A NEW PAGE

As many of my friends know, the Borders store I work at is closing in a few weeks
and I'm going to be a man of leisure, to put it politely. I haven't quite figured out
what I'm going to do about my future except that I'm pretty sure it won't
involve Borders Books.

With that in mind, I decided to do something with this blog I haven't tried before:
monetize it. To do that, I've become an Amazon.com Associate.Let me say right
off the bat that I don't expect to make large amounts of money with this but if I
make a few bucks here and there from it, that would be nice.

So, I'll be writing more book reviews and if one should make you want to
read the book, please use the links here to purchase it from Amazon,com!

First off will be a review of Patrick Rothfuss' excellent The Wise Man's Fear.
The Wise Man's Fear[ THE WISE MAN'S FEAR ] by Rothfuss, Patrick(Author)(Hardcover)Mar 01 2011

I'll have it up in the next day or two 

WHAT'S ON MY E-READER

As promised, here's a look of the books I've downloaded so far
onto my Kobo ereader from Borders.com and the new Google ebook
store. The titles marked with asterisks are those I paid more than a dollar
for and most of the others were free. The Bulwer-Lyton book is actually
five seperate volumes.   

No, I haven't read all of them yet. Ebook shopping is like being a kid in a
candy shop for me. I see familiar authors or titles, or books I once saw
somewhere on a shelf and never bought. The books by Bury, Bryce,
Bulwer-Lyton and MacCaulay, for instance, fall into that category.  These
are all works I actually saw for the first time in the stacks at the old
Bridgewater State College library when I was earning my B.A. in history.

And yes, I know they are sory of geeky. But I am a History Geek, and this
is how  we roll!

Abbott, The Empire of Austria: It's Rise and Present Power
Akers, Scorpio Reborn *
Brownsworth, Lost to the West: The Forgotten Byzantine Empire...*
Bryce, The Holy Roman Empire
Bulwer-Lyton, Athens: It's Rise and Fall Book I to V
Bury, The Cambridge Medieval History Vol1
Bury ,The Cambridge Medieval History Vol2
Bury, A History of the Later Roman Empire from Arcadius to Irene
Bury , A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great
Caesar, Commentaries
Carlyle, The French Revolution
Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop (library)
Emerson, Essays
Frazier, The Golden Bough
Herodotus,  History
Lamb, Tales from Shakespeare
Lang, Blue Fairy Book
           Myth Ritual & Religion
           The Arabian Nights Entertainment
Macaulay, The History of England Since the Acession of James II
McKillip, Bards Of Bone Plain *
Oman, Europe 476-918
Parkman, Count Frontenac & New France Under Louis XIV
                   France & Englamd In North America
                   Montcalm & Wolfe
Plutarch, Lives of the Noble Greeks & Romans
Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Caesars
Tacitus, The Reign of Tiberius
Thucydides, History of the Peloponessian War
Tyler, England in America 1580-1652
Windham, The Inheritance of Rome:Illuminating the Dark Ages*

DR STRANGEBOOK, OR HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE MY E-READER

So last July I posted here my thoughts on whether or not I should buy an
e-reader. Well, I gave in and bought one at my store back in November.
It was more an occupational decision than for any of the usual reasons
one buys a an e-reader. I work at Borders so I bought our Kobo reader
so I could better learn all about the machine I would be selling our
customers. I have to say that I'm happy with it. It's a basic black & white
screen reader, but that's all I need. I already have a laptop to surf the
web and send emails, so when I'm reading my Kobo, I don't have those
distractions to tempt me away from what I am reading. 


It came already loaded with one hundred classics and I've read some of
them already, The first was Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book which I'm
ashamed to say I hadn't read before. I've also downloaded a bunch of
free books, including a five volume history of ancient Athens by Bulwer-
Lyton. Plutarch's Lives, and Suetonius' Lives of the Twelve Caesars .
(Hey, I'm a history geek!) I've also actually purchased several books,
two of them books on ancient history and the third a fantasy novel.

That last one is The Bards of Bone Plain a wonderfully poetic work
by one of my favorite writers, Patricia McKillip. I enjoy the book, but
I have noticed that it doesn't feel the same as reading an actual physical
copy. Oddly enough, this is the only e-book I've had this sensation with
while reading it. Perhaps because she is a favorite author? I've had no
similar reactions reading my history books on the Kobo.

If I have one complaint about the e-books, the older ones especially, it
is that I can't flip past the long introductions to get to the the actual text.

Anyway, you can read an excerpt from Bards of Bone Plain here !

And I'll give a more complete list of "What's on My E-reader" soon.
I can't do it now, because it's recharging at the moment!

MY FAVORITE ARTHURIAN NOVELS

About a month ago NPR had an article by author and critic Lev Grossman
about T.H. White's great Arthurian novel, The Once and Future King.
It caused me to list my top five favorite Arthurian novels. I have to admit
I cheated a bit as I counted Mary Stewart's Merlin Trilogy as a single
work.

So here are my picks:

The Merlin Trilogy by Mary Stewart
Sword at Sunset by Rosemary Sutcliff
Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
The Once and Future King by T.H. White
Hawk of May by Gillian Bradshaw

I recall once reading something somewhere that there have been more
novels written about Arthur and the Matter of Britain than any other
subject. I'm not sure how accurate that is but I do know that I've read
every one that I've seen since I was a kid. Stewart's books are still my
favorites to this day with Sutcliff's a close second.  MZB thought it was
the best Arthurian novel she'd ever read. Mists of Avalon is Bradley's
masterwork and White's book is simply magical. Hawk of May by
Bradshaw is a fresh look at some of the Welsh elements of the legend
especially the story of Gawaine(Gwalchmai) and Morgaine Le Fay.
What all of these books have in common besides the subject is great
characterization and writing.

Bradshaw's book is probably the least known of all of these. Luckily,
it's once more available in a large paperback edition, so you can buy a
copy and see for yourself how it stacks up against your favorite Arthurian
works.

By the way, what are your favorites?

 

SERIOUSLY

Every good story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Except for
your favorite book series, which as we all know must go on forever.

I was thinking about this the other day when I finished "The Silver
Mage"  the fifteenth and last book in Katharine Kerr's Deverry
series. On the one hand, I'll miss visiting her wonderfully detailed
world and it's characters. On the other end, it should be the
author's choice as to how and when they stop writing about their
creations. And I'd rather have all the threads of a series brought         
to a satisfying conclusion by its creator than to have them keep on 
writing it because it's profitable. That's when writing becomes an
industry, not a craft, and I think it's pretty easy to spot when a
writer reaches that point, because there's a certain spark missing
from their writing.

Of course there's the other sort of ending for a series, the one
where its creator suddenly dies without having brought things
to that satisfying conclusion I mentioned in the last paragraph.
An example that comes to mind is Robert Jordan and his
"Wheel of Time" series which just seemed to roll on and on
right up to his passing. His fans worried that it would never be
completed. Luckily, Jordan's widow and estate had his notes
and outlines for the last three books and selected another
fantasy writer, Brandon Sanderson, to write them and bring
the series to a close.

There's some discussion if there is anyone who could continue
Robert Parker's Spenser or Jesse Stone series. I have to
confess I'm of two minds again about this. I am a big Spenser
fan and the thought of no more new novels with Spenser and
Hawk and Susan saddens me. But could anyone else write 
dialogue like Parker with the same wit and flair? I don't know.
Ironically, Parker himself completed "Poodle Springs", an
unfinished novel of the late Raymond Chandler.

And then there's the series that have become family traditions.
Anne McCaffrey's son Todd now writes novels set in his mother's
Pern universe, and Clive Cussler's son has begun co-authoring the
Dirk Pitt series.

So, what series are you a fan of that you will miss when they come to
their end, untimely or not?

ON LISTING AND SHELVING BOOKS

One of the things I've just started to work on with my book collection
is cataloging them using the Goodreads application on Facebook.
Back when my sister gave me her old AppleII GS, the first thing I
did with it was to do a book catalog and print it out on the dot-
matrix computer. I just liked the idea of having that list of books
I owned down on paper. Yeah, geeky, I know.

Goodreads works well. Besides putting together my list with it I
can display my library on my blogs which might generate comments
from people who've read the same books that I have.But rating my
books sometimes gives me pause. It's like trying to decide which
child is your favorite. I realize that those just keeping track of books
they've read can give a book they don't like 1 or even no stars, but
these are books I own, and why would anyone keep a book they
hate? So I end up rating my books with mostly 4 or 5 stars.

Another task I need to get around to is the actual organizing of the
books. While I may not put them in perfect alphabetical order (but
I really should, considering I work in a bookstore), I should at least

group all the books by an author together. Over the years I've gotten
in the habit of shelving the hardcovers and paperbacks separately.
So there's that to do as well. And it will make the cataloging easier.

I don't know how long this will take but it'll keep me out of trouble!

TO E, OR NOT TO E, THAT IS THE QUESTION....

That would be whether I should give in and buy an ebook reader.

As my geneablog readers and Facebook friends might recall, I've
been very skeptical of ebooks. I love printed books, the feel of the
page, the art on the cover, the slow deliberate act of turning a page
to read.I've spent many hours in my life reading sitting inside or out.
I can't imagine a world where there are no printed books available
in libraries or bookstores, although there are those who assure us
that day is not far in the future.

But lately, I've been tempted.

One factor is my new apartment. I had to downsize my library
when I moved here, and I don't have the room to buy all the books
that have come out since the move that I'd like to buy. I eliminated
most of my history books, and as much as I love the sf, fantasy, and
mystery genres, I miss having books at hand about ancient history or
the middle ages. I could use the ebook reader to purchase those books
and books by new writers. However I'd still buy printed books by my
favorite authors.

Another factor is affordability. The prices have become to drop, and
there's an ereader out there on the horizon for $119.95. Some of them
come preloaded with one hundred classics.

A third factor is that some of them can have documents loaded onto
them. I could bore my co-workers with my family tree, blogposts,
poetry, and stories. "Here, see? That's the post I wrote about my
ancestors who....".

Of course there would be a limit. No Kindles or Nooks. They are,
after all, the competition.

So there's the question, and there's the arguments for making the
plunge into being an ebook reader owner.

I'm still deciding.