Warring gods of winter and spring

I’m getting close to finishing up Beyond the River (about 30 pages to go!) I just started chapter 29, and it started with this sentence:

The month of March along the [Ohio] river is when the gods of winter declare war on the invading forces of spring.

I love this line. It makes me think of frost giants and ents fighting it out along the Ohio River. Here’s the rest of the paragraph:

One day a dozen daffodils will bravely burst through the earth’s surface and begin to reach for the sky, and on the next a strong wind moving up the valley will bring sheets of snow and punish them for being so bold. For many people who lived on the river, the 1850s were like one long, tormenting month of March.

Not as dramatic as battling giants, but still a pretty cool bit of writing.

Update: All done with the book. It was a pretty good read. The dozens of names got a bit confusing at times, and one of those lists of characters in the front of the book would’ve been quite helpful.

The ideal vacation spot?

A post over at Lifecruiser made something occur to me: my ideal vacation spot isn’t really the norm. Seeing the picture of Fuerteventura, I realized that I just don’t care much about sandy beaches and sunshine. I commented on the post with this:

You know, I must really have a high geek score. When I dream of vacations or places I’d be happy, it’s never on a sandy beach with the sun and ocean as my companions. A few places that do come to my mind as places I’d love to be:

1) A giant library. It needs a bit more than just lots of books, though. It’d need a decent computer with high-speed internet, as well as lots of paper, pens, pencils etc. No good having the world’s largest library without the ability to 1) blog / journal about what you’re reading and 2) take notes about what you’re reading! It’d also need a big cozy room complete with a comfortable couch, writing table, and fireplace. That’d be heaven…

2) New Zealand. I can’t help it; even though I know they used quite a bit of CGI to alter the landscape, I STILL have a strong desire to visit Middle-Earth on Earth. Who knows, I might get lucky and meet a hobbit.
3) Germany / Iceland / Denmark / Norway / Sweden. Any of those would do. The colder the better.
I just really don’t have much love for sandy beaches, etc.

So, what’s your ideal vacation spot? What about your ideal setup, if you were going to “set up camp” for an extended period of time? The giant, cozy library would be my place, definitely. I’d be up for staying in any of those other places for an extended period of time, too, particularly Germany. 6 months to a year would be great; plenty of time to get some confidence in my spoken German.

The books are taking over

They’re closing in on me. There are numerous new stacks: some bought for ultra-cheap at booksales; others given to me by friends who have culled their libraries of things they don’t want, as well as duplicates. Where they came from doesn’t matter. The fact is, the books are quickly beginning to take over.
In the past few months, I’ve gotten a lot more flexible about what I’ll read. I’m not reading Harlequin romance novels by any means, but I’m starting to read a much larger range of things than I have in the past. For the longest time I seemed to be in a bit of a rut, reading mostly history books. I still love history books, but I’m also getting into sci-fi, some new fantasy stuff, and just lots of new things in general.

This is a bit of a blessing and a curse, a double edged sword if you will. On the one hand, when I go to booksales now, it’s far easier to find stuff I want. Have a larger fishing net and you’ll catch more fish, right? Right. When I used to read mostly history, my findings at booksales were few and far between; most folks don’t buy a $30+ history book and then give it away for nearly free. I guess the bad side to this is that, to quote that great man from Jaws, “We’re gonna’ need a bigger boat.”

As my pickiness in what I read goes down, the number of used books seems to be sky-rocketing – and I’m quickly running out of places to put them. As I mentioned, a lot of them are in stacks right now, sitting about my office-like room (along with the small stack of books I don’t own, that I got via OhioLINK). I have enough shelf space to shelve all of my current stacks (I think), but if I keep finding old paperback sci-fi books for $0.25 a piece, I’m thinking a few more shelves may be in order. Or lots and lots of boxes, but I’m not too fond of that idea. My books, even the ones I’ve not read yet (and may never get around to reading*) are like friends. Locking them up inside a cardboard box just doesn’t seem very nice.

Hmm… looking at my computer desk, I think with a bit of modification (and some 2x4s), it’d hold at least 50 paperbacks.

Where’d I put that jigsaw…?

* Yes, I’ve come to accept the fact that when I die, I’ll have a huge amount of books that I never got around to reading. And you know what? That’s okay.

Currently reading – the nonfiction

I wrote a couple of days ago about what I’ve recently read, and what I’m currently reading in the fiction department. This is the sister to that post: the nonfiction I’ve read recently, and what I’m reading now.

The Dharma of Star Wars

I started reading The Dharma of Star Wars after I read about it on Todd’s blog. It’s a pretty cool book; it explains Buddhism with lots and lots of comparisons to Star Wars. As Todd mentioned, it’s surprising how much Buddhism is instilled in Star Wars. Being a long-time Star Wars fan, it’s been cool reading the book and seeing a lot of the Star Wars stuff in a quite new light. After being into the Buddhism thing for a while now, and particularly after reading a good bit of The Dharma of Star Wars, I’d like to go back and rewatch the Star Wars films. Anyway, I’m not done with the book; I’m probably half-way through it. I’m skimming a lot of it, due to the fact that I’m familiar with the concepts the author is trying to convey.

Viking Age Iceland

A few days ago I got Viking Age Iceland via OhioLINK. While I’m far from being an expert on it, I’m pretty familiar with the rest of the sections of Viking Age history. Their forays into Iceland, however, are mostly wholly new to me. For those not in the know, Iceland was quite a bit different from other Viking territories (and most other medieval territories, for that matter). There weren’t any kings or queens; the whole island of Iceland can be likened to a giant village. There were power players to be sure, but nothing like kings, who’s word was basically law. A snippet from the amazon.com page:

The Icelandic Vikings, according to Byock, professor of Old Norse and Medieval Scandinavian at UCLA, were far more than fur-clad, flea-bitten, mead-swilling raiders, as legend would have them. In this survey of their surprisingly complex society, spanning the three centuries from the island’s settlement to 1260 when the king of Norway took control of it, Byock shows the Icelanders as a strong-willed and legally minded people who managed to carve a living as farmers out of an inhospitable environment while creating a remarkably modern free state governed by powerful laws and notions of honor instead of warlords and kings.

Byock also attempts to mine the Icelandic sagas for information, which a lot of historians avoid, due to the complex problem of interpreting them. All in all, it should be a good read.

Buddhism Plain and Simple

I’ve actually read Buddhism Plain and Simple before, maybe a year and a half or two years ago. It was the first book on Buddhism I ever read, and quite honestly, it had me running in dismay shortly after having finished it. Some of the concepts put forward were just too different from what I was used to (even if I didn’t agree with the concepts I’d been introduced to in the past). Now that I feel a bit more comfortable with Buddhism, I thought I’d give it another go. I like it alright, but I’ve read other books on Buddhism that I like more. When writing about seeing the truth of things, Hagen always italicizes the word seeing. Considering how often he uses the word, this gets a little frustrating.

Beyond the River

I’m reading Beyond the River for a history course I’m taking right now at college. It’m about 130 pages into it so far. It’s following John Rankin’s work, which accompanies the strenghtening of the abolitionist movements in Ohio during the 19th century. Pretty good stuff so far.

What I’ve finished reading lately

Seeing as this post has grown to a rather large size, I’m going to wrap it up, and save the “what I’ve finished reading lately” bit for another post.

Currently reading and recently read – the fiction

I’ve not posted lately on what I’m reading, so… By the way, I’ll be taking a bit about Ringworld’s plot, so if you don’t want it spoiled, skip the fiction section.

I finished Ringworld about a week ago. While I posted previously about not liking it much, I ended up enjoying it for the most part. While there were quite a few science-rich areas that mostly baffled me (see my mention of the orbiting / approaching of the Ringworld in my first post), all in all it was an enjoyable book.

The only other thing that I didn’t care for, besides the headache inducing science sections, was the bit about Teela Brown having genetic luck. This just seemed a bit silly to me, especially when set next to the science / math heavy explanations of other stuff in the book. As an aside, Seeker, the chap the that Teela meets near the end of the book, reminded me a lot of Cloud from Final Fantasy 7. Mostly silent, badass fighter, uses a giant sword; in fact, that sounds just about identical to Cloud. Maybe some of the fellows at Squaresoft read Ringworld before starting work on the game.

After finishing Ringworld, I started Ringworld Engineers. It wasn’t really my intention to read it so soon after finishing the first one, but while browsing books at the college library, it caught my attention. I figured it was destiny (or maybe I’m just genetically lucky), so I checked it out.

I’m not very far along in it at all, maybe 30 pages. I’m glad to find that it’s picking up much quicker than Ringworld did. Seeing as we already know the characters involved (mostly), by page 30, Louis, Chmee (Speaker-to-Animals), and an unknown puppeteer are on a ship, heading to the Ringworld. That’s about all that’s happened so far, so we’ll see how it turns out as I go along.

That’s pretty much it for fiction lately. While I don’t have any concrete plans yet, when I’m done with Engineers, I’d really like to wrap up my reading of the Dark Tower series by King.. or at least read the next one, Wolves of the Calla.

I have a few books in the nonfiction department that I’m currently reading, but I’ll save those for another post.

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Has anything ever killed reading for you?

I was talking to one of my professors the other day about books and reading. He mentioned that writing his dissertation (and all of the reading associated with it) for his Ph.D. kind of ruined his ability to read for enjoyment. Have you ever had this happen?

I read a fair bit, and while I’ve gotten burnt out before and needed a break, I’ve never read so much that it all out ruined my ability to read for enjoyment. I can’t imagine that ever happening, but perhaps I’ll find out otherwise someday.

On the other hand, I’d say what he read for his dissertation is a bit different from the usual stuff I read. Even though I read a lot of history, reading a history book and reading historical primary sources is quite a bit different.

Five Questions

I saw this meme at John Baker’s blog. I wasn’t tagged by anyone to do it, but it looked like a fun meme, so without further ado…

1. Why do you blog?

Good question. Really good question. My initial thought on that question is, “I don’t really know why I blog.” If I dig a bit deeper, I come up with a few different things.

• It helps me understand the world. A professor I have this quarter has us writing lengthy journal entries on select course material. His reasoning? Writing about something helps you understand it better. Writing about something makes you think critically about the subject. Having a vague concept of something and being able to write articulately about something are two very different things. I blog because it makes me think.
• Related to the above reason, I blog because (hopefully) it helps develop my writing skills. Being able to write well is a wonderful skill to have, so I figure I might as well work on making my writing better.
• It’s fun. It’s an enjoyable hobby. It lets me meet new people with similar (and not so similar!) interests.
• It lets me bounce ideas off of other people. This brings to mind a post I saw over here. The gist of the post? Don’t get caught up in the numbers of blogging, i.e., “what, I only have 15 regular readers?!” In comparison to some blogging giants, that’s nothing. But as noted in the post above, that’s 15 people I wouldn’t communicate with on a daily basis if I didn’t blog. That’s a pretty cool point, I think. If I get even one person a day to smile, laugh, or think via my little (tiny, tiny, tiny) corner of the intarweb, so be it. That’s great.

2. Which author and/or book has most influenced you?

This may seem like a canned response at first, but it’s not: J.R.R. Tolkien. One of my older brothers loaned me his copy of The Hobbit when I was 9 or 10. I read it, then moved on to Lord of the Rings. Reading his books sparked off a number of interests, most notably my interest in fantasy and medieval history. My interest in medieval history has slowly grown to be an interest in history as a whole, not just a specific time period. Hell, history’s my major in college. All from reading a few books about hobbits, wizards, and a ring.

3. Which three blogs do you most visit?

That’s kind of difficult to answer, seeing as how I have quite a few blogs in my feed reader, and I read them all pretty much equal amounts. However, I’ll take a stab at it anyway. Just be forewarned, my stab is probably totally off the mark.

• WordPress.com Blog (which I can’t link to directly, beacuse wordpress.com/blog redirects to the wordpress.com page). Basically, the blog that feeds all of the WordPress.com news stuff. My blog is obviously hosted on WordPress.com. I like being in ‘the loop’ of what’s going on.
• Nowhere Zen NJ. A personal blog about Buddhism. Some really interesting thoughts by this fellow.
• Bright Meadow, because she’s intelligent, funny, and because of the hat picture. She knows what I’m talking about. I’d link to it, but much to my chagrin, she’s removed it from her site. Bring back the hat picture!

4. Why do you read fiction?

Because I can learn from it. Because I enjoy it. Because it lets me experience worlds that, without fiction writing, wouldn’t exist.

5. What makes you laugh?

This shirt. The Discworld series. My dumb dog, Gandalf, who is quite far from being even remotely wizardly. This video of some guy lighting his hand on fire while trying to do Zippo lighter tricks. Sluggy Freelance. The Google search results for ‘failure’, as well as this.

And now, for some tagging of other people. Jay, Cas, Billy, you guys are up (if you want – I know some people really hate these things.)

DailyLit – Read books in small chunks

I saw this over at Lifehacker. DailyLit lets you get manageable chunks of books delivered to your email on a schedule of your liking. Admittedly, it makes the old “I don’t have time to read a book!” excuse a bit weak. Do you have time yo read an email? Then you have time to (slowly) read a book.

You can browse the full selection of books available from DailyLit right here. Personally, I just signed up to get a chunk of On the Origin of Species every weekday. By my calculations, it’ll take me 50 weeks to read the entire book, in small-email-chunk form. Nifty.

OhioLINK rocks.

A few days ago, I blogged about seeing this book over at Todd A.’s website. Through the power of OhioLINK, I now have a copy of it to read, a mere 3 days later. And the only time I had to go to the library was to pick up the book.

I realize this isn’t anything that new, but it occurred to me earlier just how amazing the system really is. Through my university student membership, I can go to OhioLINK and log in. Browse millions of books, articles, and other media. Find something I like, click Request, and that’s pretty much it. The next day the book is zipping through the state to the university I’m attending. When it arrives, I get an email letting me know I can come and pick it up.

I think that’s just exceptionally cool.

LibraryThing blogs

If you didn’t know, LibraryThing runs two blogs. Here’s their news blog, and here is Thing-ology, “LibraryThing’s ideas blog, on the philosophy and methods of tags, libraries and suchnot.” Oh, and here’s my LibraryThing profile if you’re wondering what all I have on my shelf thus far.

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