Bookstore on My Mind.

This thread

skatedreamer said:

Mentioning it b/c I have so many beads at home that I could pretty much start a store on my own. Can actually control myself when it comes to books & CDs but with beads it's hopeless. :disapp:

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I'm not letting you anywhere near my daughter. She is also fanatics with beads and charms too. Did you know that these things can kill you? I trip on them occasionally. Not really a graceful fall.

skatedreamer said:

Yikes, have you read all of them yet?

One of my hobbies is jewelry-making (beading). Mentioning it b/c I have so many beads at home that I could pretty much start a store on my own. Can actually control myself when it comes to books & CDs but with beads it's hopeless. :disapp:

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Good grief no! I'm just insatiably greedy when it comes to books.. (I've got a very complicated System of how, when and which books I read, that I won't bore anyone with!)

LRK said:

The libraries here seem to still be in good stead (touch wood!), at least the one's in my area... And I do feel I'm doing my part, as I've got 54 books at home at the moment...

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A friend of mine in your country has worked for her local bookmobile. She sent me a photo of the interior, and it was mouthwatering. A tidy little space completely populated with books on their shelves; what better vehicle could there be?

Olympia said:

A friend of mine in your country has worked for her local bookmobile. She sent me a photo of the interior, and it was mouthwatering. A tidy little space completely populated with books on their shelves; what better vehicle could there be?

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Yes, they are lovely. I don't borrow my books from one myself; but I have ridden in one once, while I was doing a library assistant course, and we were sent out on, not internships precisely perhaps, but to visit and look at different libraries and so on. It was just so... cosy! (Note: we weren't all sent to the same libraries, so the bookmobile wasn't suddenly chock full of people, just to clarify.... )

LRK said:

Good grief no! I'm just insatiably greedy when it comes to books.. (I've got a very complicated System of how, when and which books I read, that I won't bore anyone with!)

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If there's anything worth being greedy about, books would have to be it.

Re: your system, do tell!

I just went to the library I used to go to when I was a child, and got a library card again. It looked lovely!
http://historicbuildingsct.com/?p=1576

It is so late 19th century still. All the gorgeous woodwork is still there

Someone has uploaded 23 pictures of the interior and exterior to yelp, where they proclaim that it is not your average library.

http://m.yelp.com/biz_photos/bill-memorial-library-groton?select=EynXjHYiCDD7y5RU3omq3g

The architects are still proud of it, 120 years later, and have a page for it on their website.

http://www.tuthillandwells.com/pb/images/img3159849166bbb10d7d.jpg

They still have the curio collection of Mr. Bill, who founded the library.

Yes, Bill really is a last name.

There is the finger of an Egyptian mummy in that collection that I used to have nightmares about when I was little.

Services have been modernized a bit.

You can download ebooks, borrow real books, and get free or reduced price passes to local museums, some of which.are very special-Mystic Seaport, Mystic Aquarium, and Mashnatucket Pequot Museum.

You can walk across the street to see Fort Griswold, the best preserved Revolutionary War fort in the state, and site of the Battle of Groton Heights.


It seems to be doing quite well.

http://billmemorial.org/

skatedreamer said:

If there's anything worth being greedy about, books would have to be it.

Re: your system, do tell!

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Well, to begin there's the Reading List, the Re-Reading List, and the Library Pile/List... Since we were talking about the library, the List and Pile are not the same. Books from the List end up on the Pile. And I am "allowed" to keep on reading an author once I've begun - each new book ending up at the bottom of the pile, which is supposed to be 10 books but whch is considerably longer at this point. And I search for new books to add to the list essentially three ways: a) some little notebooks that I begun to keep way back when... in the '80s probably, b) fantasy, and c) historical. Each of these then follow certain sub-set of rules. Then I am also "allowed" to grab extra books that I come across at the library of course. One book that is on the same shelf as the book I intended to borrow in the first place, and one from the following two shelves. Also any book on display around it that tickles my fancy of course. And... Have I put anyone to sleep yet? I will say that this system is veeeeeeeery effective. Let's say that the problem of "oh, I have nothing to read/what do I read next?" is not one that is going to bother me for the next... decades probably. And I still keep searching.

Then the other Lists also have their own Rules, and Sub-Rules. Of course.

Doris, thanks for the links to your wonderful library!

LRK, there's nothing soporific about your system. A good collection of lists and/or stacks is a great way of adding an extra dimension to one's savoring of books.

Thanks Olympia! You are kind - as always.

But yes, I do love my System - though occasionally it may irk me as it means it will take a long time to get to specific books... on the other hand, there are so many books that I would love to read "instantly this minute", that they sort of cancel each other out, and I can resist any temptation to "cheat". And also - along with being "insatiably greedy", I'm also a miser. I love the prospect of having great books to look forward to - sort of look at them and gloat... The difference with me and the other sort of miser is that I eventually do "spend" my gold - and get to keep it to "spend" (re-read) again. It's just win-win, isn't it? (sighs happily) Also, I like to read so many different type of books - and I like to mix them up. If I had a motto it would probably be: "variatio delectat". And I don't want to read all the books of one author in one go, normally (I did have one exception - the Wheel of Time books - I did spend last year re-reading them after the last book was published; it seemed appropriate to celebrate the ending of the series; it did pull down my overall reading considerably, but I still feel it was worth it - now I have NO exceptions) - and I like to have them to look forward to. I'm glad that I've still got unread DWJs and Georgette Heyer's, for example.

Note: Please, I hope any who are NOT interested in this will skip the following! I'm allowing myself to go on at length and I don't want to bore anyone! So, consider yourselves warned.

A little more on my lists:
My Reading List consists of books I've bought - and can actually include re-reads (if I first read the book from the library). I'll read three of those, and then one book from my Re-Reaading List. (I'm doing two kinds of re-reads - one is simply the next off the list; the other is that I'm doing a Chronological Re-Read - I think I'm working my way through 1877 at the moment). And I read one library book between each of those. So really:

Reading List
Library Pile
Reading List
Library Pile
Reading List
Library Pile
Re-Reading List
Library Pile

Rinse. Repeat.

Also, one of the books in the Library Pile is actually one of Mamma's books.

I also like to surprise myself with what my next books are going to be - which may seem difficult, but having a really shoddy memory helps immensely! So I know only a few books forward what I'm going to be reading (I'm not "allowed" to read far down the first page of my Reading List). So my immediate reading future looks thus - starting with the book I'm reading now:

R: Edith Pargeter (aka Ellis Peters): "The Brothers of Gwynedd Quartet"
M: Daphne Du Maurier: "My Cousin Rachel"
R: Grimm: "Bröderna Grimms bästa sagor" (= The Grimm brother's best fairy tales)

Then library books will be inserted into the following

R: Richmal Crompton: "William the Fourth"
Re-r (Ch): Henry James: "The American"
R: William Makepeace Thackeray: "The Newcomes" (re-read, really)
R: Douglas Adams: "The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy" (re-read, really)

And these are the next on my re-reading list, and books from the Reading List, and library books will be inserted:

Laura Ingalls Wilder: "Huset vid Plommonån" ("On the Banks of Plum Creek")
(Ch) Anthony Trollope: "Is He Popenjoy?"
Eleanor H Porter: "Pollyanna"

Note: The books where I've given the title in Swedish, are because I've got the books in Swedish.

I hope this wiil give you some idea... I think my System is fun, but I don't want to make the mistake of thinking that it will be fascinating to other people!

I reread Pollyanna this past year to work on a paper about it. My reaction was that it was rather sentimental, though enjoyable, and not with the depth of other "girls' classics" such as Little Women and Anne of Green Gables, which was very interesting to me. It was a great picture of its era without being an example of a timeless book. I can read Alcott and L.M. Montgomery again and again and get lost in them, but not Porter. This is one of the rare times when a movie (the Disney Pollyanna, which I highly recommend) may be better than the book in terms of tone and texture. Whereas I've never found a film version of either Little Women (though I love all three versions that I've seen) or Anne of Green Gables that equals the book it's based on. I'd be curious to know your reaction when you read it, LRK.

I haven't read The Brothers of Gwynedd, but I have read Pargeter's cathedral trilogy, The Heaven Tree, The Green Branch (I think) and The Scarlet Seed. I loved them, largely due to Pargeter's descriptive powers and her compassionately drawn characters.

Laura Ingalls Wilder is fascinating because she didn't start writing until she was in her sixties or thereabouts. In fact, her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, published many years before Wilder herself did. Unusual to find a major author who's such a late bloomer. Very inspiring! L.M. Boston, the author of the wonderful British Green Knowe children's fantasies (The Children of Green Knowe is especially splendid), started her career at a similarly late age, I believe.

LRK...re: your system, wow! . My own system, such as it is, consists mainly of making it up as I go along...

Never knew that Edith Pargeter is also Ellis Peters. I read her book By Firelight a long time ago. It's my favorite kind of mystery -- spooky w/ hints of the supernatural.

I loved the Little House series as a kid; still own all of the books and pull them out from time to time, especially The Long Winter.

skatedreamer said:

I loved the Little House series as a kid; still own all of the books and pull them out from time to time, especially The Long Winter.

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Me too me too. : I once wanted to be a teacher because These Happy Golden Years. They're one of the hearted warming book series.

BusyMom said:

Me too me too. : I once wanted to be a teacher because These Happy Golden Years. They're one of the hearted warming book series.

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Heartwarming is right! :agree: That's why I still read the books -- they're my literary "comfort food," along with Jane Austen.

@Olympia - This won't be my first re-read of "Pollyanna" by any means, so I can almost tell you now that I will enjoy it. But then, I'm not writing a paper on it - thank God! (she said fervently) - I never did like picking a book apart. I'd liken it to picking a flower apart - probably very useful for a botanist; but me, I prefer the flower in its whole state. Nor do I feel the need to compare it to other books. It may not be "as good as" "Little Women" or "Anne of Green Gables", but since I won't be comparing it to them, this won't matter. To me it's a light, feel-good read, and I'm fine with it being that. I do need a bit of that sort of "girls' books" in my reading diet,, though - be it Louisa May Alcott, L M Montgomery, Eleanor H Porter... or Kate Douglas Wiggin, or Susan Coolidge, or what have you. They make me feel... good. In all the ways Gandalf suggested.

Actually, I much prefer the BBC dramatisation of Pollyanna - even though it's set in England.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0314519/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_13

The Disney version I thought was... okay. Though I am reminded that "Death comes unexpectedly!" - when reading Joan Aiken.

I suppose my favourite Little Women is probably the Katharine Hepburn one, when all is said and done. I'm not sure it was "perfectly perfect", but... I don't know quite why; maybe it's Katharine Hepburn.

If you liked the Anne of Green Gables books, I hope you have found some of L.M. Montgomery's other books-I particularly liked My Blue Castle and A Tangled Web.

Also, when I was young, Rainbow Valley and Rilla of Ingleside, in the Anne series, were not in print. Now they are!

I dearly love the "Green Gables" books; Montgomery's "Emily" series is wonderful, too!

The Canadian TV productions of the "Anne" books were visually beautiful and well-acted but I found them disappointing because at times they weren't very true to the original stories. IIRC, at some points they included material that Montgomery never wrote. :disapp:

Project Gutenberg http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page is pretty useful to download some materials that out of print. Help satisfied your needs for the time being. Right now I have a goal to finish Jules Verne's 54 books in Voyages Extraordinaires. Got some hard to find one from Project Gutenberg.

dorispulaski said:

If you liked the Anne of Green Gables books, I hope you have found some of L.M. Montgomery's other books-I particularly liked My Blue Castle and A Tangled Web.

Also, when I was young, Rainbow Valley and Rilla of Ingleside, in the Anne series, were not in print. Now they are!

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Oh, Rilla of Ingleside! I loved that one. It was written earlier than many of the other Anne books, very close to the end of World War I, hence its intensity. I finally found that one in an old library. Now you can read it online, I think. If I recall, all of the Anne books except for Anne of Windy Poplars and Anne of Ingleside are in public domain, which means that Gutenberg or ReadBookOnline will have them.

I didn't warm to the Emily of New Moon books. They were favorites of Madeleine L'Engle, but they didn't pull me in nearly as much as Anne's stories. I'm glad they have their fans, though. Montgomery is a splendid writer, and she excels in short stories as well as novels. The stories (many featuring Anne) in Chronicles of Avonlea and Further Chronicles of Avonlea are varied in mood and theme, and they show how well she develops characters and a narrative. Those collections are online as well.

Olympia -- can you say more about why didn't you like the Emily series? I'd be very interested to "hear" your reasons.