Lunchtime with Cormac McCarthy

It used to be that a dear friend of mine (previously a literature professor at a local university) and I would get together on the pretense of drinking over-priced coffee and talk about life. I have no lack of friends but lately I have found myself more and more pressed for time. My friend tells me that our coffees together were good for him but I'm sure that I got the better end of the bargain. Because of one of our conversations, my friend gave me a copy of "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy.

Seriously, if you haven't read this yet and you need a good read go get this book.

Also, if a book that I might enjoy is being made into a movie, I try to read the book first. So I had no trouble when my wife called me up (both of us acting like I didn't know that she was shopping for my birthday) and she asked me to "tell her a book title". No Country For Old Men (also by Cormac McCarthy). This book now goes with me to work and I leisurely read a few pages on my lunch hour. I learned my lesson with The Road - I couldn't put it down and I was done *too* soon. I'm gonna take my time and savor this one.

"Work really cuts into your free time." - I honestly don't remember if I heard that somewhere or if I made it up myself but its very true.

"What does not kill me makes me stronger." - This one keeps getting attributed to Nietzsche but it was originally said by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. I know that "Johnny" beat "Freddy" on this one because Goethe died twelve years before Friedrich Nietzsche was born.

I guess Nietzsche had a better agent.

If you are a booklover, you NEED to read this

I was going thru the "Book Buying Addicts" group on goodreads.com and ran across this thread posted by Seth.

Seth has been helped by medication. (that's not a joke but his post is hilarious)

If you like reading books or collecting books or talking about books (i like all three) then goodreads is a good place to hang out - and it's free (i like free, too).

Even MORE book stuff

More booksites that I am still checking out (in alphabetical order):

http://bookins.com/ - a bookswap site "Every book you get is $4.49 regardless of weight"

http://www.booksfree.com/ - "Paperback and audiobook rental service...starting at $9.99 a month" On one of the goodreads.com discussion groups somebody described this site as functioning "like Netflix for books"

http://www.bookswim.com/ - bills itself as "the first online BOOK RENTAL LIBRARY CLUB lending you paperbacks and hardcovers directly to your house WITHOUT THE NEED TO PURCHASE!" but their website is still in beta testing and they only claim 150,000 books

http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/ebooks/ - "Free ebook Library for the Microsoft Reader and palm"

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en - Google has this in beta testing. Every time you refresh it randomizes a new selection of books. I like it and i haven't even really used it yet. (i could spend way too much time just surfing book titles)

http://www.mobipocket.com/ - ebooks - "39,000+ Premium titles, 10,000 free ebooks" and other cool stuff. I spent a little while scanning the free titles and while most of what i saw could be subtitled "If you're having trouble sleeping, read this" there is bound to be some good stuff in there. Wait there's "Treasure Island", "The Life of Buffalo Bill Cody", "Robin Hood", "Last of the Mohicans", "Pride and Prejudice", "The Raven" and hmm - Filosofia Fundamental, Volumen III. As yet i don't have anything that handles "mobi' files and i'm still not ready to spring for a Palm Pilot but this would go a long way toward giving me an excuse....

http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page - Project Gutenberg "The first producer of free ebooks"

Of course I have to mention the one book club that I have come closest to joining (on several occasions, in fact) http://www.conservativebookclub.com/ -

"Get 3 books for $1 each"

"1000's of conservative titles"


i might join just to get this book :-)

Book stuff

One of my favorite sites on the web is goodreads - thank you Manda!

Goodreads has a lot of cool features (plus it's free!!!) and they are making improvements all the time. I'm in 3 discussion groups right now and the one that I think is the most fun is "Book Buying Addicts Anonymous". No, I didn't start the group, but I could have.

One of our discussions has been "where do you get books cheap?" and (even though I haven't completely checked these sites out yet) here are (in alpha order) some of the online sources that people have mentioned.

http://www.abebooks.com/ - Mentioned as a great way to connect with independent booksellers
http://www.bookcloseouts.com/
http://bookmooch.com/ - Give away books, get points, ask for books from other people using your points
http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/freebooks.htm - supposed to be a great way to get "free e-books" but I'm still reading the fine print. That and the fact that I haven't yet decided if I want to try "e-books" or not. Part of me finds the concept somehow "Orwellian" and part of me is afraid that I will go absolutely nutso for "e-books". You know, something like "Reports are coming in of a strange man running around the airport screaming 'Do you see this i-pod? i have the every book on the first floor of the Library of Congress on this i-pod and you can't have it!"
http://www.frugalreader.com/ - another bookswapping site
http://www.halfpricebooks.com/
http://www.paperbackswap.com/ - "Currently free" bookswapping site that uses the 'send a book, get a book' idea. They claim over 1.6 million books available at this time
http://www.poshpoints.com/ - this is sort of "e barter" - they trade a lot more than books
http://www.titletrader.com/
http://whatsonmybookshelf.com/ - a smaller relatively new site still in the beta stage

And of course I would be remiss if I didn't mention that bookswapping is facilitated on goodreads.com by allowing you to mark "I have a copy that I'd like to swap" any time that you rate or review a book.

This of course is not intended as any "exhaustive" list (amazon, borders and ebay all go without saying, you know) but these are sites that have been listed in our online discussion. Enjoy.

Why I don't "myspace"

Who has time to "myspace"? According to wikipedia, as of September 8, 2006 (yeah, almost a year ago) there were 106 million MySpace accounts. As I heard it stated the other day, if MySpace was a country, it would have been the 11th largest country on the planet. At the rate MySpace was growing then, it would have somewhere between 75 - 85 million more accounts by now. So one could say "How could almost 200 million people be wrong?"

Well, I'm not saying that they're "wrong". But I am saying that I have too much electronic "stuff" in my life already.

email
GoodReads
Blogger
UltraCorps - electronic RPG
Wikipedia
Google Earth
MapQuest
YouTube
eBay
NewsMax
(seems like I'm forgetting something)

Offline I have church committees and that annoying but necessary activity know as "Work"

Yup, my plate is full - sorry MySpace.