Ed Lynskey's Blog: Cracked Rearview Mirror - Posts Tagged "books"

Several fellow readers have shared their very positive experiences with their Kindle gizmos. They do sound cool as beans. Imagine carrying a mini-library in the palm of your hand. Amazing stuff of Star Trek. From an author's standpoint, I know I don't care how my books might be read, just grateful they are. Still, I can't view myself completely giving up the paper sort of books. Maybe next year Santa will leave one under the tree.

Theres a hefty bio. of Mickey Mantle out now. Welcome news for avid baseball fans like me. I never got to see him play, a bummer. But I remember after 9/11 how watching the horsehide sport was a succor and diversion. Yeah, we need baseball. Earlier this year, Ron Menchine passed away. He was the unadorned radio voice of the Washington Senators (before they schlepped off to Texas and became the Rangers), and his broadcasts of their games was a lifeline to a gawky kid like me living out in the sticks. I love the Web for keeping me abreast of what's all the latest in baseball. The Washington Nationals stay bookmarked on my browser. Bring on the boys of summer. Until then, I'll read the Mickster's biography.

Everybody has a preferred place to hang out when they're reading. This assumes you've got the leisure to read between all shopping, work, and just keeping together body and soul. As a kid, I liked to read books in a shady copse of pin oaks. Reading on a bus or auto that's in motion leaves me sick. On the other hand, reading in bed at night seems to claim a lot of my book time. I don't have an e-book reader (yet), so I can't comment if owning one makes it easier to read during the various slow times throughout the day. I see readers in the bistros and coffeehouses, but the outside noise distracts me.

Mercy. Somehow I got the days this week mixed up, and the library has shorter hours, and I didn't pick up my fix, er, I mean my books being held on reserve. So there you go. If I had made it to the library in time, I'd be reading IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT this holiday weekend. As it is, I'll substitute a book title I've already read. Tomorrow we may go see TRUE GRIT, so at least I read that Western this summer.

Anyway, here's wishing the best reads for all in '12.

I started out to reorganize my Good Reads list of books, and I realized how my fiction reading tastes have almost run full cycle. When I was a kid, I liked mysteries and Westerns with a dash of horror. Sometime early on in college, my choices ran to the more literary genre (probably driven by the required reading lists from the profs' classes). Now I'm back to reading crime fiction though I can see Westerns, literary, and some speculative fiction titles. I guess that shoots down my full cycle theory. I probably read whatever title strikes my whim at the time. "Ecelectic" might be a more accurate way of describing it.

On New Year's Day, we decided to splurge and eat lunch out at our favorite Indian restaurant's buffet. I saw a young girl, maybe she was ten or eleven, seated at a table and she was reading an honest-to-goodness book in her lap. I couldn't see its cover and have no idea what it was or who wrote it. Harry Potter or some such YA, maybe. It came as a bit of a surprise. I just haven't seen anybody, much less a young person, reading a book in public for a while. Maybe she was being grounded and had her cell phone confiscated. But she appeared to be absorbed and entertained by the storyline. Just a passing observation, it's stuck with me.

When I had a long commute to a new job, I used to get to the office as a snarl of nerves from fighting the traffic gridlock. Radio wasn't much to write home about. Then somebody made the suggestion that listening to books on tape or CD might take off the edge. So, I gave it a whirl. I think I may've first listened to Will Patton narrating a James Lee Burke title. It turned into such a successful experience that I branched off to listening to other books. I'm not sure why exactly, but the driving became less intense although I wasn't any less attentive. Then we moved and the commute grew much shorter, thus pretty much ending my listening days. I see all the CDs of books at the library, and I wonder if the commuters ever check them out.

While I was out walking my two miles (doctor's orders), I thought of the different books I've opened, and the different items tucked inside their pages. For example, recently a list of heart meds/times a fellow was taking filtered out of a Western I'd checked out from the library. The list was a Xerox, and he'd obviously cut out a bunch of them as reminders. Then once I found the crayoned pages torn from a kid's coloring book lodged in a novel I'd purchased in Bermuda. The page may've had sentimental value for somebody in the past. I've heard of absent-minded folks sticking banknotes and checks into books, though none of those have come my way. Cardboard bookmarks are fairly common. Or those crinkly paper slips of the titles printed out by the other library patrons. A business card for a tree service came from a book along with chewing gum wrappers, both used as placemarkers. I've even run across the lucky four-leaf clovers pressed between book pages.

Yep, sure do. I saw this topic during my cyber prowls early this early morning before the rest of the civlized world awoke. I'll admit it. I do peek every now and then. To me, it doesn't ruin the story one bit. If I happen to read a spoiler, say, given in a review, it doesn't bother me. Of course, when I write my reviews, I have to be sensitive to those readers who do object. Surprise endings and twists delight me while reading, but I'm usually more interested in the character development and the prose style and other good stuff like that. Different strokes, I guess.

Americans are big on getting autographs. I don't know why. The same deal goes for novels. Get the author's signature, and it ups the value of your book. (I mean the paper version, not the digital e-book.) Collectors of modern first editions and just regular fans love to get their books inscribed. Every now and then while browsing in a used bookstore, I'll happen across a novel signed by someone of note. A college professor of mine said he found a signed copy of Tarantula by Bob Dylan. That was cool. Authors like to sign their books for the bookstores. Going to readings to buy and getting books signed can be fun. You get to chat with the author while s/he inks your book. So far, I've only signed my dad's copies of my novels ;-).