves with the following titles:
Stupid White Men by Michael Moore
Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot by Al Franken (which Mom bravely put up for sale at a women's club book sale)
Lies and the People who Tell Them - A fair and balanced view of the Right by Al Franken
Sleeping with The Enemy: How the US Sold Out for Saudia Oil - (forget the author)
Papal Sin - about the lies the Vatican has told
My parents are also huge information junkies.
They religiously watch CNN Headline News, Jim Laherer report on PBS, Listen to NPR, and read the Washington Post (Dad started subscribing to it a year ago instead of the Wall Street Journal).
The books in their house range from Collections of Folk Tales, Legends and Fairy Tales from all over the world ( Norway, Russia, Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Anderson, etc. Some are mine, some theirs.)
to travel books, mysteries, literary fiction, non-fiction...the list goes on. Both read religiously - often two or three books at a time. Mom leads two book clubs.
I was raised to believe that everything you needed to know could be found in the pages of a book. Whenever we went on a trip - Dad would read at least five books on the destination, ranging from it's history to it's culture and people. Then when they visited the place? They'd cart home a bunch they found there. I think they have five art books from St. Petersburg.
So whenever I visit - I search the shelves for books to sample or bring home. Xmas just isn't Xmas for me withouth at least one or two books. I crave them like some people crave chocolate. (This year - Mom gave me two, which I petted lovingly, "Wicked" by Gregory MacGuire - a book I've been lusting over for a year now but have not allowed myself to buy. And "Pawn in Frankinsense" the fourth in the Lymond Chronicles. By the way - if you loved the Angel-Connor arc in Angel the Series? You've got to read the Lymond Chronicles. Disorderly Knights and Pawn in Frankinsense parallels Season 3 of ATS in some interesting ways. I'm in the minority of viewers who adored Angel/Connor and thought Connor was one of the most interesting characters on TV. At any rate - I "really" wanted this book. And Mom gave it to me, along with Radio Sunnydale CD which has four of my favorite BTVS songs: Pavlov's Bell, Key,
Prayer for St. Francis, and Blue.)
At any rate, feeling the need to take a breather from Dunnett - she's wonderful, but a tad dense to start. It always takes me a little while to get into her novels. But once I do? I adore them. I love writers who make the reader work for it. But I wanted a break.
It had been a stressful month and I'd just finished Queen's Play (the 2nd in Dunnett's Lymond Series). So I perused a few chapters of Al Franken's bestseller - "Lying and Liars- A Fair and Balanced View of the Right" - specifically chapters on the Press Correspondent's Dinner, Bill O'Reilly and a little bit on Ann Coulter. I also perused Paul Theroux's Pillers of Hercules. Then delved into and finished the current NY Times Bestseller: The Da Vinici Code. Took me a week. All three made me rethink a few things, which I'll share in my next post, since this is getting a bit long.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Welcome back, s'kat!
Date: 2004-01-01 10:20 pm (UTC)Re: Welcome back, s'kat!
Date: 2004-01-02 01:22 pm (UTC)Much more interesting.
Of course it may be awhile until I get to it. Have to get through my Dunnett books first.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-02 04:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-02 01:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-02 05:02 am (UTC)4. Lose more weight (I lost 20 pds in 2003, without even trying. Apparently being stressed and out of work is good for my figure.)
Btw, I'd like to point out that I am in no way totally and completely envious of you. I too am working on #3 and 5. Let's see how we do, shall we? Heh.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-02 01:18 pm (UTC)Yes - more power to us! Here's to a more productive year!