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Book waffle
Apr. 27th, 2020 06:10 pmRest day.
I note changes in Dreamwidth have meant Rich Text is now unusable, so I can't italic book titles or cut text. This bugs me. And yes, I've cleared my cache and yes, I've told them. I'm not the only one.
All jobs are done, it’s a public holiday and we're under quarantine, so you know where I was, apart from half an hour strolling around the streets this evening. I made some game moves, did some reading and sorted out my Word files so everything that needed backing up has been. Got through a bit more of Winston Churchill’s The Gathering Storm.
I now know that Churchill narrowly escaped death in December, 1931, when he crossed Fifth Avenue, New York, without proper care, having forgotten that the Americans drive on the other side of the road and also what a red traffic light meant, they not existing in Britain at the time! By his own admission, he caused “a shattering collision. I was a wreck for two months.”
Sometimes I just read one book at a time and power through it quickly. At the moment, for some reason I’m not able to settle on any one book, so have several of them on the table next to my armchair and also the Kindle, usually the go-to for more lightweight fiction. Well, sometimes. I’m also pushing through Moby Dick, [64% complete) which I downloaded from the Gutenberg site, since the cost of e-books has risen lately, thanks to the abysmal exchange rate.
I like to read an actual book where finances permit, so bought William Gibson’s The Agency from Rabble Books in Maylands. I expected to like it more than I do, to be honest; I enjoyed his earlier works, but this one seems to be very slow moving and I’ve had to page backwards to remind myself who characters are. Probably also a result of reading several at once, to be fair. I obtained Lewis Dartnell’s The Knowledge via Book Depository. Of all books, it didn’t seem right to have this one as an e-book. Its subtitle is How to Rebuild Our World After an Apocalypse. [And Good Luck With That would probably make a good subtitle to the subtitle].
Recent rereads have included an e-book titled The China Pandemic. I couldn’t remember how close it had gotten to reality. The answer is thankfully not very, since its fictional pandemic wipes out nearly everybody!
The author, A.R. Shaw, does create a tricky situation where a group of preppers have managed to bug out in time to save themselves, but still have no immunity, so they have to avoid all contact with a nearby group of immune survivors, who would otherwise pass the plague to them. It’s a nice twist on her part; provides dramatic tension without the otherwise inevitable band of marauders (though there are some of those also to endanger the women and otherwise be threatening) that often crop up in this sort of book.
If you think of books as ingredients for the mind’s preservation, I wonder what stew comes out of this lot? What a person reads influences them, if it’s at all memorable, and so has to affect one’s own writing. It’ll be interesting to find out.
I note changes in Dreamwidth have meant Rich Text is now unusable, so I can't italic book titles or cut text. This bugs me. And yes, I've cleared my cache and yes, I've told them. I'm not the only one.
All jobs are done, it’s a public holiday and we're under quarantine, so you know where I was, apart from half an hour strolling around the streets this evening. I made some game moves, did some reading and sorted out my Word files so everything that needed backing up has been. Got through a bit more of Winston Churchill’s The Gathering Storm.
I now know that Churchill narrowly escaped death in December, 1931, when he crossed Fifth Avenue, New York, without proper care, having forgotten that the Americans drive on the other side of the road and also what a red traffic light meant, they not existing in Britain at the time! By his own admission, he caused “a shattering collision. I was a wreck for two months.”
Sometimes I just read one book at a time and power through it quickly. At the moment, for some reason I’m not able to settle on any one book, so have several of them on the table next to my armchair and also the Kindle, usually the go-to for more lightweight fiction. Well, sometimes. I’m also pushing through Moby Dick, [64% complete) which I downloaded from the Gutenberg site, since the cost of e-books has risen lately, thanks to the abysmal exchange rate.
I like to read an actual book where finances permit, so bought William Gibson’s The Agency from Rabble Books in Maylands. I expected to like it more than I do, to be honest; I enjoyed his earlier works, but this one seems to be very slow moving and I’ve had to page backwards to remind myself who characters are. Probably also a result of reading several at once, to be fair. I obtained Lewis Dartnell’s The Knowledge via Book Depository. Of all books, it didn’t seem right to have this one as an e-book. Its subtitle is How to Rebuild Our World After an Apocalypse. [And Good Luck With That would probably make a good subtitle to the subtitle].
Recent rereads have included an e-book titled The China Pandemic. I couldn’t remember how close it had gotten to reality. The answer is thankfully not very, since its fictional pandemic wipes out nearly everybody!
The author, A.R. Shaw, does create a tricky situation where a group of preppers have managed to bug out in time to save themselves, but still have no immunity, so they have to avoid all contact with a nearby group of immune survivors, who would otherwise pass the plague to them. It’s a nice twist on her part; provides dramatic tension without the otherwise inevitable band of marauders (though there are some of those also to endanger the women and otherwise be threatening) that often crop up in this sort of book.
If you think of books as ingredients for the mind’s preservation, I wonder what stew comes out of this lot? What a person reads influences them, if it’s at all memorable, and so has to affect one’s own writing. It’ll be interesting to find out.