He was a Wizard with the power of a God…
She was the essence of beauty, forged in darkness…
He (not the first he, another he) was the greatest bard of his age…
It was a robot, programmed to kill…
Wizards vs. Robots…
No matter who loses… we win.
Admit it – you want to know more. Read more…
I love books. Not just for the words inside, but the way they smell, the way they look on a shelf, the way they sit in your hand… I love old books with illustrations that speak to a different era and new books that use the latest laminating techniques for eye catching covers. Books are pretty great.
Through my teenage years and into my twenties, I never once checked out a library book – why would I need to when I had a veritable library at my fingertips at the bookstore where I worked? As it was a used bookstore, I was allowed to borrow, but I usually bought them anyway. By the time I graduated from college and left retail, amazon.com had trained me on a new way of satisfying my reading itch, sans shipping and sales tax. Working in publishing, even more books came my way – both ones I worked on and the comp copies sent from friends at other companies. It’s only when I moved—eight times in as many years—and had to cart those 20+ boxes of my prized collection, that I regretted my bibliophilia.
A few months ago, I finally swore off buying books impulsively and joined the 21st century by getting a library card. (Seeing as I live within 3 blocks of the San Francisco public library, I no longer had an excuse not to). So much has changed since I was pudgy and wee and checking out books about mice on motorcycles and vampire bunnies. Did you know that you can browse the card catalog…online?! And what more, they’ll even pull the books and have them sitting at the counter all wrapped up for you and ready to go. I know! It’s like all this time, it’s been Max Keebler day and nobody told me!
So far I’ve caught up on Kim Stanley Robinson, saved myself $20 a pop by borrowing the latest from Paul Auster and Murakami, learned about the wonders of tulips and the evils of corn courtesy of Michael Pollan, read about gold farmers, Hadals of the subcontinent, Yzordderrex and expats. On queue, I’ve got Stephenson sci-fi, Sweedish noir and some T.C. Boyle I skipped before.
The freedom offered by a library—no cost, no commitment, virtually no limits—is both exhilarating and intimidating. I’ll discover a hundred new bands in a year and see as many films and I feel pretty well informed about both, but books? As much as I love them, when it comes to reading, I’m still such a novice.
I don’t really have any point to make today—rather, I need to flex my blogging muscles just a little (as I’ve been flexing my poor legs trying to get back into jogging) before I lose all momentum. Consider this a warm up for what will hopefully be a more substantial posting in the next day or two.
With a new job starting in two weeks, I’m going to spend my last days of self-employment in sunny Costa Rica. While I’m gone, I’m sorry to say there won’t be any updates to gobblin.net. I will definitely get back to the writing once I return on March 12th — hope to see you again then!
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