Books & More Books for Summer Reading!

I am a voracious reader (that is, I read a LOT) and am always running out of books.  I have to have a stack on hand so that I know I always have reading material, because I go a bit buggy without it.

Now, I am a great fan of public libraries myself, and have used them since I was a little girl and there was a library around the corner from my elementary school.  But nowadays in L.A., there are no branches directly in my path, and - alas! I discover that whenever I take out books, I seem to incur hefty library fines.

So I prefer to have my own stacks of books.  I have outlets to get them - various 2nd hand book stores and library sales, where I stock up - and some thrift shops which I comb for mysteries and the like (I found a 3 volume set of the essays of the French philosopher Montaigne at my old ladies thrift shop this time, along with the pulp fiction, for my more elevated reading.)

But I am always hunting for new outlets.  I had a pile of mysteries I was trying to recycle, and I saw that there was a book exchange at the Santa Monica Emeritus College office, where I have my scene class.  So this time I brought 2 bags of paperbacks, and didn't feel guilty when I took a stack in exchange.  Some nice British mysteries there - someone has the same taste as me!

I also just ran across a new source of online books at http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu  which seems to be at the University of Pennsylvania library.  It has a collection of curiosities which tickle my fancy - including a collection of women's biography and literature - all the queer old books I look for in 2nd hand book stores.  But here they are online - GRATIS! 

Trouble is, I have a problem reading books from my computer terminal - so I decided to try to download a book to a CD and read it on my husband's laptop. (I like the idea of the handheld devices - but whew! $300??) I copied the book, the Memoires of Mme. Figee-LeBrun (a female French painter, who did portraits of Marie Antoinette) to a text file, and then saved it in Word on my hard drive.

THEN with a little help from my husband (actually he did it), and with the software to burn DATA cds, we burned a CD - which THEN I put on his laptop and started to read propped up on the bed.  I could even enlarge the print to make it easier to read!  Voila! a 250+ page book for the cost of a cd - almost gratis!

We have another old Apple laptop which my husband uses for games for his pupils - and we will try to find some WORD for that so I can use that as a computer reader, too! (And I won't have to worry about my husband's laptop from work.)

Now I am looking forward to reading through the collection at the U. of Penn online.  They even have a group of old etiquette books, and I always find those fascinating! Not so good for the beach, perhaps - but maybe for the beach HOUSE?  And I can't read on the beach anyway! Too much glare.  Give me a porch.  Happy reading!

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Summer Reading

Too many books? Impossible! c.doverpublshing.com

There are 2 websites where you can trade books. One is www.bookins.com. and the other one is www.paperbackswap.com. I use both of those all the time.

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