The Not a Book Club Club discussion
Random Musings..
My wife has a more literary bent than I do. But she also likes sci-fi/fantasy, she just tends to read more of other stuff, while I pretty much only read SFF. Right now we are reading Station Eleven together.
When I lived in the UK I became friends with a guy who owned a book stall on the local market. I used to hang out at his stall for whole afternoons browsing every single shelf and chatting with him about books (and getting coffees, as he couldn't leave the stall).I started to mind the stall for him sometimes when he had errands to run, and ended up working for him every weekend. I got paid in books, and he always saved me any damaged ones he could not sell.
He got his books wholesale and bought up palettes of leftover print runs from publishers, so we never knew what we got until we opened them up. It could be 1.000 SFF paperbacks, or 1.000 romance novels. He sold them off by the box in "3 for 5£" deals and similar offers, so we always had new boxes to open and sort through.
It was fantastic. Unfortunately he was going through an extremely messy divorce, and one day he eloped with his new girlfriend and never came back (dodging alimony to his ex-wife). Haven't heard from him since, and I mourn the loss of my best book-friend to this day :(
I'm in the same boat as you, Kat. I have some co-workers that read but not SFF. My mum does read the occasional SFF book (she loves ASOIAF and she's currently reading The Martian). Most people in my life aren't into the things I am into so I'm really glad that I've found some like-minded people at D&D.
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Kaleb wrote: "Rob wrote: "Congrats! College was one of the best times of my life. What are you planning to study?"Lately, I've considered going into Law, but I'm still not quite sure yet. The idea of another t..."
Awesome! So this is grad school?
Congratulations - that is fantastic news!
Impressed that you are signing up for even more school after college! I barely made it through just 4 years...
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Yeah after undergrad I didn't want to do school anymore. However things changed and I ended up getting a masters anyways. I took a semester off while I worked full time, then went back part time for 2.5 years, since my comapny paid for it and I got a promotion afterwards. In retrospect I wish I hadn't taken a semester off because work was crazy for my last semester. It all worked out and led to a better paying job.
The nice thing about my program was it was aimed at working adults, so I didnt need MCATs to get in or a thesis to graduate. Just 11 classes (since they made me take 1 undergrad course as a prereq)
What did you major in for undergrad?
I'm all for majoring in something you are interested in, but give serious thought to something applied, or at least a minor in something applied. My wife just gave a workshop for phd's looking for jobs outside of academia, and it was filled with English Lit phds :)
Congratulations! And several, that is even better!But I'm with Sky on the majoring in something that will lead to a job later. I became a horticulturist because I loved it, and although there is no shortage of work, I cannot feed a family with it.
I ended up getting into accounting instead, but have a hard time earning as much as my coworkers because I'm lacking the formal education for it (even though I do the same work). I have to pay for expensive evening classes to get the qualifications now, after 10+ years of work experience on the job.
Sky wrote: "I'm all for majoring in something you are interested in, but give serious thought to something applied, or at least a minor in something applied. My wife just gave a workshop for phd's looking for ..."This. I had a friend who majored in creative writing and got her masters in it and now she works billing insurance or something.
I have a law degree. It isn't an easy program but it does give you lots of options at the end. You don't have to practice law - there are lots of jobs where just having a law degree is an asset.That said, I wouldn't really recommend investing that kind of time and money, unless you have some interest in the field. It is a very competitive environment (law school) so there are probably a lot nicer grad programs out there too.
Craaaaap....I was planning to REDUCE my TBR pile. But one of the local bookstore chains had a "buy 4 pay 3" deal, and the books were all reduced to 3,99 €, so you get 4 books for 12 € (which is easily the price for a single new book).
Thalia, you're sabotaging me.
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Reduce your TBR pile?Reduce. TBR pile.
I'm sorry, those words in that combination don't really parse. I really don't understand your meaning.
TBR pile. Exponential increase.
These are terms I understand.
:)
One was a fantasy crime novel whose title roughly translates to "Elf Slaughter". C'mon, I couldn't NOT buy that!
Kat wrote: "One was a fantasy crime novel whose title roughly translates to "Elf Slaughter". C'mon, I couldn't NOT buy that!"
Sounds good, is there a English edition?
Not that I could find, unfortunately.The Original is Der Elbenschlächter.
According to the blurp on the bookshop's website it's about a wizard/troll duo operating a bit like Holmes/Watson trying to catch a killer a bit like Jack the Ripper, who is killing male elf prostitutes.
This is SO next in line on my TBR.
Wow...if I saw that in a bookstore I don't think I could resist either...
I don't think I have bought any books so far this year. Not counting my aduible subscription.
I haven't bought much because all the books I want are too expensive. I'm not paying upwards of $10 for an ebook.
Kat wrote: "Not that I could find, unfortunately.The Original is Der Elbenschlächter.
According to the blurp on the bookshop's website it's about a wizard/troll duo operating a bit like Holme..."
Thanks kat,
I'm a book hoarder. There just isn't any other way of putting it.
I tend to buy a lot of books but, generally, I stick to buying used paperbacks from thrift stores, flea markets or big book sales. So it doesn't hurt my wallet much and I can, occasionally, find some rare gems.
Kat wrote: "One was a fantasy crime novel whose title roughly translates to "Elf Slaughter". C'mon, I couldn't NOT buy that!"
:)
Dara wrote: "I haven't bought much because all the books I want are too expensive. I'm not paying upwards of $10 for an ebook."I'm with you. It has to be something unusual for me to go above $5 for an ebook.
Ctgt wrote: "I'm with you. It has to be something unusual for me to go above $5 for an ebook."I really want Nemesis Games but I refuse to pay $13 for it.
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I'm finishing City of Blades in paperback this week, and starting Sword of Shannara for S&L in paperback after. And that's only because the waiting list for the library was just to long.
Zero eBooks. Which has been my biggest problem lately.
I've been buying a lot of hardcovers this year - So far I've gotten Mobile Suit Gundam: THE ORIGIN volume 1: Activation (volumes 1 - 5) because they are so beautiful I've decided to collect the whole set. I've also picked up Radiance, Station Eleven, and Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell in hardback or library binding because my wife has been reading them. Even though I already own them in Kindle or audio. But my wife is old fashioned when it comes to books.
I got a library card recently trying to slow down my book buying, but that hasn't worked out that well for me. Still steady buying books, mostly on the Kindle. Have been taking advantage of some good Amazon deals though so I don't feel too bad. I've also recently made a couple trips to the used bookstore to donate/sell a lot of stuff that I don't care about keeping. Have limited amount of shelf space and want to make sure what I have on there is stuff I really love
I do have a library card, but I didn't pay the annual fee last year (so didn't use it). My local library only has 2 shelving units for English books, one of which is children's books and educational literature for schools. The other shelf is an unsorted mess of all genres and all age groups, but mostly YA. They have a number of first books from trilogies or series, but not book 2 or 3, which is annoying as hell. There seems to be no system to it at all, like someone looked into a catalogue and just put a bunch of ticks on an order form wherever it said 'English', then stopped when the 2 shelves were filled.
I tried to donate book 2 of several trilogies, but they do not accept donations. They must order through a catalogue.
I think I've read everything that was of interest to me, so I don't see why I should fork over 20 quid for an annual fee.
Speaking of donating books - the used bookstore doesn't want my books because they're in English. I have tried swapping books with strangers on bookmooch.com, selling them for 1-cent-a-dozen on ebay and sending them into the wild with bookcrossing.com.
I can't seem to shift my extra books no matter what I try, so I end up keeping them.
How strange, is charging a fee for a library card common over there?
That is really weird. We have lots of free book exchanges in coffee shops and community book boxes/little free libraries around where I live. You could always start one of those:)
The annual charge seems to be common. It annoys me too, since they're mostly run by the council, who get money from taxes that I pay. They also charge late fees, and an ordering fee if you make them get a book from another library for you (some won't do that at all, though).If you don't get an annual pass, you can pay a one-off fee of about 2.50 Euros for each book you borrow. But you do that 8 times and you're at the price of a library card, so go figure.
I like the free book boxes. In my town we have 2 old telephone boxes that have been converted to free book exchange points. However, it's all in German, and I don't have that many German books I want to give away, nor do I read much German. I limit it to German authors and sometimes foreign (other than English) authors who've had some success with their translated works here. In my case that means Scandinavian and French and Turkish authors, mostly.
When it comes to book exchanges / thrift stores / libraries, it seems I should move back to an English-speaking country.
Aaaaaaahahahahaha!My stepdad went to a second hand bookshop to donate his collection of Karl May books. It was a pile of 60 (yes, sixty) mismatched books of all shapes, sizes, styles and colours.
He came back home with a beautiful, matching set of.... Karl May's collected published works, comprising no less than 50 volumes.
Mission not accomplished.
(And I'm still laughing, hahaha!)
Lols, never heard of anyone doing that Kat. I mean I have took books in for exchange and come back home with more books than I left home with, but never the same books.I am sure its makes perfect sense to your stepdad.
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“The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them. To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.
To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.”
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I finally got new bookshelves! Seven new bokcases are now lining the 2 walls behind my sofas in the front room. *squeal*Already filled the first one with books that had been crammed into old bookcases in front of other books. Second bokcase will be filled with all the books that live in various piles on windowsills, dressers and side tables as soon as I stop procrastinating and start sorting through them.
And then I have another 5 cases of space <3
No idea how to upload pictures, or I would have shown you. You'll just have to imagine them :)
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The Not a Book Club Club
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But no one else seems to be much into reading in my group of family/friends