Ahhh. A day off. A lurvely day off, and I have nothing planned. I absolutely adore when my Google calendar daily email says in the subject line: You have no events scheduled today. There. I just went and looked at it again. I could just eat that line.
Hang on. I have to go get coffee. And maybe put on socks. It’s a little crisp in here, THANK GOD. The heat wave is over for now.
Okay. Back, with socks and coffee. I feel chatty today. Hi! Pull up a chair!
I’m still loving my Kindle, have I told you that? It has several unexpected features:
Feature one – It facilitates reading somehow, so that I’m reading more than I usually do, and I usually read a lot. I think it has something to do with the fact that it’s normally with me, whereas I often forget to carry a book. With books, I usually have one in my car, two or three at work, and seven or thirteen on my bedside table. I read what’s with me where I am or what I’m in the mood for, but I don’t transport them. That doesn’t leave me one while I’m waiting for the sushi to be ready, or at the post office (like I’m ever there. Hate the post office). I’ve never been in the habit of having a book in my purse. Knitting, yes. Book, no. Now that I have the Kindle, it’s always around, and it pleases my non-monogamous reading nature. I can dip into anything that’s in there.
Feature two – The shopping pleasure! In a weird way, I think it’s saving me money. Go with me here. I hear about books I have GOT to read. I read about them online or in magazines. Then if I see them in the store, I have to buy them, or I might forget what I wanted to read. Or if I go to Amazon and find that it’s a starred PW review and the blurbs are amazing, I’ll just impulse-shop them right into my one-click cart. NOW, if it’s available on Kindle (and most of my wants are), instead of buying it, I send the first chapter to my Kindle. For free. FREE! Then, of course, I forget it’s there. I have maybe fifty first chapters sitting in my Kindle right now. But someday, when I’m not sure what to read next, I’ll sample some and buy one (instantly downloading it) only if I love it and I know I want to go on reading. Grabbing those chapters completely fulfills that Book Shopping Urge that I get sometimes, and it doesn’t cost me a thing until I commit to a book I’m already reading.
Reading now – Hillbilly Gothic, Adrienne Martini. Which brings me sideways to feature three: If you click that link to the right, you can see you have to buy it from a secondary book-source, probably used. Amazon doesn’t carry it anymore. While I have my own issues with Amazon versus Indie bookstore (give the indies the love and the money!), there always remains the fact that Amazon is just so damn easy to use. And while everyone loves a cheap book, if I buy her book used, Adrienne doesn’t get any of the money for her hard work. Writers should be paid, I think, and I like to give THEM the money, not a huge used-book warehouse in Indiana. Amazon carries her book in Kindle format, though. She gets the money, I get the instant gratification.
I’m loving Hillbilly Gothic. A memoir, she writes with what appears to be such transparent honesty that even when she admits the hard stuff, the ugly parts, you’re still with her, still very much on her side. And get this: she’s a Raveler! Martinimade over there, her blog is here. Her blog is as well-written as her book is. Enjoy.
I’m also loving the Murakami running book (link to right). I’m signed up for the Nike half-marathon in, oh, a MONTH or so, and I haven’t run more than two and a half miles in forever. And even then, I was trotting slowing and wheezing a bit. Lordy. What with my propensity to blisters, I really don’t think I’ll make it through the whole thing, but I’ve promised a friend to give it a try. I’m going to try for a six-mile run today. Just to see if it kills me. If it doesn’t, I’ll go on running. If it does, well, I won’t have to run again, will I? All this to say, I love READING about running. When I’m reading about it, I am SUCH a great runner. Lying in bed after two Manhattans and five brownies, reading his perfect prose about running, I fly with him, knowing the next morning I will probably run a voluntary half-marathon, just because I feel like it. Yep.
Not Reading now – Anything Twilight by Stephenie Evans. I’m sorry. I’m totally sorry. I gave it the old college try, I really did. I read the first one and while it was fun, I never bought into it. I wanted to love Bella, I wanted to want to be Bella, the best way to read a book, but I never did. Edward was mildly interesting, but not compelling. I finished the first and bought the second, wanting to buy into it. But I have given up. I am in the minority, I know.
Watching –
Fringe: I kinda liked it. That’s as enthusiastic as I can be, but I’ll watch it again.
Gossip Girl: OMG, that last episode was AWESOME. I love that show. It’s not even a guilty pleasure anymore. I’ll tell anyone. I LOVE it.
Long Way Down: Oh, Ewan. I love you, too.
ANTM: Go, Isis!
Listening –
To Digit complain.
And now. Off to run. Wish me luck! And then to watch more TV and knit, because I can on a day off like this.
aaahhh…have a great day off and a great run. (i’m havin’ my first day off in for freakin’ ever…course 4 or 5 12sies will do that to a gal) run..run like the wind…with your hair flowing in your own breeze..daughter’s line age 4…and no..i didn’t get into Twilight series either but slogged thru its’ entirety because same daughter was so absorbed/obsessed. sigh. maybe at 16 but now…too old, pragmatic, cynical whatever. didn’t like the Bella..couldn’t sympathize at all. anyway. have a lurfly day and scritch digit hello.
Kindle should be paying you!
I had never heard of the thing before I read about it on your blog. Now you tell me the first chapter free?!! Oh dear, that sounds too good to be true.
I saw less than five minutes of Fringe, could not watch it, the dialog was abysmal. Maybe I turned on the tv at just the worst bit – blondie trying to talk boss into contacting convicted criminally insane evil scientist to help them. Really bad.
OK, so since you are feelin’ chatty….help….somewhere along the line I missed out on “What happened to the rescued dog”. He was recovering beautifully, and happy and I was happy and did he get a new home? Tell me he got a new home….Digit looks so handsome today…. and I forgot to say the orange hair is fab…Keep the motor runnin’ Rachel……
Aw, shucks. Thanks for the kind words. I’m also thinking that I need to get me one of them Kindle thingies…
Wow, you’re the only sane person on the internet. I’m so tired of seeing everyone gush over the Twilight series.
Oh, and I love Digit so much.
Those folks over at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com/index.php/ aren’t so enamored of the Twilight books either. (I like to read about reading!)
Have a Great day! (I’m green with envy. And also very very happy our weather is back)
Wow, I really had no idea I needed a Kindle until I read this entry. Does the screen not bother your eyes, as Amazon claims?
Also, belated mazel tov – Love is great and you and Lala are great.
Good luck with the running;) I watched a bit of Fringe last night too, until Eureka came on. I have to agree about the Fringe dialogue, hopeless.
I think you may have convinced me to join the Kindle side. I have always liked the concept of it but I wondered if the novelty would wear off…I really like the idea of being able to read the first chapter free and for those of us that don’t live anywhere near a bookstore it really does seem like a greener choice.
BTW Nice teeth Digit!
OK. Many things to comment on here. Bear with me.
I am SLOGGING my way through Book 4 of the Twilight p.o.s. I hate it. I may not finish it, which has never before happened. Book 1 was fun. Book 2 was mildly entertaining. Book 3 was a drag. Book 4? 100 pages of musings on sex and Bella’s vague dreams? I think not. And also, shouldn’t we know Edward a lot more before we marry him?
On to the next topic. Long Way Down and my Boyfriend Ewan MacGregor. How are you watching this? It hasn’t appeared on my Tivo yet and I’m just dying for it!
And finally, Gossip Girl. Guilty pleasure of my life.
I love Gossip Girl. Partly because I love Blake Lively so much! That hair! That voice! She’s stunning and I never get tired of watching her. Plus, their lives are so weird and opulent and ridiculous.
Oh dear dog, do I ever know what you mean about the Twilight series. I’m in book 4 now because my partner wanted me to read them, and she’s been a good sport about my own Harry Potter obsession, so I felt I should return the favor. Book 1 was ok, but overall I find the series downright painful at times. The ONLY character I enjoy is Alice.
Due to your glowing review, I now have Hillbilly Gothic on my wish list at paperbackswap.com.
Always wonderful to see Digit!
Wow – I completely agree about the Twilight thing. And I find it funny that most of the previous commentors are reading it for someone else – I, too, am reading it to fulfill a promise I made to a friend who absolutely adored it. I’m halfway through the 2nd and promised I’d finish the series, but it just ain’t my thing!
Oh, and I’m totally crushing on the Kindle now….
But a book is so tactile–you know, the feel of a book. How does the kindle compare? Do you miss … books?
You make the kindle sound dreamy.
You must go here:
http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com/store/
Also — loved your comments about the Kindle. I have been hemming and hawing..but your thoughts have helped me to make up my mind. Esp. those about used books vs. Kindle books. I will always shop at the Indies..but I can go broke doing that. Throwing in a few Kindle books makes me realize the author will get a cut. Which is a good thing. TA!
Can you put knitting pattern books on Kindle? Are they even available that way? Imagine how nice it would be to carry around the pattern and the tutorial together. So when you get to the tricky part and need to look up the how-to, it’s all there.
Maybe I’m just coffee-deprived, but why does clicking the Digit image get a me knit photo?
I’m with you on the “My Kindle saves me money” In my life before Kindle (which is your fault that I too now have one by the way….Amazon should pay you a commission) I would buy books in order to “try them” and now I get a free 1st chapter. Saves a pile of money.
I’m also with you on ‘Twilight’. That’s a terrible book. The plot for book one doesn’t even start until chapter 18.
Boo, I want to hear Digit complain! I had a complainer-cat, too. Man, he was funny. (and long-lived, yay Digit!)
My book club just read After Dark by Murakami. I hated it. (Oh, well.) This incensed one of our members, who insisted I wasn’t getting the subtext. Subtext, schmubtext; I just didn’t like it. Sounds like the running book is different.
My sister loves her Kindle, too. I’m spending too much time with Netflix to get one… yet. Enjoy your day off!
The free 1st-chapter thing sounds cool, but I can’t ever see myself buying a Kindle. If I was going to buy a device just for reading books, it would have to be under $100. Yes, I know — I’m a skinflint :-).
I’m not totally against e-books, though. They really come in handy when my teenage daughter has to read classics for school. We found “The Art of War” in a free e-book form online and put it on her iPod. That way I don’t have to buy a book that I know none of us will ever read again.
When I hear about a new book (like the Hillbilly Gothic you mentioned), I go to my library’s website and reserve it. If they don’t have it, then I lose interest in reading it. I only buy reference books like ones that have knitting patterns.
Twilight: I wonder if most of us who aren’t captivated by it feel like we’ve already “been there, done that” after watching Buffy and Angel? That’s how I felt after reading the synopsis. I was almost tempted to read it anyway because it seems to be developing a Harry Potter-like following. There are so many novels out there, though, that I don’t want to waste time slogging through something.