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A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading it. William Styron (b. 1925), Writer. Interview in Writers at Work (First Series, ed. by George Plimpton, 1958). |
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BOOKS MOVIES
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BOOKS |
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Where movies are called the Window to the World, Books are the Whole World. The cliché for books 'The family that reads together, lives together quietly' is fitting, but books can provoke discussion and opportunities to teach as well as to learn. Regardless of your age, if you keep reading you will never stop learning. Start a Reading Group with you family or friends and get together once a book to discuss what you have read. Books will contain Reviews of old and new books as well as some recommendations to add to your reading list. I once was asked how I select a book. My method does not involve much research. Many times I buy a book based on a friends recommendation. More often I buy a book because I have read that author and enjoyed the previous work. When it comes to authors unknown to me I have developed a method that seems to work. I have not picked up a book I did not like using this method, though I may have missed a few gems. I have this habit of opening a book to a page and reading. If I like that page, I will buy that book. I change the page number frequently based on something I have recently read. When I come across a passage that I really enjoyed or had some impact on me, I try to remember the page number. The next time I see a book that catches my eye and I have not heard about, I open it to that page and read. If I like what I read I will buy the book. I often will buy every other book by that author, or at least in the series. For this reason I try to limit myself to paperbacks, but I realized that if I keep operating that way I will keep finding more authors or series, which will end up costing more than buying the hardbacks as they become available. My reading list is quite long and with a library at one time of over 10,000 books I really do not need to go to the bookstore each week as I still do. The last couple of years I have trimmed my library down to under 3000 books. I did this for two reasons. First it allowed me to create some room for new books and second it allowed me to donate many of the books I had to charity sales. My rule now is if there is no shelf space, no more books. I am in the process of redoing my office to add some shelves and I have plans for two built-ins in other locations in my home. |
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