This is just a quick post to let you know that I’ll be unplugged for the next week or so. I’m moving this weekend, as I mentioned in my Sunday Salon post, and getting ready has been more work than I anticipated. I’ll also be without internet at home from Saturday until the middle of next week.
My reading has slowed pretty dramatically the last three weeks because, like always, I’ve gotten addicted to a new tv show. I love tv on DVD or from Netflix, but try not to start new shows because I have this personality where if I start one I cannot stop watching it even when I have more important things to do.
The last show this happened with was Damages. I basically stopped doing anything for three days and watched an entire season. It’s that good.
The current show is Avatar: The Last Airbender, an Americanized anime series that originally played on Nickelodeon and was just recently made into a (controversial) feature film.
I didn’t like Bill Bryson’s travelogue The Lost Continent because I thought his sense of humor was too dark, mean, and inconsistent for my tastes.
I decided to give Bryson’s travel writing a second try by listening to an audio book of In a Sunburned Country, a travelogue about Australia. While I liked In a Sunburned Country better than The Lost Continent, I’m not sure that I’ll ever love Bryson as a travel writer because he travels a lot like me, and I travel pretty boring.
This is a guest post from Amanda Ochsner, a good English nerd friend from college, future roommate, and avid gamer and journalist. This fall, Amanda will be starting a graduate program here in Madison where she’ll be studying video games and learning. In this post, Amanda is talking about a recent conundrum she came across related to her book future. Enjoy!
Today is my 24th birthday! And what do I want? Books!
Now, I’m not much of a new book buyer. It’s probably blasphemous to say that, but it’s true. I’m much happier perusing used book stores or seeing what kinds of cheap reads I can snag online rather than getting them new. If I do buy new, I almost always wait for the paperback and then try to use as many coupons and deals as I can. After spending 19 years as a student, I’m still cheap.
As the image and lame songish title suggest, I did in fact take the plunge and get myself an ereader — the nook from Barnes & Noble!
I got my nook a few weeks ago, actually, but was waiting to post until I had pictures and some stuff to say about it other than “Ohmigod it’s so cool!” I picked it up in a B&N store in Madison, which was cooler than ordering online and then waiting for it to come. The sales people were helpful, and as part of a month-long nook promotion, I got a $50 giftcard to B&N! I see ebooks in my future!
In order to celebrate my recent graduation, I decided buy myself an e-reader. But I’m stuck as to which one to get and need your help.
Right now I’m debating between the Kindle, the Nook, or a Sony E-Reader (I don’t know which one yet). I’m not getting an iPad because I can’t stand the glare from the screen for reading (that’s why I don’t read on my computer).
There are, I think, two schools of thought about summer reading. The first is that summer is a time for light, fluffy, beachy reads. Sunshine means pulling out your Patterson novels or Picoult melodramas, then laying back in the sun with a floppy hat and a margarita.
Other people think of summer as a time for reading projects — using time and vacation to really delve into something intense. That’s what I did last summer when I read Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. I didn’t always love it, but I got done and felt proud of what I’d accomplished.
I don’t generally like reading books by the Nicholas Sparks of the world because I find them melodramatic and overwritten in a way that tugs at your emotions using clichéd and obvious methods. I’m not opposed to tugging on heart-strings (The Time Traveler’s Wife made me cry like a baby), I’m just opposed to it [...]