part 370 fresh flowers on a side table in the morning

[aphanon_meme]

Um, 2020 was a year that happened. 2021 is a new year that will happen! With flowers! And side tables! And mornings! And I didn't want to make some sort of 20s-themed name because look what happened in 2020, look what happened.

Enjoy part 370!

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Comments

itt: books

[(Anonymous)]

okay it's like 1 am where I'm at but

books? books? book thread.

what're you reading?

do you like to buy books or prefer library? e-books?

have you ever gotten rid of books and if so, why?

Re: itt: books

[(Anonymous)]

book dummy

Re: itt: books

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not reading anything because I prefer library and it's closed right now :(

Re: itt: books

[zeetee]

Working my way through Sense & Sensibility, next will be a reread of Redwall, I think. I’m so excited for the showwww...

I buy, these days! Even pre-pandemic I was getting pretty bad at going out to the library, I’ll try to be better about that.

Rarely. There are some Little Library boxes in town, so if I find something I want I leave an offering from my duplicates pile. (I have a tendency at used book sales to nab an old favorite and then realize I already have it...)

I have a nice new rotating bookcase that’s gonna hold my eventual Discworld, Sammy Keyes, and Redwall collections! *u*

Re: itt: books

[(Anonymous)]

What do you think of S&S?

Re: itt: books

[zeetee]

I like it! I average about one Sensible Chuckle per page, sometimes even a Surprised Bark Of Laughter! I identify fiercely with Elinor.

It’s really only slow going because I often get sleepy when reading, and ironically the omnibus it’s in is too heavy to use as bedtime reading.

Re: itt: books

[(Anonymous)]

I'm looking for a new book to start this weekend. Not sure what I want to read right now.

I... have a bad habit of buying tons of books, then never reading them. So I've been doing periodic book unhauls since the pandemic started. It's nerve-wracking and a bit freeing all at the same time. I haven't actually uh, gotten rid of the books--they're all stacked in sealed boxes while I try to find somewhere that's taking donations. And honestly sometimes I want to rip open the boxes and take books back. I have a very "collector" brain and it definitely contributed to book hoarding!

Getting an e-reader definitely helped because I can go okay okay, get rid of The Joy Luck Club that you've had for 10 years but haven't read, because you can just check it out on the e-reader and if you REALLY like it, you can find a cheap used copy for sure later on.

/sa

[(Anonymous)]

Also I used to go to library book sales and thrift stores and get so SO MANY BOOKS, simply because they were 25 cents or $1 each or sometimes even less. I liked the idea of having sections in my bookshelves--oh here's my historical fiction medieval section, here's my historical fiction tudor section, here's my English history section,here's my highly specific "books about ladies-in-waiting and women adjacent to famous historical figures" section, here's my giant pile of Red Riding Hood adaptations, etc--but the pandemic has actually helped me rewrite my priorities regarding books. The priority is now books that I have read and LOVED, books within very specific niches (like Romanov history) and books that are rare, not in the library system, and don't have an e-book version that I can pickup. These go in my "READ BEFORE X DATE" pile, and if I don't read them, out they go.

Re: itt: books

[zeetee]

Oof, same, I’m pretty picky but I still wind up with tons of books after library sales... The past few sales pre-covid I brought my rolling backpack to haul them home!

(Seeing your other comment... AnastasiaFic!anon? That you? ‘o’a)

Re: itt: books

[(Anonymous)]

Pre-covid library sales are a weakness! Somehow any pickiness about books goes out the window when they're so cheap.

(I miss them. But I wonder, when they open again, how I will approach them!)

And omg same! I would bring one of those rolly shopping carts you use to bring in groceries from your car.

(Seeing your other comment... AnastasiaFic!anon? That you? ‘o’a)

IT....IS..... ;adfs; ;;;; /twilight zone music

not to be weird but ngl I think about a comment you made on one of my wips whenever I'm working & editing.

It's now an expanded meta-ish novel with the Anastasia POV being an interlude in between the story of a protagonist who is playing Anastasia in the 2000s play, before the final 2 Romanov bodies were discovered!

Re: itt: books

[(Anonymous)]

I am not much of a reader but I found the audiobook for "No longer Human" on YouTube. I am excited to start hearing it.

Re: itt: books

[(Anonymous)]

I've heard the book is good! I've never read it myself though.

Re: itt: books

[(Anonymous)]

I miss browsing the library for new books, so much. I loved going early on Mondays to nab the new releases first.

I do have an e-reader and enjoy it.

I had to move across country and there was simply no way to keep all my books with me. I kept my childhood favorites and rare books I couldn't easily rebuy if I wanted to.

Re: itt: books

[yuuago]

I read a lot of garbage.

The library is open for contactless pickup, so at least I can keep this book habit going. Honestly, ever since I got my card, I rarely buy books any more. When I do, it's usually either poetry or niche nonfiction (Nordic history post-vikings, polar exploration, naval history).

If I'm not likely to read or refer to a book again, I don't mind letting it go. We used to have a Little Library near me and I liked taking stuff down and possibly finding new books to read. The boxes were removed after covid, though. Hopefully they'll be put back at some point.

Re: itt: books

[(Anonymous)]

maybe it's because it's after midnight but I read "I read a lot of garbage" and bust out laughing.

Oo I want to hear more about this niche polar exploration non-fiction. Got a favorite or two?

Re: itt: books

[yuuago]

;) I live to please, anon. (I do read a lot of garbage, though! Mostly mysteries.)

Re: Polar exploration. You ask that and I suddenly forgot every book I've ever read. But here are a few.

The Last Viking: The Life of Roald Amundsen by Stephen Brown. About the guy who was the first to sail the Northwest Passage, the first to visit the South Pole, the first to cross the Northeast Passage, and fly over the North Pole... Amundsen was a really interesting guy and this is the book that made me take a look at 20th-century polar history.

Race for the South Pole: The Expedition Diaries of Scott and Amundsen. This one is interesting because it's a contrast between two expeditions, with the same goal, which took place at the same time: one that was meticulously planned and went exactly as expected, and one that was a clusterfuck and ended tragically. Looking at them together just really drives home how and why it all went the way it did. I'd read Amundsen's diary before, and excerpts from Scott's, but the part that makes this book interesting is it also includes Olav Bjaaland's diary - unlike the other two it was never intended for publication, so we get a look at Amundsen and the Norwegian side of the expedition that nobody was ever intended to see.

Dead Reckoning: The Untold Story of the Northwest Passage by Ken McGoogan. Kind of rolling my eyes at the title now that I think of it, because every Canadian knows the story of the Franklin expedition, but this particular book is notable because (at the time of purchase) it was the only one that was up-to-date enough to include information about the recently-rediscovered wreck of the HMS Erebus. This author also wrote Lady Franklin's Revenge, which I don't own but have read - it's a biography of her and the story of her exploration-related ambitions, and how she handled the fallout of the Franklin expedition. She was a very interesting person in her own right.

In general it's not just exploration stuff that I like - I'm very drawn to anything that relates to cold settings, fiction and nonfiction both.

Re: itt: books

[(Anonymous)]

I don't know if this is the right thread, but, I get so sad that very few of my younger relatives like reading anymore. I miss being able to buy books as gifts, knowing they'd actually like them. One of my cousins is 20 and she kind of offhandedly said on the phone this summer, and I can't even remember how it got brought up, but she basically revealed (in a very soft, nice, not snarky way) that she hadn't read a single book I'd gotten her as a gift in 3 years but she was pretending like she liked them when she opened them because she didn't want to be rude.

Re: itt: books

[zeetee]

oh oof ouch, that's really sad, anon, I'm sorry D':

Re: itt: books

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah it was like a gut punch, I felt really stupid for spending time/energy looking for books that I thought she liked, when she wasn't reading them (or any books) at all.

Re: itt: books

[(Anonymous)]

I just finished Anne With an E *blows a kiss for the show* sucks that it was canceled. I really enjoyed it and felt that it captured the spirit of the books really well. now I'm trying to find my old books so I can reread them.

I used to buy books until my fave college professor gave me his old kindle and from then on that's what I use! I have like 50 books on it and hundreds of fics from AO3.

Re: itt: books

[(Anonymous)]

the show was so good, sob.

whaat you can put fics on kindle?

Re: itt: books

[(Anonymous)]

This show just kept getting better with every season. I was so disappointed to find out it won't be continued :( it's also the first show I can remember watching that addresses native people in Canada so it's honestly such a shame

It's just like plugging a smartphone into your computer (as long as it's an Android I suppose)! You just need the right cable. AO3 has an option to download fics in different files, so I just copy paste these to my Kindle. It really saved my eyes, I get tired a lot faster when reading on my computer. You should give a try if you can

Re: itt: books

[(Anonymous)]

Currently reading The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie. I'm 30% of the way through according to my tracking app and still don't really like any of the main characters so far. The writing's okay but I'm not particularly blown away by it, so I think I'll finish this book but not the rest of the trilogy unless something really seizes me about the rest of the book.

I prefer library except for books I really love, those I buy to support the author and be able to reread the book whenever I want.

All the time when I need to make space for other things or I have to move and, again, need to make space in the moving boxes for other things.

Re: itt: books

[(Anonymous)]

What tracking app do you use?

Re: itt: books

[(Anonymous)]

Pocketbook on android.