Why I, More and More, Really Love eBooks

For some unknown reason, I decided that today is the day to clean out bookshelves, sort through and cull some books, vacuum shelves and wipe them down with a damp cloth.

Do you know how much dust can accumulate on books and bookshelves??? How long has it been, I wondered, since I last did this. I don't know! But I'm old and my memory doesn't always work right, and that's why I can't remember when I last cleaned shelves out. Really, that is why.

iBooks and eBooks and whatever else they are called can't accumulate dust. The eReaders can't accumulate dust, unless you never pick them up to read. I will never have to do all of this work on the books in my reader and on iCloud and wherever else the books are.

And that is why I really love eBooks.  

Pffttt.... to hard copy books.  

Books Books Books

What to do about books.

I big, puffy red heart my Kindle. Love, love, love it.
(And I love, love, love Catherine the Great:  Portrait of a Woman by Robert K. Massie)

But I have lots of books...

TV room bookshelves:
Hallway bookshelves:
Living room bookshelves:

There are more in the basement.

And they are bugging me.

I am the opposite of a hoarder. I can't stand to have things around that I don't need or use. I am Goodwill's friend and now that they have opened a center near me, I am a frequent donor. But I don't know what to do about the books.

I was an English major and college was heaven: read books; write about books. What's not to like? And I thought I would never like an e-Reader. Boy howdy, was I wrong.

So I have all this space taken up by books and I'd love to donate the ones I know I will not read again to the library system. But what to do with all of the space......

I may have come up with a solution---yarn storage space!!! Where I can see the yarn!!!

I don't have a huge stash but it may be out-of-hiding-from-Baxter time for my yarn.

What I Will Take to My Grave

No, not any secrets; I don't know any secrets.

Just three things:

I will take my knitting. It's more than one thing, especially when I consider my stash, but I consider it a category, so it's one thing.

My Ipod, because who can live (although, now that I think about it, that's kind of irrelevant)without music?

And my Kindle. I love, love, love my Kindle. Since it arrived for my birthday in September, I've read twenty-four books!!! And even though I consider myself a capital R Reader, that is a lot of books in a few months. I've read new (old) authors: P.G. Wodehouse; Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (but I always figure out his Sherlock Holmes mysteries before the end/no fun there); Agatha Christie ( I NEVER figure out who done it before the end, either with Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot); PD James; Anne Perry (who, along with a friend, killed the friend's mother by beating her to death with rocks, for no apparent reason. She did some time somewhere, and is now on the loose, writing murder mysteries [write what you know?]); Charles Todd (who, even though the books are published as his, collaborates with his mother in writing them); and Alexander McCall Smith.

And new (new) authors: Emma Donoghue (Room: A Novel....ick. I never like children-in-peril stories); Henning Mankell (Wallander); Scott Spencer (Man in the Woods---liked it; kept thinking about it after I read it); and Timothy Egan (The Big Burn---about the establishment of the National Forest system. Surprise, surprise. The people in power at the time---no, not the government, the magnates, oil, rail, lumber, land--- wanted the land to remain free so they could grab it. The government managed to set aside millions of acres for the park system. Can you imagine the businesses that would have sprung up along the rim of the Grand Canyon? Dew Drop Inn perhaps?); John Grisham (The Confession); and Chris Cleave (Little Bee: A Novel).

I admit that a part of the appeal of the Kindle is the immediate-gratification factor. I hear someone recommend a book or an author, and it's MINE!!! Just that fast. It's also easy to carry, so it goes everywhere with me, in my purse.

I did consider my that I should take my iPhone, but really, who would want to hear from me, and what would I say anyway?

What have you been doing?

Me? says I, oh, nothing much....reading, knitting, listening to my music....I could use a light though...

OK---four things.