Book – It’s What’s For Dinner (strikeout version 9-6-23)
I’m an avid reader, always have been and (hopefully) always will be. At the height of my memory issues (over the last two or three years) I still kept reading. I may not remember the beginning of the book by the time I get to the end, but I read non-fiction almost exclusively. There’s always Wikipedia. So, it’s with great pleasure that I present to you… National Read a Book Day.
The last time I read fiction was back in the Fifty Shades of Grey phenomena, and that was pretty well a waste of my time. I’ve lived through having an obsessed stalker (ex-wife #1 – there will be scorecards available for sale in the lobby after this presentation) and it probably took a year or two off of my life. So to me, the whole Christian Grey love story, romance, obsession, stalking, sexual assault, date rape, molestation, violation, carnal abuse story was not a romance at all.
Fifty Shades of Grey reads like something written by someone with no real life experience with the BDSM community. In this day and age it’s extremely impolite to write about a subculture without knowing something about what is really going on inside that community. I know. (If I told you what/how/who/why I know, you’d have a cornucopia of folks worrying that I might break somebody’s confidentiality, so just trust me, I know. I’ll give you my references if you’ll give me your clothes.) If you want to do research on the BDSM community, we are not at all difficult to find, and we always appreciate fresh meat visitors!
Now that we’ve established that you need to read a good book, not some fanfic drivel from an author too lazy to do research, it really doesn’t matter what you read. Just read…
What kind of books do Monsters read?
Monsters prefer non-fiction books, like I said. In a pinch, I find myself reading ingredient labels, or the backside of paper placemats at a restaurant. As a kid I carried books everywhere. Mommie Dearest banned books from the breakfast and dinner tables, not because I might spill grease on the valuable books, but because I might not talk to her while she was cooking.
I preferred to read as opposed to watch television. My first bachelor apartment didn’t have a TV for close to a year when I first moved in. I didn’t really miss it. Once I did bring a TV home, it was an old 12″ hand-me-down black and white. It was great for watching stuff like Barney Miller, but it really didn’t change my reading habits, the TV was primarily on for noise. In all honesty, my stereo was a better source of noise than the television.
My family has always been amazed at how fast I finish books, but the secret there, like so many things in life, is putting in the hours. I like to read for at least an hour in the morning before work (back when I was still able to work.) Read over my lunch hour? If there was any chance to get some reading in, I would. I like to read before supper, and I live to read after supper too. Then at night, before I go to bed, I really need to read. If I woke up in the middle of the night, I’d often read to fall back asleep.
So, it’s safe to say I read a lot. And that the diet of books I consume is almost 100% non-fiction. I wish I could remember more than I do, but that’s always been true. Regardless, my brain is full of lots of useless information, I’ve forgotten more than other people will ever learn.
Rooms Full of Books for National Read A Book Day
Jimi Hendrix had a “Room Full of Mirrors“, I’ve got a room full of books. For the better part of the last 40 years I’ve struggled to keep my books together, there are too many. I have 4 antique bookshelves in the “library”, they are all full, and there are are at least 5 other tall stacks of books in the room. I’ve got another small bookshelf in the living room, at least it’s small by my standards. It’s probably twenty-four inches wide, tall enough for three shelves. There’s a stack of close to 20 books next to my desk, I’ve got 6 more books on my desk.
The basement has four tall relatively wide bookshelves, probably close to 48″ wide and 6 feet tall. and they are all full of books too. There are three smaller bookshelves in the basement, and, you guessed it, once again they are full. There are still more in my basement, 10 or 15 stacked up in the downstairs bathroom, and a few more old paperbacks in an open wire bookshelf.
Then there’s the garage, the books out there aren’t in bookshelves, but instead got carted out there by wife #3 (I covered the scorecards thing already in this post – if you have already forgotten, your memory is as good as mine I had to check.) I know those books are primarily my Mother’s hardback collections of Danielle Steele, Robert Ludlum, John Irving, and anything else her bookseller recommended for her to read.
Bookstores – Days Gone By
Anyone who’s grown up during the age of Kindle or NOOK will never know the world that existed a generation or two back in time. Bookstores were a big deal, and I’m not talking chains like Barnes and Nobles. I mean ma and pa style stores where you walk in and immediately see the owners. Where those owners made an effort to remember your name and your reading choices.
Mom would walk in and almost immediately would be greeted with a brisk, “Hello Mrs. Monster, we’ve got a new book you might be interested in…”
I think those days are long gone, Amazon.com and the other online booksellers have advantages the Ma and Pa type stores never will have. Shopping from home is too convenient for too many people. Amazon Prime gives free shipping, the selection is absolutely endless, and the prices are competitive. Books were cheaper in Amazon’s earlier days, so were titles on Kindle, but as Amazon has driven it’s competitors out of business, it’s own prices have risen.
Need a book on economics to understand how Amazon.com has undercut prices to run all the Ma and Pa style bookstores out of business only to then raise it’s own prices? Amazon’s got it!
My name is Monster…I devour books…Happy National Read a Book Day!
Um, er, cough… My name is Monster, and I devour books. I don’t know how many physical books I own, it’s a lot. Between girl and I, we own 3696 different books on our Kindles. Those books aren’t real, but we still consume them – kinda like Coke Zero.
Happy National Read a Book Day!
