How A Compulsive Reader Rolls

My name is Mare and I’m a compulsive reader.  When there are none of the below outlets for me to peruse, I read posters in the doctors office, signs in the windows of fast food places, those little A-frame advertisements on restaurant tables for seasonal drinks and desserts.  And I’ll read them over and over again until the doctor or the traffic signal or the meal arriving interrupts my obsession.  I’m not looking for a way to cure myself.  Far from it!  I’m embracing all the ways to read!

Books will never go the way of the dinosaur.  There will always be people like me and Captain Jean Luc Picard of the Starship Enterprise who will have a soft spot for paper in this increasing age of technological libris. 

Or the people of Milton Keynes, who staged a campaign to empty their library of books, to show the evil town council the need for the Stony Stratford branch library (read story:   http://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/jan/14/stony-stratford-library-shelves-protest).

Our house is filled with shelves of books and piles of magazines.  I have a standing Saturday morning date at my local library, dropping off what I’ve finished that week and picking up new material.  It thrills me to be the first to put a Newly Acquired book on hold. Sometimes I stop into the bookstore on the ground level and a few times a year they hold book sales, too!  And still, this is not enough for me, the compulsive reader. 

I love the Kindle app on my phone, because even if I’ve found myself in a situation where I don’t have a real book (??!!), I always have something to read (yes, I always have my phone with me…).  I buy books for my Kindle that aren’t in the catalog of my local library.  What my library does have, though, are e-books you can download through Amazon to the Kindle app, which I’ve done several times.  Also, there’s a trend recently for authors to write short stories or novella’s exclusively as e-book content.  They usually run from .99 cents to around $5.99 and serve as welcome little treats between full books.  Read my latest Old School Mare blog post to see how I’m using my actual Kindle device for school: http://oldschoolmare.blogspot.com/2013/07/bonjour-mes-ami.html

  

I have a problem with magazines.  I find them a great temptation and, as stated, have heaping piles of them wherever I sit for more than 10 minutes…  When I bought the Kindle, I was hoping to use that for magazine subscriptions.  What I didn’t realize is that the black and white Kindles don’t support magazines…  Someday I will get a Kindle Fire but for now, my local library has a subscription to Zinio, an online magazine system.  Their selection is limited at this point but I have been able to access issues to read the one or two articles I was interested in without having to pay the $4 or $5 to do so.  Awesome!

The other thing I’ve been doing lately is getting books on CD’s at the library.  I download them to my phone and listen when I’m walking or at other times when I can pay them most of my attention (making jewelry, washing dishes, shaving my legs).  Usually, the books I find on CD’s are things I may not have noticed in my usual sections of the library (mystery and non-fiction/travel), like The Girls of Murder City about the women who the play and movie Chicago are based on and Then Again, Diane Keaton’s autobiography read with good humor and emotion by Keaton herself.

Sometimes I feel like I’ve gone to the Dark Side by embracing alternative reading methods.  My father ran a printing press for most of his working life (it was at a box factory, but a pressman is a pressman…) plus my Day Job is doing payroll for a local shoppers publication that has seen a sharp downturn in recent years.  But I think as the world changes, some things diminish and other things expand in a natural progression.  Writers still write and readers still read and the variety of ways we can partake of words and sentences and paragraphs will always keep the Force strong within us.

Do What You Love!

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What Have I Done Today?

Hmmmm… I’ve been lagging behind on my blogging… Things at The Day Job have gotten busier since we had to lay off one person from our department. The holidays were filled with too much sugar and I got Binge Brain (which means sugar zapped my energy and creativity). I just haven’t had the brain power to blog.

So, I think somedays I’ll just have to virtually mumble about the mundane things I’ve done that day in the hopes of getting some true inspiration.

Today, I dropped The Husband at work, since his ancient VW bus is in the shop. It didn’t pass the smog test. Do NOT get me started on the CA DMV… I had a bunch of errands to do:

My weekly visit to the library, dropped one book, picked up 4 :-)

Stopped at Walmart for a money order and saw this awesome pickup truck--the color drew my eye but I love the entire thing!

Dropped into my eye doctor to confirm how big frames would have to be for my trifocals (yeah, I’m old. So??). I’ve been browsing vintage cat’s eye frames on Etsy.

Braved Brea Bead Works to see if I could find a really small gauge sterling silver jump ring for a commissioned pair of earrings. I couldn’t. Looks like I’ll have to make some jump rings that fit. Wait--if I couldn’t find the jump rings I wanted, how did I spend $38??? Hence why I used the word “braved” BBW’s. Bead stores are rife with temptation. In my defense, though, one thing I bought was for The Mom’s birthday!

Got chicken apple sausages on sale at Sprouts.

Did the grocery shopping. Drove through Carls for a side salad. And a small vanilla shake. With whip cream. I didn’t ask for the whip cream. It just comes with it…

Later on, I picked up The Husband, cooked some of the sausage’s (nom!), watched last night’s CSI:NY with a cat sleeping on my lap and now The Husband is watching some scary movie on SyFy. Think I’ll go try to make some tiny jump rings!

Do What You Love!

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Book Recommendation Saturday-Debutante Dropout

I just started the fourth book in this series by Susan McBride, having totally loved the first three. The main protagonists, Andy Kendricks, the anti-deb daughter of high society widow, Cissy, both live, work (Andy) and do charity fundraising (Cissy) in Dallas. To get me interested in a series, you’ve gotta have characters I enjoy and watching Andy and Cissy try to reconcile their relationship is a hoot. Cissy wants Andy to use her trust fund and become a “lady who lunches”. Andy wants to create websites for non-profits and do her artwork.

Naturally, I mean, this is a mystery series, Andy gets herself into situations that require amateur investigation and sometimes wild antics. Her boyfriend, defense attorney Brian Malone, and her mother’s maid and Andy’s former nanny, Sandy Beck, provide backup or a shoulder to cry on. Even Cissy has been known to get into the act and even initiate investigations. Sometimes you want to hold Andy back but however crazy things get, she always come out ok.

These are fun reads with mildly interesting mysteries. What I like most about them is the relationship between Andy and Cissy. What could have stayed a stereotyped portrait of a mother and daughter as polar opposites has grown into two women seeing the depth and importance of each other, while still having major differences in their lifestyles.

And since I’m running behind this week, due to tummy troubles, here’s my Wishful Thinking Sunday:

James Lipton asks all his Inside the Actor’s Studio guests, when you get to the Pearly Gates, what do you imagine God saying to you. My answer would be, Yes, Mare, Heaven IS a library.

Do What You Love!

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