Morning rays.
We’re re-emerging.
Mowing and cleanup time today. Everything is overgrown; all the heat and humidity, plus two days of heavy rain has created a mess! Glad for the rain, of course, but boy, do I need to weed and weed whack and mow! We’re headed outside as soon as I finish this post.
There’s not much to report – I’m reading The Paris Diversion by Chris Pavone – I’ve reviewed a couple of his books in the past and he’s an excellent writer. Now that I’ve finally seen Paris, it’s fun to read books that take place there as I have a much better sense of the streets and neighborhoods.
I’m in the library queue for Kate Atkinson’s latest. Number 10, as of yesterday. I drove to B & N yesterday to get out of the house. I’ve said this before, but they have less and less books all the time. And invariably, whatever I’m looking for isn’t on the shelves. I long for a more extensive bookstore that concentrates – call me crazy – on books. We have some independent book shops around here, but they’re small and the selection is limited. Oh heck, I really just want a John Sandoe or Daunt’s Books right here in the Hudson Valley. And that isn’t going to happen!
Overgrown or not, it’s pretty out there, my friends. And allergies or no, I’m going to spend some time out there today.
Happy Wednesday.
I just got three Kate Atkinson books at the used bookstore. I am reading “Case Histories” first. I have found I like showing up early at the drama camp and wait for my granddaughter in the car. I can just read quietly. As long as the weather isn’t hot, then I head for the Dairy Queen for ice cream and read in air conditioned comfort. I like your taste in books.
Dairy Queen and a good book sounds perfect, Tana!
Come up to Saratoga Springs or Manchester, Vt and visit Northshire Books. You’d love it!
If I’m ever there, I will. But what I want is something close to home! (I’ve been to Manchester but it was many, many years ago.)
For awhile I’ve said it isn’t amazon that’s killing the book stores; it’s the bookstores building up Amazon. None of them are stocking well. I’m in a U-town and it’s as bad, maybe even worse. We only have two good sized bookstores (one is a B&N) and only a couple of very small independents with very limited selections. And yes, they’ll order anything, I suppose but at that point, it’s just easier to skip the middleman. And it really bothers me to say this. I am finding a lot of joy in used book stores these days — some fun out of prints or interesting things I’d never otherwise encounter.
Just to play devil’s advocate, independent bookstores that are losing money to Amazon have limited dollars and are therefore limited on expanding inventory.
Barnes and Noble is another story. They’re in financial trouble. In fact, I think they’re trying to see the business. They apparently made the decision to sell toys and games and anima (is that spelled right?) and stationery and candles. Every one of those things take up space and limit space for books. They’re a huge disappointment. They’re going to go the way of Borders. Do you remember when Borders was an independent bookstore in Ann Arbor? I used to love, love, love to go there. Then they expanded and they expanded too quickly. They lost what it was that made them so wonderful.
I just finished Case Histories. I loved it! Thanks for recommending Kate Atkinson. Now I’ve borrowed One Good Turn. You might think your gardens look overgrown, but they sure look better than mine!
Isn’t she wonderful? So glad you enjoyed it!
I am lucky in regards to book stores. Not far from me there are a couple of used book stores. Then is I go west about 45 minutes I have an independent. Nice store. Fun store. If I leave my house and go east I hit the motherload. An independent that is also a yarn store!. They have a great selection of both. They often have authors in to talk. Fun times. Listen to authors while crocheting.
Lucky you, Trudy!
Noticed the same about B&N. We tried to find a book (in a hurry) as a housewarming gift for friends; only ONE copy of what we picked out, a bit more dog-eared also than what I would have preferred. I buy multiple used & new books from Amazon and would prefer not to, especially too because they pack them apparently/obviously (massive warehouses of course) hurriedly and NOT thoughtfully a lot of the time, and hard covers slide into paperbacks in the shipping box, wrecking/bending/creasing the paper pages before I ever have a chance to even start reading (but I also don’t like feeding ‘the big machine’ and would prefer to support a smaller, independent bookstore, of which none are in my vicinity). Feeling limited to know how to get books anymore (oh, for the days when it was such a simple, pleasurable experience, with lots of bookstores to just open the door and walk right in) and I know what I really need to do is simply go to the library and just stop buying books since we’re on fixed income now anyway (although I do donate and recycle what I don’t keep). So far, I don’t download; I prefer a ‘real book’ in my hand. And my cousin chides me about it; saying I’m wasting resources of paper/trees. Sigh.
I’m hot, too. We were 94 yesterday in cloying, high humidity (the sky full of clouds and glaring sun; we need RAIN and don’t get it); every year, I feel we have higher and higher humidity in summer and I don’t remember that from previous years here in coastal SoCalif. except for one really-bad El Nino summer somewhere between 1979-1985 (don’t recall the year, just where I was living, upstairs apartment with no a/c!).
What made me even crazier yesterday while unwisely out & about doing necessary errands in that kind of damaging heat was seeing idiots walking their dogs on hot pavement; they have shoes, the dogs don’t! My veterinarian had a heartbreaking story last week when we were in there, telling of how someone had stupidly (and inhumanely) run a dog behind a dune buggy and the grit/friction of the super-hot sand had sheared the pads right off the dog’s feet. He said to the owner, “What were you thinking?” My thoughts exactly. (I hope the vet turned them in to the authorities.)
And you’re not supposed to walk short-snout dogs like pugs in the heat (any dog is low to the ground and gets hotter than the human, with heat coming off asphalt or concrete and, clearly, a lot of dogs already have a fur coat) because the mushed-in nose dogs already have breathing challenges, but when you can actually HEAR them coming down the street and the dog is coughing/breathing/heaving loudly and abnormally, how can the human walking them just ignore it? I saw a mature man (probably age of late 30s or early 40s) in a ‘good’ neighborhood yesterday, dressed casually but well, riding a skateboard with a dog in that heat and you could see he was a guy who probably wasn’t unintelligent but, you know, simple test, if you reach down and the ground is too hot for your hand, it’s too hot for a dog to walk or run on. (Maybe I should consider the wisdom of a mature man on a skateboard in the first place.)
Heat is making me grumbly today although I do realize I have it easy compared to the temps from which other people are enduring in other parts of the country (like you).
I have a Kindle and I also have all my ebooks on my iPad.
I just don’t use them for reading. When I was reviewing more consistently, I did, because oftentimes review copies are ebooks. But I don’t like it. I like the real thing. You might want to tell your cousin that too much screen time has been proven to be hard on the eyes. Yes, even with a Kindle and it’s special screen. Paper used for books is not a waste. Books are an investment and those of us who love them, keep them, or donate them.
Oh, I so agree; books in my house are more important to me than a fancy coffeemaker or art on the wall. My cousin (and I do love her) is the one whose kids were on a computer almost before they could walk. And, you know what? They don’t know how to write. Intelligent, yes; but they can’t even make a signature. They print in block letters like a first grader. And they’re adults now. I know of a teacher who does ‘old-fashioned’ tests in class, like the ones which are essay questions to answer, maybe only a paragraph on ruled/lined paper. The teacher says you wouldn’t believe how many students struggle to write out a simple paragraph in that mode. (And these are COLLEGE students.) Being keyboard-exclusive isn’t ‘everything’.
My husband is spending ‘way too much time with screens. At the risk of nagging and being ineffective, I’ve been trying to point it out to him for some time. Like, at what point does it become addiction. My belief is that he’s addicted to screens. He won’t recognize it; is in denial. He wastes a lot of time at it, and all that the web trivia/social media does is fill his head with a lot of ‘fluff’ which takes up the space he could otherwise be filling with something beneficial for his brain. The screen time also delays him in getting to other projects and tasks which need to be done. It’s too much laying around or sitting on your butt, so it’s not healthy physically OR mentally. Screen time also takes away from ‘together’ time because his screen time is a solo activity; I’m not included. It’s like there’s three people in the room, not the two of us. I’m about ready to take his phone and throw it in a lake. It’s so perplexing to me, because he’s such a smart guy in all other things.
I’m glad when I was growing up that my parents restricted our TV viewing time. We weren’t deprived, but it never got in the way of homework or bedtime (or essential playtime/imagination time/family time). TV was a treat. Today’s screens seem to have become a dominating way of life, like an ‘essential’ rather than a bonus. I’ve really been trying very hard to curtail my own screen time. There was a period, ashamed to admit, when I sat at a desk computer all day long, just reading blogs. Lucky I didn’t get a blood clot for sitting hours upon hours and never moving around, no diff than sitting on a plane for a long flight.
Anyway, back to books: I was in a variety shop in another town last week and the town’s Friends Of The Library was having a used book sale in front of a grocery store. There were TONS of people going through the boxes of books. You couldn’t find a place to park in the very-large parking lot. So much happening at the book sale, that it was taking away from another store’s big debut weekend. “Real” books are NOT dead; they never will be. I’m sure my house smells of musty old books but I don’t care; I love them everywhere.
I have a love/hate relationship with screens. Obviously, I have this blog, so I have to be on my laptop daily. I try to sign out after writing my post and go back later in the day to answer comments, but I’m not always successful. And I love/hate Instagram. Again – and Don and I just talked about this – I want to control my time on my phone as well. I’ve just plain shut it down for several hours in the past and that seems to work well for me. I don’t get that many calls on my cell phone, so it’s not as if I’m tethered to it. I’m going to make a real effort to put it down and turn it off.
After we’re settled in for the evening, I actually unplug the house phone (we still have a landline) and I put my cell on ‘silent’. Reason why is the pervasive number of robo & other calls we get which are so intrusive to the home (and sleep; one cell phone call recently came thru at 4:00am). I could never do that when my parents were alive because the phone was our lifeline to them; it’s why we initially, early-on, got cell phones for them and us although Mom never figured out how to use one (NOR the OnStar in the car). But, you know, it’s like everything – – so often something that started out as good goes eventually into excess/saturation. It’s so much down to personal discipline and figuring out what works for us as individuals. I’ve always thought it was good that you said you and Don leave screens at 6pm; a mutual cut-off is important.
I purposely (with intent) never bought a internet/smart phone for myself, but we do have a home computer and I just had to do some culling by narrowing it down to a max of 3-5 blogs daily; realized I had enough food recipes; enough tips for this & that; etc. Enough. When is enough, enough. (And I’d copy a lot of stuff, print things off; so, too much paper gathering, adding to clutter.) Email really became a leash, too; I had to tell friends & family to quit sending me stuff that was intriguing to them but not to me. I’m very selective where I leave my email address; I’m asked for it a lot in daily life (like medical stuff; business stuff) and I just say I don’t have one.
What it’s about is simplification. Trying to make ‘life’ less complicated.
I’m not ungrateful for the internet. It offered a lot of medical info when I’ve been fighting illness. There are wonderful articles about travel. Good tutorials on youtube for all kinds of things. Made it easy to sign up for Social Security, get a copy of my marriage certificate when I needed one. Also lots of sites offering nostalgia that I seem to crave from the 1950s & 60s. Pick anything, and the internet will respond – – the genealogy sites; punch in words to a song whose title you can’t recall; google that elusive film actor (like, where is he now; what happened to him?); get a college degree; learn a language; work from home. Whatever interests you or is on your mind or something you need to accomplish; the internet is there … and phenomenal, truly.
I as well have a love/hate relationship with online shopping, though, because there are too many temptations; it’s just that it’s so darn convenient, and I live in a small town with few amenities.
I’m grateful for your blog, Claudia. You have a nice audience/community. Thanks for taking all the time that you do to create interesting, informative, insightful and inspirational posts. I’m hoping you keep it up, taking the breaks you need as you go. You’re a wonderful writer and I think it’s good (the blog) to keep you writing every day. A writer should write!
Thank you so much for your kind words, Vicki. xo
The weather here has been so beautiful the past few days, it’s amazing. Brian’s on vacation starting today and he’s out there now, power washing the patio, sidewalk, garage, etc. I’m going outside in a few minutes to … I dunno, help him? ;-) It’s all good…I just want to be outside! And a nearby farm stand just announced they finally have sweet corn (non-GMO), so we’ll be taking a ride to go pick some up in a bit.
The closest B&N to us (in a nearby town, 20 min drive) is closing at the beginning of August. A huge Chicago liquor chain (Binny’s) is taking over. Grrr. So now the closest B&N will be 1/2 hour away – and in a direction I rarely go. I don’t buy books there, but I do love to browse the magazines and sometimes buy one or two.
Our B & N is at least a half hour away. We’re just used to it by now!
I see that Costco has a good selection of books. They of course, don’t carry the classics though! 82 here in OB, Claudia….getting toooooo warm!!!! Just had to go up to Escondido, 45 min north of here….95′ NOT good!
Love your garden..
It never used to get that hot there. That’s one of the things I loved about San Diego. But over the years since we moved east, the temperatures have become higher in the summer. It’s sad!
Costco has some books, if I remember correctly, but mostly current best sellers. We don’t have one near us, alas!
It is a lot cooler today. Just came in from mowing the front lawn and trimming a little. Did some trimming and cutting in the back, too. I wish I had a book store near me but there is not any. My friend tried to order a Japanese mystery and a book on Japan for her trip. Barnes and Noble did not have them. Sh e had to order from Amazon.
Marilyn
That’s the way it often goes. You can only find it on Amazon!
It was much cooler here today. I got out for just a bit but I’m feeling so tired. Allergies I guess and keeping the kids for a few hours can wear me out. Still have my cough and so no gardening for me!! Reading and resting, getting to be a trend it seems. Your garden is lovely!
Allergies make me feel very, very tired. I understand! Take care, my friend.
It’s in the mid to high 70’s where I am, and I like to get my walk in during the morning or late afternoon to avoid the hottest part of the day. I got out late morning today, a lot later than I wanted, but at least got my walk and got home in time for the baseball game. Watching the game, I managed to finish the current needlepoint project of a map of San Francisco. Tonight, I can finally get to another project!
I finally began Becoming. Yeah, I’m a little late into the game. But so far, I love her voice.
I haven’t read that book and I need to put it on my list, Wendy.
Claudia,
I am feeling the same way about craft stores. Less and less craft supplies and more and more home decor. Makes me crazy.
Yes, I’ve noticed that, too!
We don’t have any bookstores near me anymore except the used bookstore that caters to newish books. It isn’t very good. Unfortunately, our library has been downsizing books for several years now. They will usually only have one of each book for all of the branches and you have to request it. Some books have been eliminated altogether. They use a lot of money for activities to get people into the library. It used to be that the books would get people into the library. I have gotten used to my kindle because it fits in my purse and I can take it with me to read while I wait anywhere. Books are always going to be better though.
Out little library has several computer terminals and lots of ebooks. I guess that’s happening everywhere, Beverly.