A problem with books...

PLEASE NOTE:  As you scroll down, all the books I discuss are linked to Amazon where you can read more about them and see short reviews. Should you choose to purchase them, may I suggest you use Amazon smile? Click on that and you'll read more about it--a painless way to contribute to a non-profit substantially. May I recommend doing so on behalf of the North American Rock Garden Society? That's what I've done--and it does add up!

 Most readers are like serial killers, they do each book at a time: I hesitate to characterize my reading habits in the same metaphorical vein. Let's just say that I am more of a browser, or shall we say eclectic reader. I have books in every room I'm nibbling through. Some don't keep my attention and are eventually exiled to the bookcase (one of several dozen I should add). Others--the compelling ones--migrate to next to my armchair or the bed stand where they are consumed more systematically. What Linnaeus Saw was just a book. Not scholarly, written in the rather glib, journalistic style I find somewhat annoying ordinarily, Carl Von Linne cuts such a fantastic figure and looms so largely in the world of Taxonomy that I could hardly put it down. I think I finished it on my flight to California  on December 26.

Just in case, I packed along a few other books which I launched into next. I'm pretty sure I picked this up at a thrift store (which I learned to visit from time to time when bronze was  less fashionable and I could find antique Middle Eastern platters (I have accumulated many dozen of these a decade ago--but people have gotten wiser and keep them nowadays). E.O. Wilson is the premier scientist in America (in my opinion) and I have a shelf full of his works already: but a NOVEL? Of course I scarfed it up, and began reading it...and dang it! It's very readable...and by my bed stand. I'm about half way through....

But in addition to buying books at thrifts (and, oh yes, bookstores...) I am a fan of Daedalus Books, a discount mail order company that consistently offers books I can't resist. I arrived home from California to a veritable cornucopia of titles that were new to me and utterly irresistible. I already have a few William Morris title, but this Exhibition publication is so lavishly illustrated, annotated, indexed, with article after article revealing the enormous complexity, subtlety and power of this great artist I started reading and couldn't stop...for a while anyway...

Also packed in that box was a copy of this updated edition of Temple Grandin's fantastic depiction of the nature of her autism, I find her work to be incredibly inspiring--and have been gradually collecting her books. This one is a page turner if there ever was one. now have several books by my arm chair, all whimpering and demanding my eye-time: meanwhile, it's toasty warm outside: I should be cleaning up the garden. And Jan wants to see a movie! Horrors.

And now the true confession time arrives: this HAD been by my bed for several weeks. I'd made excellent progress and was well into the amazing life of this most complex and alluring of historic figures (man or woman). I'm a big fan of Stacy's other books--and I'm an even bigger fan of Cleopatra: I reached the part where the pale, slender, wan Octavian is gathering his forces that will ultimately destroy Marc Antony--and in the end Cleo. I distracted myself by downloading E.M Forster's Alexandria from Guetenburg (click on the title and you can do the same) which made me want to revisit Lawrence Durrell's Quartet and read Cavafy again... But thankfully, Linnaeus intervened and Stacy's tome was quietly shelved before the bloody end....damn Augustus!

But then yesterday, while doing errands all over town, I just HAPPENED to drop in on a new Arc (our local thrift store) and Lo! and Behold! what should I find but Stacy's most recent book...a distressingly fat one and every page I open draws my eyes like iron filings to a magnet.

You can have your Hulu, your Netflicks, your Cable T.V. and all the Satellite and Rabbit-ears in the world. I have a Kindle (which I find annoying)--none of these have the least appeal to me.

Hand me a tome written with lucidity and a decent font, and I'm a goner. Long live the book!