Bound To Be Bookish

I’ve been down and out this past 3 weeks, shifted from ER to hospital to home with a horrible bout of stuff worse than I want to talk about…and we don’t need to go there! 

On the bright side, this left me some small space of time for foraging with STELLA my Kindle “bedfella” in the Amazon bookstore.  I have to say that “Stella” was a priceless sidekick in my hospital bed.  She was lightweight and easy to maneuver with one hand while the other was stuck with IVs and such!  I always knew where she was and could easily reach for her or sleep with her!  She took me on trips to the “bookstore,” to archives, to browsings, to samples of books I might want to read, to a couple of new mystery magazines I subscribed to for fun, and to searching the stacks for books and reviews.  I never felt alone or bored!  I really hadn’t thought about my Kindle as a hospital companion….but “Stella” was the best I could have hoped for!  One book would have been too bulky for me with my issues, I would have had trouble with it, and it would have bored me in the amount of time I was there.   I can’t say enough about my “Stella!”

Here are some of my new purchases found while book-skimming with Stella:

• The Madonnas of Leningrad      by  Debra Dean
• North and South                        by  Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
• The Death Dealer                       by  Heather Graham
• Down River                                by  John Hart
• The Big Girls                              by  Susanna Moore
• Luncheon of the Boating Party   by  Susan Vreeland
• Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine!   Subscription
• Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine!  Subscription

Some of the books I was able to sample (this consists of at least a chapter of each book or more…) and to archive in Stella are:

• The Rain Before It Falls              by  Jonathan Coe
• Mistress of the Revolution        by  Catherine Delors
• The Luxe                                   by  Anna Godbersen
• The Jewel Trader of Pergu          by  Jeffery Hantover
• The Third Angel                         by  Alice Hoffman
• Child 44                                     by Tom Rob Smith
• The Sociopath Next Door           by  Martha Stout PHd

All in all…for one who was otherwise miserable with medicine and no food…I had alot of fun in the hospital with my bookstore visits and reading.   I read several of the short mystery stories and just loved them.  They actually reminded me of when I was a teenager and we couldn’t watch tv, and had to read…my brothers and I collected comic books or mystery-type magazines and spent hours with them…losing track of time and place just like with books.  I’m delighted to now have these mystery stories on my Kindle.

All of the books I sampled are now on my wishlist.  It’s amazing how you can really get into a book when you actually have time to read a chapter of it. At the book shops I find I’m overwhelmed by the flashy covers and glamour of the whole thing.  And, I’m so bookish, of course,  I want to buy everything without even testing it!  I can’t test it!  I’m bedazzled and in a trance!   Whereas with my “Stella,” I have a small distance that actually gives me what I really, truly want which is the choice of books I would love if I read them. 

In the old days they used to repeat relentlessly, “You can’t tell a book by it’s cover!”   (With the proverbial depth of hidden meanings, naturally)  But, in truth, it used to plague me as a child while I devoutly worked my way through libraries like a nun entranced.  I was choosing several books based on their covers!!  A heresy!!  I tried to hide the fact like the heretic I was with every mumbled excuse I could muster…”Well, it has a great story…don’t look at the cover…you can just..we’ll take that cover off…it’s just…”   In truth, we are all bedazzled by the artwork, the covers speak to us, the guilding on beautiful leather makes our bookish hearts beat faster, the book itself is gorgeous and we love it for its looks.

With my Stella/Kindle I’m taken back to a place where I’m able to choose because of the context.  And, I’m finding my reading experience is becoming enriched by this.  I’m finding that I’m reading faster with my Kindle.  I can’t even believe I’m saying this because I continue to love my books and will always continue to buy them, though I know I will be able to pay a third the price if I just use my Kindle.

With all that said.  Reading is wonderful.  It’s a joy to have our books in whatever form.  Isn’t it amazing that God chose to leave us with a special gift throughout the Ages…His Word.  The Bible.  A Book.

Don’t leave home without one.  Hugs,  The Bookish Dame