All My Books

I’ve decided to do something vaguely nutty.

I realized a few days ago that I’m verging on becoming a cat lady, only without the cats, and also without being of the appropriate gender. One friend claims I’m a shut-in computer nerd, which isn’t true. Because nerds make good money on their obsessions, while I am merely a geek, one who has odd and interesting knowledge that is not easily monetized.

(As an aside, a dork is someone who has completely useless knowledge, such as knowing the complete layout of the U.S.S. Enterprise, NCC-1701D.)

And really, computers are just shiny, pretty, and wonderful things that I like to tinker with. Sometimes I like to know that you can do certain things with them that I would never in a million years actually do. But it’s nifty, and I like to play. It’s relaxing.

Where I’ve usually been obsessive is my book buying. And also my tendency to eat out way to often, which I seem to have finally cured, by the way (three trips to a restaurant in a month, and two of those to a pizza by the slice place). And I’ve even managed to refrain from buying books, which is hard because I live next to two used book stores, which usually have a sort of crack cocaine like pull on me. But having a good internet connection, and my lovely Sony Reader give me new and cheaper ways of soaking up information.

I used to be terrible about buying books. My rationale was that I would forget to return the books to the library, and have to pay fines, so hell with it, I might as well buy it. And after I read them, they became my reserve capital; If it was drinking night at The Red Dragon and I was short of cash, well then, that copy of Plutarch wasn’t really a necessary part of my library. Or that book on the history of food. But I’d go by a couple of bookstores and turn them into sweet, sweet liquor.

I once even cut out the middle man, showing up to an open mic at First Avenue with a suitcase filled with books, and offered them at the rate of two drinks for a book. Since it was two for one night, I thought this was a good offer. So did several people, and that’s how my copy of Jon Ronson’s ‘Them: Adventures With Extremists’ ended up in Guatemala.

But I digress. My current collection has been shorn down by three moves, and further reduced by the great sci-fi and fantasy bloodletting (really, I do want to get laid again someday), and the expulsion of every public domain book in my possession, since I can get these on the internet through Manybooks.net, and read them on my aforementioned Sony Reader.

So I’m left with…well, with what I have. Some are things I couldn’t quite part with, like my copy of ‘Bunnicula’. Yes, I have a book about a vampire rabbit. Shut up, it was an important part of my childhood. Same with my copy of ‘The Rape of Kuwait’, a propaganda book put out by a public relations firm hired by the Kuwaiti royal family to help get American opinion behind the first Gulf War. A book of poems about Istanbul. Etc.

Others are books that are thick and heavy reference books. ‘The Oxford Companion to United States History’ and ‘A Guide to the Ancient World.’ I should sell them, since really they aren’t as useful as a Google search. But I like to browse with them, so they’ve stayed.

There really isn’t any rhyme or reason to it other than at some point I decided, “Well, it’s worth carrying this fucker up another flight of stairs.”

So I’m going to start putting pictures of my books on Flickr. All of them, eventually. Some of them I’ll give a little mini-summary on Flickr. Others I’ll review here. I could use any number of websites that are out there for sharing and storing book info, but I don’t feel like signing up for another website. And I’ve got that Flickr Pro account I’ve paid for just sitting there.

I also haven’t read all these, by the way. I mean, what’s the point of owning a lot of books you’ve already read, right? So I’m hoping this spurs me to reading a little bit more again, or at least reading away from my RSS feeds.

And also, these are my kitties. I am mad old book man, screaming insane gibberish to randomly accosted strangers. If you’re not careful, I’ll start throwing them at you.