November 17, 2008
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Well, I think they're interesting
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9197 hit(s)
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 747: Creating the First Jumbo Jet and Other Adventures from a Life in Aviation, and has, among other things, been the director of the Museum of Flight here in Seattle. The book on Hitler's empire brings together an early and intense interest on WWII with the fact that I studied German in college and that one of the best classes I had was a 400-level class in 20th-century Germany.[2]
 I came home and put both of these in the library queue. The library site helpfully told me that I was, respectively, #4 of 4 holds on zero copies, and #16 of 16 holds on zero copies. The library, it seems, was still waiting for their own copies, with patrons ready to read as soon as the books came in.
Later that day I was telling Sarah about this zero-copies thing at the library. She looked at me for a second and then said, "You know ...," which I thought was a preface to a remark about the library queue. She continued, "... both of those titles sound about as interesting to me as watching paint dry." Heh. I have no idea what she's talking about. How could someone not find books about aviation and WWII fascinating, really? :-)
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