mike's web log

15 years and a book

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 19:05:00 GMT

More Friday Fun. This week I celebrated 15 years as a full-timer at Microsoft. My colleagues at work took me out to lunch and presented me not just with the giganto crystal that you get from the company as your 15-year marker, but with a very cool present: a book. Not just any book, tho — it is, to quote the title page in full:

The

Scientific and Literary

Treasury:

A New and Popular

Encyclopedia

The Belles Lettres:

Condensed in form, familiar in style, & copious in information;
Embracing an extensive range of subjects in

Literature, Science, and Art.

The whole surrounded with

Marginal Notes, containing concise Facts
with appropriate observations.

By Samuel Maunder

This was published in 1858 in London. (Actually, it’s the revised edition — the original was published in 1840.) It’s a beautiful little (literally little) book, bound in leather with an embossed title on the spine. Here’s a picture:

(The glasses are in fact required; the book is set in 6-point type.)

[more]

People should not be allowed to read this

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 08:50:09 GMT

The stererotype of the librarian is often as either meek or as a stern shusher of patrons who just wanna have fun. (Marian the Librarian) As for meek, I was early exposed to the elderly Mrs. Clark, who deftly maneuvered an eight-ton bookmobile around Aurora, CO, and who moreover could handle hordes of excited elementary students. No meek there. And as for the shushing, whether that ever was true, my latter-day experiences at the library, where they have vending machines (!!!), have long since corrected any such misunderstandings on my part.

A stereotype that might not often be associated with librarians is that of radical. And yet as a group, they most certainly are. Specifically, librarians as a group are radical about our right to read anything. As evidence for this, every year at this time we observe Banned Books Week, sponsored by (among others) the American Library Association.

When you think about it, libraries really are astonishing. Their charter is to open the world of information to anyone who wants it. Any information, free. In my experience, librarians take this charter very seriously. Read the preface of any non-fiction book, and odds are good that you will find an author's grateful acknowledgment of the tireless assistance provided by a librarian, whether it's at the Library of Congress or the town library in some hamlet. (These days, of course, being off the (physical) beaten track is no barrier to finding information through your library.)

[more]

Rocket Men

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 10:46:34 GMT

As we know, I like reading about the history of technology, and as we also might know, I am a fan of aviation. One of my favorite books is Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff, which is a history of the Mercury space program.

Recently I've been reading Rocket Men by Craig Nelson. This is a history of the Apollo 11 moon shot, with side trips into the history of rocketry, the Cold War, and related topics. Where The Right Stuff is a kind of cultural history (of test pilots and of the unexpected sainthood of the Original Seven), Rocket Men is more about the engineering that went into the Apollo program. Although it is for a general audience, it goes into quite a bit of (interesting-to-me) technical detail about the Apollo program and the moon mission in particular.

For those inclined in that direction, there are many astounding facts and stories. A small example: when the LEM and the CM decoupled in preparation for the LEM descending to the moon, the airlock between them was not 100% evacuated. As a consequence, when the LEM disengaged, it was accelerated by the small remaining air pressure (a small puff of air, basically) and ended up going 20 feet/second faster than planned. The ultimate result was that they couldn't land where they had planned, and Armstrong basically had to hunt around for a suitable landing spot. He put down with virtually no fuel to spare.

Ok, so, as I like to do, I copied out a few of the cites that I was marking as I read. If you're with me so far, maybe you'll find these interesting also. Cites are slightly edited for length.

[more]

One reason I haven't gotten a Kindle

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 08:12:13 GMT

I like the idea of e-book readers. But economically it isn't making sense to me.

Of giants and fossil fuels

Sun, 07 Jun 2009 11:20:36 GMT

Recently I finished The Invention of Air by Steven Johnson, which is a book about the English scientist Joseph Priestley, who is best known as the discoverer of oxygen. Johnson shows how Priestley had a strong influence on both science and politics (he was a close friend Jefferson and Franklin). But Priestley also sat at a historical confluence that was conducive to, basically, Enlightenment thinking, and Johnson ties together many threads in a way reminiscent of James Burke: coffeehouses and efficient postal delivery, which fostered open and fast communication; innovations in scientific technology, which let Priestley engage in the experiments he did; the wealth of the industrial age, which indirectly provided Priestley with the time to do research; and so on.

At times the chains of connections go quite far indeed -- for example, from Priestley's simple experiment with a mint plant all the way to the field of planetary ecology. A continuing theme is energy: sunlight to feed plants, coffee to feed scientific minds, oxygen to feed animals, coal to feed the industrial revoltuion, and so on. To discuss these last two, Johnson takes a side trip way back in Earth history to the Carboniferous era, where he tells the following story.

Many of the fossils that Brongniart uncovered shared a defining characteristic: compared to their modern equivalents, they were massive. He discovered ferns the size of oak trees, and flies as big as birds. In 1880 he unearthed his most startling find: a monster dragonfly (Meganeura) with a wingspan of 63 centimeters [2 feet]. Subsequent fossils have been discovered with a wingspan of more than 75 centimeters.

[more]

Roundup

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 12:35:27 GMT
Birthday boys today, as noted practically everywhere, are Darwin and Lincoln. If you've got some spare time today, read Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address ("With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in ...").

Bible Illuminated. The New Testament meets National Geographic. Interesting idea. [via Jeff Atwood, who referred to it as "Bible 2.0"]

The Wired.Com Tech Layoff Tracker.[1] Watch the job market in the tech industry tank, bleah. Links included to other, similar (similarly depressing) tracking sites. Speaking of things economic ...

You Try to Live on 500K in This Town. The Fashion & Style section in the New York Times explains the hardship of a $500K cap on executive salaries. I imagine that the sympathy level for this situation is floating at around 0 percent. Golly, they'd have to pull their kids out of private school. Of course, many people can just kiss off higher education for their kids altogether, can't they? As but one thought.

Darwin The Dog Lover. The writer claims that Darwin's scientific skills (implication: leading to the theory of evolution) were sharpened by his interaction with dogs. Sure, what the heck, I'll buy that.

[1] [more]

Where are all the bookstores? (Or any?)

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 17:01:46 GMT
I just made the interesting discovery that within the borders of the city that I nominally live in (just outside), there is exactly one bookstore, whose primary businesss is actually "metaphysical supplies." Dang. And I don't think that there has been a collapse of a once-lively bookmongers' trade in the city, either. I think there have just never been any ever.

Not that it's impossible to find a bookstore, assuming you like mall-based and/or chain bookstores; you just gotta go over one city to Shopping, WA. (Names have been changed, but only in letter, not spirit.)

I suppose the economics of bricks-and-mortar(-and-books) bookstores requires a certain minimum population density in the store's, whatsit, catchment area. Our city, aside from a couple of huge manufacturing facilities (e.g., Boeing) is pretty much just cul-de-sacs, drug stores, and pizza places.

Still, it seems that it's representative of ... something, dunno, that there isn't a proper bookstore anywhere in the city. Possibly it's just representative of me needing to not ruminate on this too much.

PS I guess I should note that we're about a mile from a branch of the King County Library, which has served us extremely well. Not so handy for the Christmas gifts, tho.

Well, I think they're interesting

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 09:23:09 GMT
Sarah and I read a lot, and we typically have multiple books scattered around the house that are at various stages of completion. In spite of our book diet, we still are always on the lookout for new things. For example, no Costco trip is complete without a scan through the books. Instead of buying, tho, we usually write down interesting-looking titles and then add those books to our respective queues at the library.

For all the reading we do, we don't overlap that much. I read about history and technology, and I seem to end up reading novels about middle-aged men (#, #, #). Sarah reads about medicine, public health, and biography, and she'll have a go at all sorts of things might grab her eye on the shelf at the library. Plus she reads novels of all sorts, including, for purposes of parental oversight and solidarity, books currently popular with her girls (#).

The other day I found two books at Costco that seemed interesting: The Airplane by Jack Spenser[1], and Hitler's Empire: How the Nazis Ruled Europe by Mark Mazower. I believe I've established that I have an interest in aviation. Jack Spenser was the co-author of [more]

Roundup

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 13:39:15 GMT
Editing Readme files today. By definition, a lot of weird technical stuff coming from all directions at the last minute. I love my job. :-)

Organizing Our Marvellous Neighbours: How to Feel Good About Canadian English. "This is a book that will give you confidence to write Canadian English well and correctly." [via Michael B]

YouTube Comment Snob. "YouTube Comment Snob is a Firefox extension that filters out undesirable comments from YouTube comment threads" based on criteria like ... more than # number of spelling mistakes, all caps, no caps, and excessive punctuation (!!!! ????). Even if this isn't for real (haven't tried it), the idea of it alone makes me happy. [via Language Log]

Sony Targets College Students With New E-Book Reader. "... includes new features like a touchscreen, note taking and highlighting with a stylus, and a front-lit screen." Alas, they're apparently targeting students who have generous student loans. Or generous parents. Dang, I so want this technology to become affordable.

How to judge a book by its cover. A video review by John McIntyre. "When a book poses a question on the jacket, ask yourself whether you really care about the answer."

Roundup

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 11:33:12 GMT
We moved the kids' computers into their own rooms, leaving me the "bonus room" to myself. Sarah calls it my "man cave."

Fake popup study sadly confirms most users are idiots. No surprise, really -- when you're trying to secure a computer, by the far the biggest vulnerability is the users. [via comments on a blog]

'I Can Has Cheezburger' book missing online vibrancy. File under Dumb Review Of The Week. I had to check whether this was The Onion, truly.

Better cents? The penny gets a makeover. The US Mint is creating some new designs for the penny. Did you know that? Not me. Here's something interesting: "Nowadays the penny contains mostly zinc; it's only 2.5% copper." Accompanied by the oft-raised question about whether it's time to retire our one-cent coin.

How to Open Rigid Plastic Clamshell Packages Safely. Hey, it's the cure for wrap rage!

Roundup

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 15:54:03 GMT
If you're reading this, I got the new router to work.

Campaign Gaffe Remix. Good to remember that political campaigns are, above all, theater. Often comedy.

Nuke the Fridge. Jason Kottke discovers, tracks, and grows weary of an Interent meme based on the latest Indiana Jones movie.

SAM by Cree. Dang, I want one of these. All-electric two-seater made of recyclable materials.

[via GOOD blog]

The 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2000 From the American Library Association. See also: Uncle Bobby's Wedding, in which librarian Jamie Larue responds thoughtfully to a patron who wants a children's book about gay marriage removed. [book list via jeff atwood; Larue's letter, I forget.]

The Golden 50s

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 10:27:46 GMT
The nostalgic spot that the good ol' 50s have in American culture has some economic justification. In some ways, it was indeed a golden age. Charles Morris, writing in The Trillion Dollar Meltdown:
Birth rates dropped sharply during the Depression years, so the generation of men entering the labor market in the 1950s was an unusually small one and was much in demand. The pay gap between young workers and older workers therefore became unusually narrow, facilitating early marriage and family formation. All measures of social disruption, like crime rates, dropped like a stone. Earlier marriage and greater economic security also made couples more willing to have children.
Thus, the 50s of "Leave it To Beaver" and the great explosion of the American suburbs, so fondly remembered, were the result of unique social conditions. These circumstances were not (and are not) the norm.[1]

Moreover, the very benefits that the 50s brought to the US carried with them the seeds of their own destruction:
When the boomers reached school age, elementary schools everywhere were forced onto double and triple sessions; it was even worse in the suburbs, where schools had to be built from scratch. As they hit their teens, juvenile delinquency moved to the top of the social agenda. Struggling to cope, police forces became more selective about the behaviors that elicited an intervention, a process that Daniel Patrick Moynihan later called "defining deviancy down."
And so on.

[more]

Roundup

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 10:31:24 GMT
Book-y theme today. Purely "on" accident, as the kids say.

'sorted books' project. Nina Katchadourian arranges books so that their titles form little poems.

The low-concept version of this is a Jack Dannism. See also.

[Via Kim]

25 New Classic Book Covers. (Warning, slow to load.) It's not obvious to me what sorts of criteria were used to select these. Some I find interesting, some ... not so much. If you like this, you might also like the Penguin Design Award shortlist, which features interpretations of a limited number of titles. [EW site via jason kottke; Penguin, I forget, but probably from the same source]

Gallery: Top 10 Worst Aircraft Ever. For example: "Dr. William Christmas didn't know the first thing about planes when he designed one for the U.S. Army Signal Corps, and it showed. He didn't think the plane needed wing struts, so of course they fell off during the plane's maiden flight in 1918." (Insert comment here about companies that are awarded government contracts.) You have to admit, one of those Hiller VZ-1's would be cool.[1]

[more]

Single-celled organisms

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 10:42:32 GMT
I've been reading The Canon by Natalie Angier, which she calls a "whirligig" tour of science. It's not 100% clear to me what she means by whirligig, but I might go with "giddy" (#). Angier has a style that features a lot of wordplay; think, dunno, Anthony Lane, maybe, but about science, not movies. The book tours physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy—the usual suspects. It's an exuberant piece of writing, although I'm not sure I'd hand it out as an introductory textbook.[1]

I didn't want to let the book slip back to the library unmentioned, and as an inducement for you to check it out, I wanted to set something down. In the chapter on biology, I learned something that I had never thought about and that I found quite surprising. Here 'tis. (I'll note that this is an unusually subdued bit out of the book, but it was one of the more remarkable things I learned.)
[more]

Insects and security

Fri, 16 May 2008 16:44:38 GMT
I'm reading Bruce Schneier's Beyond Fear, which concerns "thinking sensibly about security in an uncertain world," as he subtitles it. He talks generically about security -- not just computers -- and describes a framework for thinking about security in many contexts, like protecting the home, the car, your bank account, and the nation.

There's lots of thought-provoking stuff in there, and the book is recommended. Before I take it back to the library, I wanted to type out this little passage. He's talking about the security arms race that has occurred in the animal and plant kingdoms:
It's no accident that insects provide such interesting security examples. Over the eons they have tried just about everything. The techniques of attack and defense that proved to work were repeated, and the techniques that failed weren't. Because they tried them at random and stopped at the first workable solution they found, they tended to arrive at interesting and surprising solutions. It's not unusual to find insect countermeasures that are nonobvious, but effective nonetheless. Insects are good at cheating.
Here's just one way:

[Credit]

Book diet

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 20:09:23 GMT
Over the course of the year, we've shed about two bookcases worth of books. In the first round, I hauled a trunk full of books around to various used-book emporiums, collecting a decreasing amount of cash for the diminishing pile until the final couple of boxes went to the weasels at Half-Price Books for pennies. I see from my tax records that we also donated 175 books to the library. Another box was recently shipped to Powell's, who will buy your books online. (Not very good prices, I am sad to say.) And there's another box in the garage awaiting its fate.

Having spent all this effort to thin the shelves, it would be counter-productive, let's say, to simply replace all the departed books with new ones. Which means that the flow of books through the house should result in a net negative.

To this end, we're experimenting with -- gasp! -- not buying books. (Exception: gifts.) As I reckon it, neither of us has bought a book in over a month. It might be difficult to convey what a behavioral change this is. Imagine perhaps saying that you hadn't bought a tank of gas in over a month.

Instead, we're taking advantage of our proximity to, and online access to, the local library. The pattern we seem to be following is that we'll hear about a book that sounds interesting -- me usually on the Powell's blog, Sarah usually in the New York Review of Books. We log on to the library Web site and put it on hold immediately. When it comes in, the library sends you an email.

In theory, getting books through the library is an [more]

Why own when you can rent?

Thu, 24 Jan 2008 20:41:41 GMT
On the radio I've been hearing an ad blitz for Paperspine.com, a company that rents books. I found the premise sort of curious, but I went online and looked around a bit, I found that there are in fact several companies already in this business. (#, #)

The notion of renting a movie is so entrenched that we don't even think about it. Many of us probably have only distant memories of a time when the only way to watch a movie at home was to wait for it to be on TV. For a generation we've been trekking down to the video store on Fridays to pick up something to curl up on the couch in front of. As a business, movie rental is so lucrative (around $7 billion a year) that it spawned international chains of brick-and-mortar stores.

Of course, you can also buy movies. This model for watching movies didn't emerge until the popularity of VCRs, and has gained momentum with DVDs.

And then the Web. The clever folks at Netflix [more]

Merry Christmas

Tue, 25 Dec 2007 14:41:01 GMT
Christmas is kind of complicated around here (four kids, three families), but dang, it's fun. There are up to four Christmases. The evening of the 23rd, there's the pajama exchange. On the morning of the 24th, gift exchange number one with Sarah's kids. In the evening of the 24th, gift exchange number two with my kids and Sarah's kids. Then the various kids go to their respective other families and have yet another gift exchange! All accompanied by staggering quantities of food, heavy on the sweets, omg.

Today, the 25th, is comparatively quiet around here. But to make up for that, we're having a white Christmas, at least up here in the Renton Highlands:

We were planning on heading out for a mini movie marathon, but the weather might turn that into a mini DVD marathon instead. That is, if we can take out noses out of many new books we seem to have acquired, including for me two new noun books:

[1]

... among others.

Or in my case, if I can stop playing with my newest toy, courtesy of Sarah:

Oh what fun.

Hope your holiday celebration(s) are enjoyable this year as well!

[1] [more]

Unbooked

Mon, 25 Jun 2007 20:13:33 GMT
I should note that I was not inspired directly by Jon Carroll (via Colleague David) nor by Bill Poser ("One of the hazards of rearranging books is that it is nearly impossible to pick up a book without opening it and reading a bit. This may be pleasant and instructive, but it does rather slow the process down"). But you should read their entries, coz they're great.

Like these folks, I've been "in deacquisition mode around the bungalow," as Carroll puts it. After the initial rounds of post-move organization, I was left with a pile o' boxes o' books in the garage. Some (not many) were books I'd culled; some were books from grad school; a lot were books I inherited from my mother, which were old, and many of which were in German. All of these wanted new homes, which they now have. Here's my story, which features heroes and weasels.

Before I started my rounds of bookstores, it did occur to me that some of the old dusty volumes might actually be worth something. When I sell books, I always have a nagging thought that I'm handing over something extremely valuable for pennnies. The German I mostly didn't bother with, because the value would be offset by the need to research, price, and then ship. So I just decided to close my eyes and sell these as normal used books and be happy that they were gone. But I did go through my English-language books, and I'm glad I did. It turns out that my 1898 copy of Chaucer's Poems (ed. Thomas Wright) is worth something. And was I ever pleased to discover that I had a first edition (second printing) of the American edition (Putnam) of Lolita [more]

Book numbers

Wed, 13 Sep 2006 15:05:39 GMT
Dan Poynter has assembled a big ol' list of statistics about books, publishers, bookstores, and readers. Here are some random stats I found interesting. It was kind of hard to stop, and this is just a small fraction of what Poynter has.

On average it takes 475 hours to write a fiction title and 725 hours to write a nonfiction title.

It takes an average of 531 hours to produce a book--422 hours for fiction, 550 hours for nonfiction.

An average of 10 to 15 hours are spent designing a book cover.

On average, 61 hours are spent in the editing process.

1999: 1.5+ million titles in print (currently available in the U.S.) Since 1776, 22 million titles have been published.

2004: 2.8 million books in print.

What genres/categories are people buying?
55% Popular fiction
10% Religious nonfiction
9% Cooking/Crafts[1]
(2001)

Most initial print runs are 5,000 copies.

A larger publisher must sell 10,000 books to break even.

A successful fiction book sells 5,000 copies.

A successful nonfiction book sells 7,500 copies.

2002: Books sales totaled roughly $26.9 billion.

One-third of the books sold worldwide are sold in the US.

In 2001, consumers purchased 1.6 billion books.

2002: People spent $530 million on used books, 5% of the trade book market. The Internet makes hard-to-find titles easier to locate. There are 7,200 used bookstores, up 10% in 10 years. Powell's in Portland, OR, does 40% of its business online; 55-65% of that volume is in used books.

Used books were purchased by one out of ten book buyers in the previous nine months in 2002.
Used books account for $533 million in annual sales; 13% of the units sold and 5% of the total revenue.
[more]

Used books, free

Wed, 09 Aug 2006 13:12:05 GMT
Someone at work just pointed us to the BookMooch site, which is a kind of virtual "leave a book, take a book" system, as they describe it. People indicate what books they'll give away, and other people then request them; the currency is a point system. The only real cost is postage.

Intersting idea. The Inquirer has a description and an interview with the founder.

Books and articles

Thu, 08 Jun 2006 01:17:11 GMT
I buy a lot of books, but for every book I have, I've probably considered another three or four. Over the years, I've picked up many a book that looks interesting, glanced through it, and then hefted it and thought "Nah, I don't want to read a book this thick about [subject]."

Years ago I remember reading an article in which one of the statements was something like "The worst thing that ever happened to biographies was the word processor." There are times when I tend to agree. Sure, I'm interested in, say, John Adams, but do I need 752 pages about him? What am I going to do with 1120 pages about Harry S Truman? And as much as I admire Robert Caro as a writer, the honest truth is that I will never read all 2784 pages about Lyndon Johnson (in three volumes -- I, II, III -- with a fourth one yet to come).[1]

And then there is the class of books that have essentially one premise, with a bunch of chapters that are examples or variations on the basic theme. You know the kind. Flow [more]

Only you can prevent Kundera

Thu, 17 Nov 2005 22:39:46 GMT
Maciej Ceglowski muses on what makes a good dating book:
... that is, the carefully selected work you lend a prospective lover sometime in the golden honeymoon period between your second cup of coffee together and the first time you spend a night in the same bed without touching. In that short window of time, your partner is still a delicious mystery to you, an enigmatic and discerning being, and to her you are a dark continent of adventure and excitement, waiting to be explored. And so you lend her books that are funny, playful, and good subway reading, but also complex enough to hint at your Hidden Depths. Something unusual is a plus, as are lots of sexy bits, to serve as a reminder of the animal fires that burn within. And since you don't yet know one another too well, you try to choose a shotgun of a book that fires a wide pattern, thematically speaking. Like an early physicist studying the atom, you will hurl little bits of culture at your new love and collect valuable data about her inner life by observing the way they bounce off.
He readily acknowledges the "panty-melting" qualities of literature from exotic Eastern European countries. But he's perplexed about why for their dating book so many people select Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Ceglowski is, shall we say, no fan of Kundera's, let alone of this book: "Milan Kundera is the Dave Matthews of Slavic letters, a talented hack, certainly a hack who's paid his dues, but a hack nonetheless. And by his own admission, this is his worst book."

So! What's a body to do, then, for a dating book? Why, Ceglowski provides a nicely annotated list of candidates from the "A-team of Slavic authors". The Master and Margarita. Pushkin. Nabokov, when he was still writing in Russian. And people that you've never heard of, unless you have deeply investigated the subject of Slavic dating books.

[more]

Author, author

Wed, 19 Oct 2005 00:06:18 GMT
Two readings recently. Over the weekend I went to a reading by Anu Garg, he of A.Word.A.Day fame. Anu has a new book out, a second compilation from among the words he sends out every weekday. Anu's reading was at Third Place Books, which has a reading stage as part of a large commons area.

I love Anu's daily words and have had the privilege of exchanging email with him a few times, so I was looking forward to the reading. But it was a bit disappointing. Anu had a PowerPoint presentation of different fun words, but there's only so much you can do to make a list of words into an entertainment experience, and whatever it might take was not particularly in evidence, sad to say. And I had not anticipated, though I should have, that the audience would consist primarily of self-described Word People (median age probably 55) -- namely, a cadre of, uh, enthusiastic amateurs. One woman, who was about the closest thing to a groupie we had that night, jumped up to give Anu a standing ovation, and later during Q&A was proferring to Anu her opinions on how he should be teaching his daughter Hindi. (I was moved to wonder how many languages she speaks.) And I'm sure he was quite grateful for her advice.

Then this morning I had a chance to hear Mary Roach, author of Stiff (also # [more]

Book sale, Spring 2005

Sat, 16 Apr 2005 15:21:22 GMT
Last night was the semi-annual Friends of the (Seattle) Library book sale, which is big enough to be held in an old blimp hangar. (Well, technically it was the sale "preview" for members, of which I am one due to my substantial, and employer-matched, contributions to that organization.)

We go every, you know, semi-year, although last night we were down to our hard core: me and Saul. Well, and several thousand of our fellow patrons, of course.

I ended up spending most of my time rooting through the trade paperbacks -- fiction, from publishers like Vintage -- and was amused to note that for every guy looking through those books, there were at least 10 women. Something to note for future reference. The two alloted hours just flew by, though.

I came home with, dunno, about 16 books -- mostly fiction and a couple of computer books. I had two thoughts last night as I was groping the books:
Boy, I just have not been reading very much in the last year or so. I read lists like Alyssa's and I think what the hell happened? I used to be well read. I'll tell you what happened: goddam computers, that's what. I'm in danger of losing my credentials as a Liberal Artist.

At events like the book sale, where books are ridiculously cheap, I always have the funny experience of seeing a book I already have (lots of them, in fact) and wishing that I hadn't already read it so that I could buy it cheap and have the experience of reading it again for the first time. Is there a name for this phenomenon?