LIBRARYTHING

While I like to read books, I didn't own that many books.  Most of the books I already read were borrowed from public library.  Public library, a great use of taxpayers' money.  For the handful of books I owned at one time, years ago I used Delicious Library, a cataloging software for the Mac, to keep track of them.  Its interface is a book shelf, very elegant.  Perhaps because of some upgrade of the operating system, Delicious Library stopped working, along with many other software.  I hate it when Apple does that.  All of a sudden, a bunch of my software simply stopped working because they rely on codes that Apple decided to drop.

Not long ago, through the NextDoor app, I connected with an elderly woman who needed to gently dispose of her book collection.  She could have just dumped them, but she hated to see books go to waste.  Over a few trips, I brought a large chunk of her collection home.  All of a sudden, I have a lot of books to catalog!  Recently, by chance, in a Facebook group for supporters of Little Free Libraries, I learned about LibraryThing.  A free app for the iPhone, also accessible via a browser.  I don't mind paying for software I really like but the trend of forcing the subscription model stinks.  I get it that developers need money too, months after months, but I don't want to pay for something continuously just to be able to use it.  LibraryThing is great!  Free is good!

Here is a snapshot of what I currently have cataloged:

There are only twenty-four books in my catalog at the moment.  I definitely didn't spend enough time with LibraryThing.  But it got me to complete reading a few.  It's nice to go into the app and add a Completed Reading Date.  The scanning feature is great, but for some reason not all books are in whatever reference database that they use.  For example, the Star Trek book had to be entered manually via its ISBN number.  One minor quibble I have about the software is that when you edit a book, say, to indicate when you finished or started reading it, the Save button appears at the top of the Edit screen but as you scroll to find the field you want to edit, the Save button rolls out of view.  The Close button, however, remains visible the whole time.  A few times, I made the change, but mistakenly tap the Close button instead.  The program gladly close and didn't ask for confirmation that the change(s) was to be abandoned!  Overall it's a good program with a very good price.

FAUX LFL RE-SURFACED

 According to my son, my faux little free library went out of commission in April this year.  I cannot seem to remember these little things.  It was held up by two keyring hooks attached to an I.V. pole.  My Mother one time had a nurse come to the house to administer some fluid injection and when the work was done we were left with two I.V. poles, one of which became the support for my faux lfl.  I think one time I had too many books in the milk crate and the wind was strong, the hooks, or at least one, got twisted out of shape.  Somehow I never have the time to fix it, until recently, some four months later.  This time I use zip ties and so far the lfl is holding up.  Come patronize, take a book, share a book.  On Bay 40th Street in Brooklyn NY, near 86th Street.  I still have the cello-shaped magazine rack that also serves as an lfl.  It is chained to the fence with a lock but this past weekend I found it laying face down, luckily still chained.  Someone either wanted to take it for their use, or just want a piece of metal to sell to some junkyard.  Sad, that is why we cannot have nice things.

MY OWN FAUX LITTLE FREE LIBRARY

For a long time now, I want to host a Little Free Library.  Usually it's a wooden box in the shape of a house with a clear door.  Inside one would put books, free for the taking.  Ideally, others would add books to it.  "Take a book, share a book."  Of course, some people would just take and not give, but it's the hope that in the long run things balance out.  An official Little Free Library would be registered with the organization, be assigned a charter number, and be included in the organization's web site, so that people can find you.  I admire people who are good at carpentry and build one.  Or people who buy a kit and register them.  I am not sure if I can sustain the supply of books.  In the end, around November 2024, I took the plunge and built a ghetto version of the LFL box.  It's just a milk crate of sort attached to an I.V. pole.  At one time, in my house someone needed a daily I.V. drip, for plasma perhaps, with a visiting nurse.  When the treatment was over the I.V. pole was used to hang wet clothes on.  Now it is the base of my LFL, which I call "faux LFL" because I don't plan to register it.  I already volunteer much time with my local Buy Nothing group, as well as regularly checking the Buy Nothing app and Next Door app about people giving away books.  I have some success with getting books from neighbors but something even better happened today.  I happened to notice that there was a book for the movie Thelma and Louise.  It was a screenplay about the movie.  That definitely wasn't there before.  I went inside the house to do something else, when I came back out there were three books by James Patterson.  You know, that policeman in the Washington D.C. area.  Wait, maybe Patterson writes about other characters, too, but that's the first thing I thought about.  My faux LFL is getting participation from the locals!  That's the best case scenario.  I add some books, people take some, hopefully to read or to put in other LFLs, people add some, things get moved around and hopefully enjoyed.  Yes, one minor, but good, problem I have lately is I do find books I think I will enjoy so I took them, now my To-Be-Read pile is getting higher and higher.  I was reading Book 1 of Isaac Asimov Foundation series, but then I found the book Dad Jokes Too (Two, get it?).  I don't know where the Jokes book went so I probably will go back to Foundation.  Among the pile is Motherless Brooklyn, The Hurt You Give, and The Time Traveler's Wife.  Anyway, hope the flow of books keep going, no books get trashed, and people enjoy books.  Should you want to visit my fLFL, it's on Bay 40th Street in Brooklyn, NY near 86th Street, look for the huge tree.  Remember, take a book, share a book.

HOW DO I READ THEE, PART 2

In this day and age, I still prefer physical books, mostly because the public libraries still carry them and that they are less prone to damages.  They also do not require much else beside the strength to carry them and a pair of good eyes to read them.  I do not totally shun ebooks and such, especially when they are free.  Books, movies, and such have copyrights that expire after so many years.  I have heard of Project Gutenberg but somehow was not interested in reading classic books on the computer.  When I am at the computer, there are so many things to do and reading is the last thing I would consider doing.  But one day on the iPad there was a sale of the aptly-named app called Classic and I bought it.  Right within the app, classic books are downloaded for you, available on the iPad and to be read whenever you have the time and the device itself.  It did get me started with 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne but like the computer, there are too many things to do with the iPad when in possession of it.  It also does not help that I share the device with my son and my wife.  I fear being robbed of the iPad on the subway so bringing it for the commute is out of the question.


Thanks to my recent, belated adoption of the smartphone (just some Android thingy instead of an iPhone, but it does its many jobs), I have given ebook-reading another go.  The phone came with many apps, one of which is Books 1.4.5.  The app can fetch out-of-copyright books (read: free) as well as those whose copyright are still in force and thus carry a price.  Being the frugal person that I am, I only downloaded some classic books, like Great Expectations by Charles Dickens and Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.  Lately, reading Expectations is how I sometimes while away the time.  But wait, isn't a smartphone much like a computer in that you can do much with it and thus have no desire to read while using it?  Yes and no.  Like the typical smartphone, my phone's keyboard is a pain to use.  Sure I have been using the phone lately to write draft versions of blog entries but it is an unpleasant experience that I try to avoid.  Also, thanks my limited (read: 200 MB/month) data plan, I consciously avoid using the phone to access the Internet, except for the hourly or so checking of email and Facebook.  The phone can play music and such but there are times I want to use it without having to untangle the headphone.  So reading is actually a preferred use of the smartphone albeit the tiny screen is not that great for long period of time.


On the audiobook front, I rely solely on LibriVox.org, which is somewhat like Audible.com and other audiobook services/sellers, but the books on LibriVox are classic that are freely distributable.  I somewhat randomly picked The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.  The files I chose are in MP3 format and the sound player has no intelligence to bookmark my listening progress.  The story itself sometimes has entire chapter devoted to religion or philosophy, which I find boring, so I have been plodding along slowly and only up to Book 8 Chapter 8.  To make things worse, the few characters in the book are often referred to by different names, which I find confusing.  Ugh.  I should just delete the files and move on to something else but I hate to leave a book not completely read.  Maybe Dostoyevsky wrote a sequel called The Brothers Kalashnikov and it has more actions and no preaching.


Brooklyn Public Library and such has downloadable media for borrowing.  My last brush with the service was a few years ago, involving movies and the use of OverDrive software.  It was a major hassle, what with no player for the Mac and some other technical issues.  Things may be simpler with ebooks and such so I think I will give it a shot.  Eventually I will run out of classic books to read/listen so borrowing the latest best sellers would be a sensible next-step.

HOW DO I READ THEE?

I often wish that I re-kindled my interest in running sooner than 15 years after completing the 1994 and 1995 NYC Marathons.  Life sometimes gets in the way, I guess.  Reading is another old interest I wish I got back with sooner.  I cannot recall when a I got back with reading but I know there was a period of time after 1997 that I did not even know where the local public library was.  I was in a new neighborhood in Brooklyn, with a new life.  I am one of those people who rarely buy books and instead rely heavily on the public library.  Not knowing where the library was meant I did not read much, although it is possible that I borrowed from NYPL since at the time I worked in Manhattan.  Still, I am pretty sure there was a block of time during which I did not read books at all.  How did I while away all those hours commuting in the subway to and from work?

LET ME COUNT THE WAY

I cannot recall when I jumped back into reading but I am doing it avidly and in a few different ways.  In this electronic age, a computer geek like me should embrace ebooks and such but the frugal person in me decide otherwise.  The down side of buying ebooks is not that much different than physical books.  They cost x dollars and most likely will be read only once, at most twice.  I am talking fiction books here, which is what I mostly read.  With ebooks, you cannot even pass them on to others, say, by donating to the public library or leaving outside your front yard in a box with a note that screams FREE.  Of course with ebook you also have to have the reader, sufficiently charged, with you, be it a Kindle, a Nook, or some other gadget.  What is more, the readers can be damaged if dropped whereas the typical physical book can take much abuse and remains usable.

Physical books are still my preferred medium.  Nowadays, I borrow from both Brooklyn Public Library and from Jersey City Public Library.  I mostly take whatever large-print books that catch my attention, although I prefer stories about the old days before technology makes life goes fast.  I especially hate books about over-stressed office workers, whether in a law firm or in a police precinct. Occasionally I would go back to paperback books, with their tiny letters, usually for the sci-fi series, especially Star Wars. Since I usually do not have time to watch movies or TV series, I also like to read whatever books based on the movies or shows, whether original or spin-off.

Regular readers of this blog may recall from posts like The Eyes Are the First To Go that I am a believer in audiobooks. Again, although there are great services like Audible.com out there, I do not like the idea of buying a book and listening to it just once or twice. You do not end up with old books taking up space in the physical world but instead the "used" audiobooks just clutter the gadget you put them in. Again I count on the public libraries to provide me with audiobooks, in the form of audio CDs. You do not have the convenience of digital books but the price is great. I do not have a dedicated CD player so end up carrying a portable DVD player but it is not so bad. Surely I can buy one for $30 or so but why buy if the DVD player works fine. Maybe I will ask around, perhaps someone I know has a CD player that he no longer uses.

Physical books and audio CDs, all from the public libraries, are just two medium I consume reading materials. To a smaller extent, I actually read ebook and listen to audiobooks, both on the iPad and the Galaxy cell phone. But let's save the discussion for next time. In the mean time, here are the books and audiobooks I read recently. I was initially disappointed that The Navigator was not about the old days of Vikings and such but it turned out to be a good thriller. The Wrecker was a good book about the old days when steam engine ruled the world. Storm Cycle is somewhat of a chick lit, which I do not care for, and involves too much computers but it was OK. I actually tried to read Cry The Beloved Country years ago on audiocassettes but never went far. South Africa and apartheid, talk about the unfairness of life! Last but not least, Impact was an interesting story about boating, covert government actions, and astronomy.

Childhood Innocence

A few years ago, probably when my son was in first grade, I took a little time off from the work day to attend a book fair at his school. Scholastic brought in a bunch of books and toys to the school and the classes got to spend some time browsing the merchandise. The fair was a small area of the school so any kids who did not have money would sit to the side while others walk about the fair. My son was among the kids sitting on the side. I deemed him too young to carry money, that was why I showed up at the school to pay for the books. He greeted me but stayed with his classmates to the side. I asked him if he wanted to buy books and he truthfully answered "But I don't have any money" and that was it. I had to point out to him that was why I visited the school at the time of the book fair, that I would pay for the books. Only then did he get up, all excited, and picked some books.

Fast forward to 2009. This past week there was another book fair - it is probably a good fund-raiser as the school seems to have them regularly. Weeks before the event son would ask for money to buy books. When I gave him $10 he even brought along $5 of his own.I was hoping he would buy some chapter books to help maintain his reading skill. He ended up buying some papery castle construction kit for $13. He even boasted that he saved me $2 by not spending the whole $15. Alas, the lost of childhood innocence.