Have you ever wondered what it was like before books were invented? People would have to tell their stories verbally. Can you imagine how many people we’d have walking around with authors telling them stories? Can you imagine how noisy our libraries were? Nobody would get any studying done! Then there would be the issue of checking out these authors from the library. A popular story would mean the author would be covered with “Return on date…” stamps. Think about the poor author and his skyrocketing dry cleaning bills.
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But then again, this set up does have the advantage of giving you a built in alert to return your book:
“Uh dude?”
“Yep?”
“Don’t you think it’s time to return me to the library now?”
“Oh crap. But I haven’t finished listening to your story yet.”
“That’s because you fall asleep whenever I talk.”
“Can I help it if your story is boring? I mean, we’re halfway done and you still haven’t gotten to the part with the naked chicks yet.”
“B—but it’s The Velveteen Rabbit. There aren’t any chicks in it!”
“Holy Shit! I thought you were a book about a Playboy Bunny!”
“No it’s not. Sorry.”
“Uh dude?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m kinda swamped with school work.” [Points to the other authorbooks lounging around the room] “Do you think maybe you can return yourself to the library? Thanks.”
Continue reading ‘What was it like before books were invented?’
Apparently, less and less people are reading books. And as much as this depresses me, I can’t say I’m surprised. My own reading habits do nothing but support these statistics.
I used to read a lot when I was younger. A whole lot in fact, that my mother would worry (and with good reason) about my ability to cope with real world problems should they come my way. But the older I grew, the more things started to get in the way of my reading. Distractions of the productive as well as of the non-productive nature began to take up more and more of my time, leaving me too tired to read at the end of the day.
The desire to read is still there, just not as strong. Now, I can stand to walk in a bookstore and not buy a single book. While not having purchased a good book lately makes me feel like I’m missing out on a lot of things, I can begrudgingly admit that I wouldn’t be able to read it anyway. Heck, I have around 10 books sitting on the shelf just waiting to be read. But what can I say? Watching TV and / or going to the movies are all the stuff I have time for now.
As a workaround to my literary drought, I have started listening to Audiobooks. Agatha Christie’s ABC Murders, A Pocket Full of Rye, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, and Hickory Dickory Dock were among the books I first listened to. Then I tried out books I wouldn’t normally have read like A Confederacy of Dunces.
Continue reading ‘Writing for Nobody’
I have it. Rach probably bought me the book so I can finally stop whining about it.
So what did I think? Well, before anything else, I feel the need to post a few points about me that may qualify my assessment of the book:
Continue reading ‘The Opal Deception’
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